Missionary Life, March 2008

MARCH 3, 2008
6 months ago today I was getting set apart, and 6 months ago tomorrow I was "going forth to park", 6 months ago Wednesday I became an official member of the MTC... that's crazy that it is going by this fast. We have a member in our ward who is in a very similar situation to what Tim Nielson was. We have started bringing the sacrament to him and he absolutely loves it. We do the same thing we did with Tim and just touch the bread and water up to his lips. So I've had a lot of time to think about Tim and his situation the last few weeks as well. How is his family doing with that? We had the baptism of Colton Jones this week! It was a great experience. Colton's family was thrilled. I don't know if I've told you about Colton's situation, but basically, his mom is a convert to the church of about 2 years, and she married Scott Job, who is in the N. Edwards ward. Colton is 13 years old and wanted nothing to do with the church. The missionaries have taught him the lessons 3 times before, and he never wanted to go through with it. So they had kinda figured he was a lost cause, but this time he came up to us and asked us if we would teach him the lessons again so he could be baptized. So we taught all the lessons and everything, and set up a date. It was cool because it was also his cousin's 8thbirthday so they did the baptism together.
MARCH 10, 2008
Spring time in California is like summer... we had a great week... not numbers wise, but on the success aspect of it yes (see preach my gospel on what success means for a missionary). We have been working our butts off, even though we basically have nobody to teach... Well, had nobody to teach. There is a story in Preach My Gospel, in ch 9 that you guys should read for FHE, or just when you have time, and that will let you know what I am going through right now. Elder Carter and I read it and it made us laugh pretty hard because it was almost as if we wrote it. It's in Ch 9 and it talks about serving the members, gaining their trust... getting transfered to an air force base... pretty crazy stuff. But basically we have just been offering service to everyone. We don't have many people to teach, so we've been contacting like crazy. We've been asking members like crazy. We've been trying to become friends with the ward so they will trust us and give us referrals. And it's working! The ward has seen that they finally have two Elders who get out there and do stuff and they are helping us now. The bishopric told us yesterday that the town is talking about how great it is that the Mormon missionaries are helping out at the track meets. We have given youth firesides, primary activites, Primary sharing time, and we are going to the Young Men's campout this Friday night (but not camping) to talk about serving a mission. And all of a sudden we get home every night with a message saying, "I have someone that I want you to teach," almost every night. We knock doors, and have had no success with return appointments. We contact on the street and nobody wants to talk. But yet because we have showed we are willing to work, the Lord has blessed us with people to teach all of a sudden. In Preach My Gospel it says, "Either the Lord will lead you to them, or them to you". I didn't really understand that until now. I thought that meant that there would be people sitting out there on the street that we would walk up to, or they would come to us. But it means that if we work, somehow we will have people to teach. I think it has also blessed the few investigators that we do have. Last night, we challenged Cyd to baptism on April 12th, the weekend after conference. She has to quit smoking and start coming to church more frequently, but she said yes! She wants to do it. I'm so happy right now. This work is awesome. Paz afuera.
MARCH 17, 2008
Yup, got my green on... I went to school at Oregon, Mom... Almost all of my P Day clothes have some green on them. Hmm... not a lot happened this week. We are starting to teach a lot of Spanish families all of a sudden and so if they start coming to church I have to sit in the front with one of those head set things and translate... or attempt to translate...We continued our track meet service this week and afterward the coach took us out to dinner, and we taught him a little bit there. Crazily enough, he invited us over to his house after track practice today! So I'm going to go do some running with the track team, teach the relay team how to hand off the right way, and then go over to the coach's house and teach him! I thought I was doing service at track meets for myself, to enjoy the track and field atmosphere. But apparently there was another reason. Hope you guys have a great St. Patty's day, and get pinched a lot!
MARCH 24, 2008
Well, this week was one of the more interesting ones so far. We found out that our potential baptismal candidate was beat up by her son so she is no longer living at that house, and we can't get a hold of her. It's amazing how as soon as someone begins taking the steps to fix their life the adversary takes a few more steps. So please pray for her. Cyd has had struggles with drugs and smoking in the past, and she is in a very tight financial situation right now as well. So hopefully that all gets taken care of, and we are at least able to find her. We also picked up a few more investigators this week. Elder Carter and I have made a goal to contact at least 10 new people/families a day that we have never talked to before. All of a sudden after doing that 14 days in a row, since the beginning of this transfer, we have people to teach every day. And we are continuing to find time to contact people. We are doing it by knocking doors, standing in parking lots, offering service... it's been great. We have done a ton of service this week, working at the senior center serving meals there, working at track meets still, and then we also started doing some yard work for a man named Don Schnyder. He really isn't interested at all but I think it'll be good just to plant some seeds with him... literally. But one cool thing that came out of us digging some holes and planting seeds is that we decided that we would dig a hole this week for pday... weird, I know. But we wanted to be like Stanley Yelnats from HOLES... feet deep, five feet wide. It was really exhausting. I really don't know why we did it. But it was a good time.
MARCH 31, 2008
Well, things this week were a little slow for me. I got a sinus infection...I couldn't even walk around. My head hurt so bad. Just from standing up and knocking on doors and stuff like that I would get dizzy. So this week involved a lot of paperwork and things like that... Not your typical missionary work, but stuff that has to be done as well. It kinda sucked becuase I hate being stuck in the apartment. But I was on Sister Goodrich's orders not to leave. Now I have these huge horse pills that I take every morning and night and make me really groggy... But they clear me up and take away my headaches so I'm back to work now. Well, I really don't have much to say about this week. But should have more next week. We have Zone Conference tomorrow and as you know that's always a blast and very uplifting.I hope you all enjoy conference this weekend!