Brother Tremblay
My pro quality pizza, pre cooked
Side of someone's house, pretty sweet.
Monday, July 27, 2015
Email 7-27-2015
Happy Monday! How's everyone doing today? I miss you all. Everything is going well here. Had a pretty good productive week, and having lots of fun as always. I appreciate all the emails I get. I hope everyone is doing well. I guess I'll jump into my week.
Tuesday was good. We went back out to Warren and got to teach the restoration like 4 times. We taught one of our potentials Tyler but turns out he is shipping out for basic the next day. It's lame because he was really open to it and interested. We thought we could totally pick him up as an investigator. But we gave him our number and told him to call us in a couple months when he could and we would get the missionaries in that area to teach him. He said he would, so hopefully. Another cool thing that happened that day was Elder Johnson didn't really want to go try to see one potential lady we had there because she had kinda blown us off a couple times and he wanted to wait longer, but I felt like we should. We went and ended up being able to teach her the restoration. It was a good lesson. It was cool because we almost didn't go see her. Later we went and had dinner with Russ, he's hilarious but a character haha. He's less active and struggles with some aspects of the church but he's super nice. I think I emailed about the time we pulled up in his driveway and he pulled a gun on us. Haha. He has a fireworks business and does displays and he shot off some sweet M80s for us while we were there. He gives us a lot of crap but you just have to give it back to him and he'll like you. He said he really appreciates us coming. We taught Book of Mormon class. Then our nonmember friend Sathesh asked us to give him a ride to Hannafords to get groceries because he only has a bike and it was pouring out. Well that's against mission rules so we couldn't. But we went and got his groceries for him because he didn't have any food and some other things. He might let us start teaching him mini-lessons so we can be around more. He just wants to hang out and doesn't get that we don't really have free time. But if we can teach him anyway we can that's cool. Grandpa Tony emailed me and said I got a jury summons, that's pretty funny. I don't think I'll make it back to CA for the trial.
Wednesday was solid. We had zone meeting in the morning for like 5 hours. I lead the zone in reciting our purpose. Which the D&C section 4 is included in that.
The entire thing is:
Our purpose, is to invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.
Doctrine and covenants section 4:
1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.
6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.
After that I had to talk about part of it that I like. So I talked about "Ask and he shall receive". It's such a common theme throughout the scriptures. James 1:5-6, 3 Nephi 18-20, and a ton more repeat that same idea. Ask God, and he shall giveth liberally. It's a simple, yet powerful promise. He has that support for us in everything we do especially when it is aligned with his course. I have a huge testimony of that since I've been on my mission. The Lord has been there with me constantly. It's like he promised in D&C 84:88 "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." Pretty powerful stuff. Later after zone conference we were invited to make an appearance at the relief society pool party, mostly to eat food. Haha so we went there. All of the sisters decided to rush us and attack us with water balloons. Elder Johnson scrambled and was gone. I just stood there and took it like a man. Haha, tons hit me but every single one bounced off without breaking. I joked about us missionaries being protected by the armor of God. Elder Johnson and I had a 2 man mini water balloon fight with 3 a piece. He missed with all his, I nailed him good right in the neck with my last one. Afterwards we went and taught Sathesh the 5 minute restoration, that's all we had because he timed us. :P. He gave us 6 minutes to teach. In return we had to help him work on his accent. We were supposed to get the area book planner app for our iPads after zone conference but it didn't happen. Supposedly we'll get it this upcoming week.
Thursday we served at the community meal. We tracted a lot and met a potential named Rachel. She's a college student here and said she things she should learn about other religions so that's cool. We also went home teaching with Brother Smith and that was fun.
Friday we did service at the thrift shop. We got a bunch of ties. Thrift shops are cool. They also gave us a throwaway table that were are going to use for our game table. We are going to convert the back room into a game/chill room. It'll be sweet. We met with Jonathan. We had dinner at the Tremblays and it was make your own pizza night. Mine was pretty amazing. I didn't know I had such skill as a pizza chef. We taught them the 10 commandments and the law of chastity. They are so cool, I'm going to miss them when I leave.
