Missionary Life

SEPT 8

Our area seems to be slowly dying away. But it's ok. We're working hard, trying to keep it alive until we get our car back. I fasted yesterday for a new investigator and then randomly this guy just shows up to the English ward asking if we had services in Spanish!

Elder Austin is a great kid, but there has been a little friction lately. He is having a hard time out here, and he doesn't really have the drive to go out and work all the time, so he has snapped at me a few times when I tell him "lets go". We still get along fine, but I think the differences in our personalities are also causing issues. But we'll get through it.

Today we are going over to a member's house to watch "The Best 2 Years." I'm pretty excited about that. That's one of my favorite movies. I remember Josh , Steven , Nic , Michael, and I all watching that as a Young Mens night. Funny how now we're all either in that situation, or have been through it.

SEPT 15

As far as School stuff goes, Coach Eyestone, from BYU, said that you guys could give him a call sometime soon and we can start working out some details. I'm really excited, and am hoping it all works out. I think I'd like to finish out my mission though and not come home those two weeks early to be able to start school on time. So I wouldn't start school for a little while, but I really want to finish out - Endure to the end so to speak.

As far as mission life goes, things are pretty interesting. Like I said last week, I'm kind of the outcast of the apartment. I don't have a clue about anything from World of Warcraft, Magic, chess, Dungeons and Dragons, or any of those things, so the conversations within the apartment aren't the most fun. And now the obedience level is starting to go down hill as well. I had a little bit of a run in last night with one of our roommates and now the whole apartment is a little cold towards eachother. Luckily I think it knocked some sense back into Elder Austin and he made a better effort last night of getting to bed on time, waking up this morning, and doing his studies.

Our investigator pool is on the brink of building back up again so that's good. We have a ton of Potential investigators right now, but not so many progressing investigators that are coming to church and everything. We're still on bike, and I miss our car badly, but hopefully that changes within the next few weeks. So things are a little rough right now, but I had a great study this morning and was able to really think about how great things really are. I took all of my old study journals and compiled some of my favorite quotes that I've heard during my mission. It was really motivational for me, and I'm still excited about the work. "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you ain't ever gonna keep me down." Megan probably remembers that song well. Haha, Oh I miss dancing with you, Megan.

SEPT 22

This week was a pretty cool one. We had a Temple trip and zone conference and I was really really uplifted and had a really cool temple experience. After Zone Conference that day President and Sister Goodrich gave us a ride home, because we are still without car. But on the way home he said that his Brother lives in Rainier and served in the Stake Presidency about ten years ago! Do you know a Brother Goodrich from the Rainer ward, who was in the Stake Presidency a while ago? And did he serve with Grandpa in the Stake Presidency? Small world isn't it? (We told Ryan about this before he left on his mission but I guess he just made the connection!)

During the week we had quite a bit of success. We taught three first lessons and each ended with a prayer offered by the Investigator, as we all knelt down. The spirit was so strong. It was something that was so cool, to have the investigator offer the prayer, and ask right then and there if the things we taught were true. Before we even left the door, they had already gained a testimony of these things. Now our job will be to make sure they continue to feel the spirit and can progress and come to church, but it was really cool. The work is picking back up again, which makes me feel good. I have a goal in my mission to leave every area better than I found it, and there is a chance I could be gone after this one, so I'm glad to see the area starting to fly again.

SEPT 29
Highlights of the week : Well, On Saturday, my bike pedal fell off the bike, and we were about 4 miles away from our apartment. So that was a long walk home... But Satuday night was awesome! We taught a lesson with Maria Rodriguez, we had Hermana Meza come with us for the lesson and she was awesome! She bore testimony at the perfect time. And it lead Maria to open up to us a bit about how she really felt. She basically bore her testimony right in front of us. And then she told me that she had a friend who lives in Peru who is LDS and he wanted to talk to me. So she picks up her phone and calls this guy in Peru, and hands me the phone. And he was all choked up at the fact that Maria was finally taking the lessons because he had been trying for years to tell her to do it. And so then he told me that he talked to her the day before and that she told him that she believed all of it and didn't know what it was, but she knew that this church was different than all of the others that she had been to in her life. Then on Sunday, Jesvi, the 15 year old who got baptized 5 weeks ago, got up and bore her testimony! She went with the youth and did Baptisms for the dead this week as well, and has been attending seminary and loving it. It's amazing to see the changes in this family in the 4 months that I've been in this area.

Wow, Scott to Ventura. That mission touches our mission. So he is obviously going Spanish Speaking then. I think all the Missions in SoCal are bilingual now. That's cool though, he'll love it.

OCT 6

Conference was great. I got to watch 3 sessions in English so that was nice. We only had investigators at two of the sessions. I guess I wanted to have the investigators there, and if they came we went to the Spanish Translation room, but at the same time, it was nice to sit in the Chapel and here the Prophet's and apostle's real voices. Some of my personal favorites were Elder Wirthlin about Laughing, Elder Bednar on prayer, and the Entire First Presidency from Priesthood session. Conference is interesting. I think it's a lot like the scriptures in that everyone takes something out of it differently according to our needs. To me the theme seemed to be all about overcoming difficult times and applying the atonement into our lives. I'm all pumped up and ready to go now after conference weekend.

In other news, I'm training again! It was crazy watching the MTC choir sing at priesthood on Saturday night thinking that I might be watching my new comp sing. It also kinda stunk though, because I remember being in the MTC last year during conference when they told us we might get to sing at Conference and we didn't. Oh well, I'm just being jealous. But yeah, I'm excited about training again. I enjoyed it a lot the first time. Even though Elder Austin and I were way different we were able to do alright together. I'll be honest though, I hope I have a little more in common with my next comp.

OCT 14

FIRE!!!! Oh man, what a crazy week. I got my new comp on Wed and by the weekend our area was on fire. Not like on fire like getting a ton of new investigators but like there was hot flames being blown around on the mountains, coming down to us. So we had a really weird p-day yesterday as well. A lot of our ward members had to be evacuated and we were helping with that.

Anyway, my new comp is Elder Wheaton from Florida. He's a pretty good guy. He did track in high school where he ran the 300 hurdles, and he also ran the 110 highs and he ran pretty good times. 15 seconds for the highs and 40 seconds for the 300's. So he's got some speed. We went running once, but then the fires came and we didn't want to be breathing in smoke and ash. It's definitely going to be a learning experience this time around training though. He is completely different than Elder Austin, so training him will be a different story. He has such a huge desire to serve and to be exactly obedient. The problem is there have already been some run ins. He started calling out the other missionaries on little obedience details and then they got really mad. Should be interesting. I haven't had a companion that was so tight on the rules before. Elder Carter and I did really well together, but if something happened, we didn't freak out about it. We would just laugh it off, realize we made a mistake, and move forward (kind of like Elder Wirthlin's talk). Elder Wheaton just gets really down on himself it effects him for the rest of the day. Hopefully we can get the area really going and maybe that will help him out as well.

That's cool that Josh is back and spoke today. I guess that means that someday I will actually come home as well. Weird. Elder Austin is having a tough time up in the desert. Him and his comp aren't getting a long too well, and he even admitted that he missed me. Haha. He said he didn't realize how good he had it so that was nice to hear from him. Heather told me that Kourtney is Pregnant. That's just wierd to me. I guess we're all growing up now. I just feel like we're all supposed to be on a priest/laurel group activity again to Red Robin and the Mall to go ice skating still.