January 4, 2014
Elder Anderson got me hooked on his rubix cubes and that
means that I have been not writing as regularly as I should in my journal this
week. So I have decided to write first
thing in the morning. I have mastered
the cubes up to 7, and I am now trying to learn that one. It is a fun way to keep your mind a little
more active in our spare time. Don’t get me wrong, it is not interfering with
our studies, planning, or proselyting.
I
went souvenir shopping on p-day. Taylor
warned me that you aren’t given any time, or you don’t have any time at the end
of your mission to do this, so I had better work on this a little at a time
now. I blew some money on one big thing and one little thing for each of my
family members. It was fun, but also
annoying because I was looking and looking for something for my mom and couldn’t
find what I was looking for.
We
had a great week this week even though it was a holiday week. I think that I am going to rip out the part
of the handbook that says that the holidays are the best time to contact
families because they are home. Yeah,
not true. Well, actually they are home,
but they are either drunk, sleeping it off, or hung over. We are not even allowed to work on new year’s
Eve here because it is so crazy.
We did have a “special” zone meeting on New Year’s Eve that
was announced two days before. We
watched “Ephraim’s Rescue”, or rather we tried to watch it, but due to poor
planning we weren’t able to. I did, however, get a bunch of new religious
guitar music from some other Elders in my zone and that made me very
happy. I also really liked the training
message which was about bearing our testimonies. He gave us the situation where the person is
rejecting us and we just bear our testimony and leave. Knowing that we will never likely see that
person again, we often bear a strong and powerful witness. Then he asked us, “Why don’t we bear our
testimony like that every time?” That
made me think for a while and I decided that I am going to bear my testimony
every time as if it the last chance I will ever get.
The last couple of days we made up for lost holiday time and
have been super productive. W found some
new families to teach that were both miracles.
The first family is a family of 5 that we found we found when we were
trying to contact some of our recent converts.
We were trying to find a certain road so we stopped to ask directions
from this couple. As we asked for
directions we talked to them about the church and they were very interested in
learning more. We taught them the next day and the lesson went super well. They had read the pamphlet that we left with
them the day before and had questions for us.
The Mom is getting ready to have surgery on her foot and she told us
that she would be to church as soon as she could after her surgery. She seemed very committed to us and I just
feel that this family is a special family.
Our second family that we found was a result of listening to
and acting on the promptings of the spirit.
We passed by their house and I stopped and did an about face and just
knew that we needed to teach the family in that house. So we clapped and contacted them and they
actually invited us in. We got to know
them and it turns out that they have already been taught by other missionaries,
they have a Book of Mormon, but they recently moved and haven’t had the chance
to talk to missionaries since their move.
That was a great experience for me of the importance of listening to the
spirit. I am excited to teach this
family and see how it all turns out.
My 20th birthday was super chill. I almost forgot
that it was my birthday. Absolutely
nothing happened. Last year I baked my
own cake, but this year I didn’t feel like doing it.
This Sunday was kind
of frustrating because our ward council meeting was so chaotic. After the meeting, our ward mission leader
pulled us aside for another meeting where he told us that we are not going to
get a lot of help from the council, but that he knew of a few families in the
ward who would help us and he was going to help us coordinate it. Poor Elder Dornales was so frustrated by the
whole complicated mess that he almost cried. But, we are going to keep working
and doing our part and things will work out!
Although none of our investigators came to church on Sunday, we did have
3 less active families that we have been visiting with come to church. So far, our work with the less active members
has been our greatest success. I am
feeling pretty strong and I am happy.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that I got my return date
this week….JUNE 8th…WooHoo!
FUNNY EXPERIENCE
 |
| Oh yeah, and so apparently one o the ladies in our ward doesn't like giving food to the missionaries and this was how much spagetti she gave to 4 full grown men. Taylor can show you guys how the portions usually are here. Luckily we had leftovers from some other more generous members here. It is always the same food, spagetti, rice, and beans. |
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