Saturday was good. We were supposed to help some people move but it fell through. So we had a big gap in our plans so we set up to go do service for the Tremblays. We went and split wood. The Tremblays were using a wood splitter but to make it go faster I was using an axe and doing it by hand. It was hard work but pretty fun. I've never split wood before. I got pretty bomb at it by the end. Brother Tremblay was way good, but I was second best fo sho. We did that for like 4+ hours. I was exhausted by the end we came home and took our lunch at dinner all at once and slept for like an hour. We went and taught Sathesh the plan of salvation in 5 minutes. Then we finally were able to meet with a less active named Ethan. We've been trying to since I got here.
Sunday was good. A member of the mission presidency came to our branch. He emphasized the importance of us all working together to find people to teach. He wants us to implement a family mission plan with everyone in the branch. We had dinner with the Merrifields which is always fun.
Anyways. Keep up the emails, and for those of you who haven't, you should! :) I miss you all.
Love,
Elder Alarid
Email 7-20-2015
Happy Monday! How's everyone doing today? I miss you all. Everything is going well here. Had a pretty good productive week, and having lots of fun as always. I appreciate all the emails I get. I hope everyone is doing well. I guess I'll jump into my week.
Monday was good. We did all our normal prep day stuff, relaxed and played a little risk. The we had dinner at the Cates and their daughter Moriah had a family home evening lesson planned so we didn't share a message. We saw the Maines. They are nice people. I wish they lived closer so we could visit them more. They want us to but they live on the edge of our area and we never have enough miles to go there more than once or twice.
Tuesday was good. We went back out to Warren and got to teach the restoration like 4 times. We taught one of our potentials Tyler but turns out he is shipping out for basic the next day. It's lame because he was really open to it and interested. We thought we could totally pick him up as an investigator. But we gave him our number and told him to call us in a couple months when he could and we would get the missionaries in that area to teach him. He said he would, so hopefully. Another cool thing that happened that day was Elder Johnson didn't really want to go try to see one potential lady we had there because she had kinda blown us off a couple times and he wanted to wait longer, but I felt like we should. We went and ended up being able to teach her the restoration. It was a good lesson. It was cool because we almost didn't go see her. Later we went and had dinner with Russ, he's hilarious but a character haha. He's less active and struggles with some aspects of the church but he's super nice. I think I emailed about the time we pulled up in his driveway and he pulled a gun on us. Haha. He has a fireworks business and does displays and he shot off some sweet M80s for us while we were there. He gives us a lot of crap but you just have to give it back to him and he'll like you. He said he really appreciates us coming. We taught Book of Mormon class. Then our nonmember friend Sathesh asked us to give him a ride to Hannafords to get groceries because he only has a bike and it was pouring out. Well that's against mission rules so we couldn't. But we went and got his groceries for him because he didn't have any food and some other things. He might let us start teaching him mini-lessons so we can be around more. He just wants to hang out and doesn't get that we don't really have free time. But if we can teach him anyway we can that's cool. Grandpa Tony emailed me and said I got a jury summons, that's pretty funny. I don't think I'll make it back to CA for the trial.
Wednesday was solid. We had zone meeting in the morning for like 5 hours. I lead the zone in reciting our purpose. Which the D&C section 4 is included in that.
The entire thing is:
Our purpose, is to invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.
Doctrine and covenants section 4:
1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.
6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.
After that I had to talk about part of it that I like. So I talked about "Ask and he shall receive". It's such a common theme throughout the scriptures. James 1:5-6, 3 Nephi 18-20, and a ton more repeat that same idea. Ask God, and he shall giveth liberally. It's a simple, yet powerful promise. He has that support for us in everything we do especially when it is aligned with his course. I have a huge testimony of that since I've been on my mission. The Lord has been there with me constantly. It's like he promised in D&C 84:88 "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." Pretty powerful stuff. Later after zone conference we were invited to make an appearance at the relief society pool party, mostly to eat food. Haha so we went there. All of the sisters decided to rush us and attack us with water balloons. Elder Johnson scrambled and was gone. I just stood there and took it like a man. Haha, tons hit me but every single one bounced off without breaking. I joked about us missionaries being protected by the armor of God. Elder Johnson and I had a 2 man mini water ballon fight with 3 a piece. He missed with all his, I nailed him good right in the neck with my last one. Afterwards we went and taught Sathesh the 5 minute restoration, that's all we had because he timed us. :P. He gave us 6 minutes to teach. In return we had to help him work on his accent. We were supposed to get the area book planner app for our iPads after zone conference but it didn't happen. Supposedly we'll get it this upcoming week.
Thursday we served at the community meal. We tracted a lot and met a potential named Rachel. She's a college student here and said she things she should learn about other religions so that's cool. We also went home teaching with Brother Smith and that was fun.
Friday we did service at the thrift shop. We got a bunch of ties. Thrift shops are cool. They also gave us a throwaway table that were are going to use for our game table. We are going to convert the back room into a game/chill room. It'll be sweet. We met with Jonathan. We had dinner at the Tremblays and it was make your own pizza night. Mine was pretty amazing. I didn't know I had such skill as a pizza chef. We taught them the 10 commandments and the law of chastity. They are so cool, I'm going to miss them when I leave.
Saturday was good. We were supposed to help some people move but it fell through. So we had a big gap in our plans so we set up to go do service for the Tremblays. We went and split wood. The Tremblays were using a wood splitter but to make it go faster I was using an axe and doing it by hand. It was hard work but pretty fun. I've never split wood before. I got pretty bomb at it by the end. Brother Tremblay was way good, but I was second best fo sho. We did that for like 4+ hours. I was exhausted by the end we came home and took our lunch at dinner all at once and slept for like an hour. We went and taught Sathesh the plan of salvation in 5 minutes. Then we finally were able to meet with a less active named Ethan. We've been trying to since I got here.
Sunday was good. A member of the mission presidency came to our branch. He emphasized the importance of us all working together to find people to teach. He wants us to implement a family mission plan with everyone in the branch. We had dinner with the Merrifields which is always fun.
Anyways. Keep up the emails, and for those of you who haven't, you should! :) I miss you all.
Love,
Elder Alarid
Monday was good. We did all our normal prep day stuff, relaxed and played a little risk. The we had dinner at the Cates and their daughter Moriah had a family home evening lesson planned so we didn't share a message. We saw the Maines. They are nice people. I wish they lived closer so we could visit them more. They want us to but they live on the edge of our area and we never have enough miles to go there more than once or twice.
Tuesday was good. We went back out to Warren and got to teach the restoration like 4 times. We taught one of our potentials Tyler but turns out he is shipping out for basic the next day. It's lame because he was really open to it and interested. We thought we could totally pick him up as an investigator. But we gave him our number and told him to call us in a couple months when he could and we would get the missionaries in that area to teach him. He said he would, so hopefully. Another cool thing that happened that day was Elder Johnson didn't really want to go try to see one potential lady we had there because she had kinda blown us off a couple times and he wanted to wait longer, but I felt like we should. We went and ended up being able to teach her the restoration. It was a good lesson. It was cool because we almost didn't go see her. Later we went and had dinner with Russ, he's hilarious but a character haha. He's less active and struggles with some aspects of the church but he's super nice. I think I emailed about the time we pulled up in his driveway and he pulled a gun on us. Haha. He has a fireworks business and does displays and he shot off some sweet M80s for us while we were there. He gives us a lot of crap but you just have to give it back to him and he'll like you. He said he really appreciates us coming. We taught Book of Mormon class. Then our nonmember friend Sathesh asked us to give him a ride to Hannafords to get groceries because he only has a bike and it was pouring out. Well that's against mission rules so we couldn't. But we went and got his groceries for him because he didn't have any food and some other things. He might let us start teaching him mini-lessons so we can be around more. He just wants to hang out and doesn't get that we don't really have free time. But if we can teach him anyway we can that's cool. Grandpa Tony emailed me and said I got a jury summons, that's pretty funny. I don't think I'll make it back to CA for the trial.
Wednesday was solid. We had zone meeting in the morning for like 5 hours. I lead the zone in reciting our purpose. Which the D&C section 4 is included in that.
The entire thing is:
Our purpose, is to invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.
Doctrine and covenants section 4:
1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.
6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.
After that I had to talk about part of it that I like. So I talked about "Ask and he shall receive". It's such a common theme throughout the scriptures. James 1:5-6, 3 Nephi 18-20, and a ton more repeat that same idea. Ask God, and he shall giveth liberally. It's a simple, yet powerful promise. He has that support for us in everything we do especially when it is aligned with his course. I have a huge testimony of that since I've been on my mission. The Lord has been there with me constantly. It's like he promised in D&C 84:88 "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." Pretty powerful stuff. Later after zone conference we were invited to make an appearance at the relief society pool party, mostly to eat food. Haha so we went there. All of the sisters decided to rush us and attack us with water balloons. Elder Johnson scrambled and was gone. I just stood there and took it like a man. Haha, tons hit me but every single one bounced off without breaking. I joked about us missionaries being protected by the armor of God. Elder Johnson and I had a 2 man mini water ballon fight with 3 a piece. He missed with all his, I nailed him good right in the neck with my last one. Afterwards we went and taught Sathesh the 5 minute restoration, that's all we had because he timed us. :P. He gave us 6 minutes to teach. In return we had to help him work on his accent. We were supposed to get the area book planner app for our iPads after zone conference but it didn't happen. Supposedly we'll get it this upcoming week.
Thursday we served at the community meal. We tracted a lot and met a potential named Rachel. She's a college student here and said she things she should learn about other religions so that's cool. We also went home teaching with Brother Smith and that was fun.
Friday we did service at the thrift shop. We got a bunch of ties. Thrift shops are cool. They also gave us a throwaway table that were are going to use for our game table. We are going to convert the back room into a game/chill room. It'll be sweet. We met with Jonathan. We had dinner at the Tremblays and it was make your own pizza night. Mine was pretty amazing. I didn't know I had such skill as a pizza chef. We taught them the 10 commandments and the law of chastity. They are so cool, I'm going to miss them when I leave.
Saturday was good. We were supposed to help some people move but it fell through. So we had a big gap in our plans so we set up to go do service for the Tremblays. We went and split wood. The Tremblays were using a wood splitter but to make it go faster I was using an axe and doing it by hand. It was hard work but pretty fun. I've never split wood before. I got pretty bomb at it by the end. Brother Tremblay was way good, but I was second best fo sho. We did that for like 4+ hours. I was exhausted by the end we came home and took our lunch at dinner all at once and slept for like an hour. We went and taught Sathesh the plan of salvation in 5 minutes. Then we finally were able to meet with a less active named Ethan. We've been trying to since I got here.
Sunday was good. A member of the mission presidency came to our branch. He emphasized the importance of us all working together to find people to teach. He wants us to implement a family mission plan with everyone in the branch. We had dinner with the Merrifields which is always fun.
Anyways. Keep up the emails, and for those of you who haven't, you should! :) I miss you all.
Love,
Elder Alarid
Email 7-13-2015
Hello people of my other life! Happy P-Day! I miss you all. Everything is going well here. No one is being transferred. Permission granted to resume all mail! :P How's everyone doing? It's been a decent week but probably our worst week numbers wise. We have like no one to teach and it's been a real struggle. So another six weeks with Elder Johnson in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well. I'll kick off the weekly report now.
Monday was P-Day. We had a breakfast appointment with the Merrifields which was cool. We played chess with our friend Sathesh. He's from India going to college here. He destroyed both of us, he's like president of the chess club here. We had a dinner appointment with the Billins that night as well. The son, Isaac just got back a couple months ago from his mission in the California, San Jose mission. Planning is stressful because we don't really have any investigators to teach so it's hard to figure out what to do.
Tuesday was fun. We had a lunch appointment with a friend of some members here named Lew. He went to some seminars at BYU and got treated better there than he has really anywhere else, so he try's to "pay it back" to the missionaries. He likes Mormons and missionaries, and he's been to like every church history site and knows all the church vocabulary, but he's pretty into the Episcopal Church and says he isn't interested in converting. But he was expressing some frustrations with the way his church has been going, so maybe in the future. Oh scary experience! We were tracting a road Tuesday (knocking doors) and this dog comes charging out of a house from like 100 yards away barking it's head off. A pretty big dog and it looked mean. It was raining so we both had umbrellas. As it got close we both, in unison, put our umbrellas in front of us facing the dog and it stopped and just barked at us. We walked backwards away from it, still holding the umbrellas, and eventually it went back. We really think it only didn't attack us because of the umbrellas. Five minutes later the rain stopped so we almost wouldn't have even brought them out. Heavenly Father totally sent us the rain to keep us from becoming chew toys. Pretty cool experience. We had Book of Mormon class which was good. We played some basketball before and after which was fun. Much needed diversion.
Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders. We exchanged at district meeting and Elder Buchanan and I headed back to my area so I was leading out. Elder Buchanan is cool, he's from Utah. We visited Brother MacPherson and helped him wash his car, then tried to help him with some struggles he is having. He ran into some former investigators that used to love visiting the missionaries. They were dropped because they didn't have any interest in converting. But we got a return appointment to see them next Wednesday. Turns out we don't even have any record of them in our area book. We asked to have a lightning lesson with the Smiths and they invited us to dinner which was cool.
Thursday we got a return appointment from tracting which didn't seem super promising, but still pretty cool. We did service at the community meal for elderly people which was fun as always. Elder Buchanan beat me at chess but it was a super close intense game. We did a lighting lesson with the Felch's and shared the "Your Potential, Your Priveleges" Mormon message. Sister Felch said I inspired her because I was the only member in my family and was on a mission. I just said, "Well I know the church is true, so no one else can really affect that." Sister Case is the caregiver for Sister Felch's mom who is disabled and they were both there. Sister Case said to sister Felch's mom, who is a non-member, "It's like I told you earlier, if you know you just know." Then her mom looked at me and said, very sincerely, "But how do you know?" I told her that I had visited other church's before and that there's no where the spirit resides like it does in our church. That feeling is unlike anything else. It only exists here and it's undeniable once you've felt, and recognized it. It was a really cool, powerful experience. Afterwards, we visited Sister Campbell who just had back surgery. We shared Mosiah 24 with her about how the Lord visits his people in their afflictions and makes their burdens light. It was cool. Then we had Ben and Jerrys with the other Elders and exchanged back.
Friday was cool, we tracted and I placed my first two copies of the Book of Mormon. Elder Johnson hasn't really emphasized it. I tried to get referrals from every single person I talked to and I just tried really hard. One guy said we can come back another time so that's cool. I prayed specifically to find a husband and wife that would be interested, to teach and he was talking about his wife so I hope that's them. We taught a lightning lesson to the Cases and on the drive over there I felt prompted to give them a Book of Mormon to place and when I did they said they had been planning on asking for one to give to someone they had in mind so that was awesome. I felt like I did really well on following promptings of the spirit today. We saw Brother Tremblay for dinner. I feel like their kids are getting to really like us so that's cool.
Saturday was ok. We worked hard, but nothing really came of it. We got a text about transfers. Neither of us are being transferred.
Sunday was good. Church was good as always. Brother Mitchell came, the former member, and I invited him and Brother MacPherson to come to Book of Mormon class on Tuesday. We visited with Lew for a bit after church. He's a cool guy. We also saw the Cases for a bit. We hung out with Sathesh at dinner for a bit, and I beat him at chess! I think he got cocky after the first time and underestimated me. But it was cool.
I miss you all. Email me. Have a great week if I don't hear from you.
Love, Elder Alarid
Monday was P-Day. We had a breakfast appointment with the Merrifields which was cool. We played chess with our friend Sathesh. He's from India going to college here. He destroyed both of us, he's like president of the chess club here. We had a dinner appointment with the Billins that night as well. The son, Isaac just got back a couple months ago from his mission in the California, San Jose mission. Planning is stressful because we don't really have any investigators to teach so it's hard to figure out what to do.
Tuesday was fun. We had a lunch appointment with a friend of some members here named Lew. He went to some seminars at BYU and got treated better there than he has really anywhere else, so he try's to "pay it back" to the missionaries. He likes Mormons and missionaries, and he's been to like every church history site and knows all the church vocabulary, but he's pretty into the Episcopal Church and says he isn't interested in converting. But he was expressing some frustrations with the way his church has been going, so maybe in the future. Oh scary experience! We were tracting a road Tuesday (knocking doors) and this dog comes charging out of a house from like 100 yards away barking it's head off. A pretty big dog and it looked mean. It was raining so we both had umbrellas. As it got close we both, in unison, put our umbrellas in front of us facing the dog and it stopped and just barked at us. We walked backwards away from it, still holding the umbrellas, and eventually it went back. We really think it only didn't attack us because of the umbrellas. Five minutes later the rain stopped so we almost wouldn't have even brought them out. Heavenly Father totally sent us the rain to keep us from becoming chew toys. Pretty cool experience. We had Book of Mormon class which was good. We played some basketball before and after which was fun. Much needed diversion.
Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders. We exchanged at district meeting and Elder Buchanan and I headed back to my area so I was leading out. Elder Buchanan is cool, he's from Utah. We visited Brother MacPherson and helped him wash his car, then tried to help him with some struggles he is having. He ran into some former investigators that used to love visiting the missionaries. They were dropped because they didn't have any interest in converting. But we got a return appointment to see them next Wednesday. Turns out we don't even have any record of them in our area book. We asked to have a lightning lesson with the Smiths and they invited us to dinner which was cool.
Thursday we got a return appointment from tracting which didn't seem super promising, but still pretty cool. We did service at the community meal for elderly people which was fun as always. Elder Buchanan beat me at chess but it was a super close intense game. We did a lighting lesson with the Felch's and shared the "Your Potential, Your Priveleges" Mormon message. Sister Felch said I inspired her because I was the only member in my family and was on a mission. I just said, "Well I know the church is true, so no one else can really affect that." Sister Case is the caregiver for Sister Felch's mom who is disabled and they were both there. Sister Case said to sister Felch's mom, who is a non-member, "It's like I told you earlier, if you know you just know." Then her mom looked at me and said, very sincerely, "But how do you know?" I told her that I had visited other church's before and that there's no where the spirit resides like it does in our church. That feeling is unlike anything else. It only exists here and it's undeniable once you've felt, and recognized it. It was a really cool, powerful experience. Afterwards, we visited Sister Campbell who just had back surgery. We shared Mosiah 24 with her about how the Lord visits his people in their afflictions and makes their burdens light. It was cool. Then we had Ben and Jerrys with the other Elders and exchanged back.
Friday was cool, we tracted and I placed my first two copies of the Book of Mormon. Elder Johnson hasn't really emphasized it. I tried to get referrals from every single person I talked to and I just tried really hard. One guy said we can come back another time so that's cool. I prayed specifically to find a husband and wife that would be interested, to teach and he was talking about his wife so I hope that's them. We taught a lightning lesson to the Cases and on the drive over there I felt prompted to give them a Book of Mormon to place and when I did they said they had been planning on asking for one to give to someone they had in mind so that was awesome. I felt like I did really well on following promptings of the spirit today. We saw Brother Tremblay for dinner. I feel like their kids are getting to really like us so that's cool.
Saturday was ok. We worked hard, but nothing really came of it. We got a text about transfers. Neither of us are being transferred.
Sunday was good. Church was good as always. Brother Mitchell came, the former member, and I invited him and Brother MacPherson to come to Book of Mormon class on Tuesday. We visited with Lew for a bit after church. He's a cool guy. We also saw the Cases for a bit. We hung out with Sathesh at dinner for a bit, and I beat him at chess! I think he got cocky after the first time and underestimated me. But it was cool.
I miss you all. Email me. Have a great week if I don't hear from you.
Love, Elder Alarid
Friday, July 10, 2015
Email 7-6-2015
Happy P-Day everyone!
It's good to be reporting back to the West Coast and semi-less Western folk. How have you all been? Everything is going well here. Having a blast and trying to work hard. The work is proceeding but we're having trouble finding people to teach. We're planning on dropping two of our non-progressing investigators and we only have one that is progressing but she is in Nigeria until mid-August now. Lame! But anyways I'm not too worried. We are doing everything we can and I don't stress about what isn't happening at this point because I know God is leading the path. Even if we don't feel like it's happening I know we are doing what he wants and needs us to do. I just trust that whenever something doesn't seem like it goes right, that it really went right we just don't know what needed to happen. But anyways This is P-day of week 6 of the transfer. This is the last week which means transfers are next Tuesday. Transfers are when we get moved to different areas every six weeks for those of you who don't know. It's done through prayer and inspiration by our mission president and you don't always move. I think Elder Johnson and I will probably both stay because he is training still. I train for two transfers. But sometimes you have a follow up trainer instead of staying with one for both so he may transfer out. I could technically transfer too but it'll probably be him. So if I transfer I'll be moving areas Tuesday so if you have something you want to mail and haven't yet, probably wait until next Monday when I can let everyone know if I'm transferring. Don't want to miss it. Anyways I miss the heck out of everyone and hope you are all doing well. My assignment for you this week is to watch the message "You Never Know" it's great. https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-00-008-you-never-know?lang=eng. Anyways here's what my week consisted of.
Monday was P-day and we did all the normal P-Day stuff. We gave a bunch of food to a guy who didn't have any and hadn't eaten in a few days. It seems like emails from myldsmail to myldsmail take a couple hours to go through which is hecka annoying.
Tuesday was cool. We taught our investigator Efey (Eff-ay) we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and I invited her to be baptized on August 29th and she accepted. We had to extend it far out because she left yesterday to go to Nigeria until August. She's awesome though! We taught the Tremblays the restoration with their home teachers, Brother Rino (Ree-no) and Brother Smith. It went well. We had Book of Mormon class and I had studied for it that morning so I was able to teach it actually pretty well I think. Afterwards we had ice cream with the Cases, Sister Tremblay, and Sister Collins. Fun times.
Wednesday we had exchanges right after district meeting. I went to Wolfeboro with Elder Reed. Elder Reed is from Idaho, he's pretty cool. We met an investigator kid named Tyler who isn't keeping commitments and seems like he kind of thinks it is a game. I committed him to fast and pray about the truth of the church Sunday for fast and testimony meeting. He had never fasted before. Oh cool story I was kind of feeling weird about exchanging and being out of my area because I have stewardship for my area and am supposed to further the work in my area. But then we got asked to come to dinner by a family that their non-member sister was there and turns out she's from the Plymouth area. So I actually got a referral for my area while I was on exchanges in Wolfeboro. The people we had dinner with were the caretakers of the Marriott compound which is basically a private community of all the summer homes for the Marriott family, like the hotel. They are all church members. Wolfeboro is like where all the rich people go for summer. Mitt Romney goes to that ward for summer I think he is there now. We got a tour of the compound it was pretty crazy.
Thursday was cool too. I was still in Wolfeboro. We met with a less active member who is moving to SoCal. We shared a message called "Encircled in His Gentle Arms" which was the first presidency message from the March Ensign. It turns out we mixed up our plans and had planned that for someone else but it was like perfect for him and went super well. Pretty cool. Later we met a guy who had like two types of cancer pretty bad and was getting ready to start chemo. He had a great positive outlook on it and it was pretty inspiring. We exchanged back after that and when I got home I found out Elder Johnson lost the Tiki Spoon. He couldn't even make it through one exchange with it! What a slacker! Haha.
Friday we met with Efey and taught her the Word of Wisdom which is about abstaining from unhealthy substances. She said she would try it and pay attention to the spirit she felt. I also got her to pray for the first time with us in the lesson. She tried to get out of it but I persisted and convinced her to. It was a great prayer and was so cool. I felt like I finally was able to see where she was at with what we're teaching her by hearing her prayer and I think she's doing great. She heading to Nigeria yesterday so hopefully everything goes well there that she'll be able to keep progressing when she returns. We met with the Tremblays for one of the new member lessons and dinner. Then we played volleyball with them for a little bit. It was super fun. We all had a blast.
Saturday, happy Fourth of July. We mostly spent all day tracking down less actives and updating their info, the missionaries must have been really lax before on updating it because like 90% of them have no info. We're trying to update everyone. We pooled money together to try and make a decent meal (hamburger helper) but Elder Johnson burnt the heck out of it like really bad. It was pretty terrible but luckily we had also bought a couple small Ben and Jerrys so that kind of kept our spirits up about it. Nope, we didn't get to see any fireworks. No exceptions allowed about the 21:00 in the apartment rule. Kind of lame but it is what it is. That's not what I'm here for but it would've been cool.
Sunday was good. It was fast Sunday and man was I hungry all day. During testimony meeting I bore my testimony on the importance of following promptings and opening your mouth. I talked about how Satan tried to bind Joseph Smith's tongue before the first vision of God, the Father and Jesus Christ and how Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke during a devotional while I was at the MTC and he said all Satan has to do to win is to keep us from opening our mouths. I related this to missionary work especially and then also to testimony meeting and how people needed to hear what you are prompted to say. Also how if they feel like they need to go up and bear their testimony that is from the Holy Ghost and how if afterwards they feel like they don't want to, that is the devil trying to bind their tongue. Before I went there was long pauses in between testimonies and afterwards it was pretty rapid fire so that was pretty cool. Also lots of people began to bear their testimonies about missionary experiences which is awesome. Afterwards we went and visited the Cases and their daughter and Brother Case's sister were there. When we talked about sharing a message with Brother and Sister Case the daughter and sister decided to go for a walk. The daughter is inactive and the sister isn't a member of the church. It's hard to know how much the gospel can bless the lives of those you care about but not know how to show them. We shared a Mormon message with them called You Never Know which is about how we don't see the good that comes from our actions and how it affects people. We encouraged them to keep setting good examples and to have faith in our Heavenly Father for his plans are beyond our sight and they always are better than whatever we can imagine for ourselves. We went and home taught with a member who's home teaching companion is in Australia. For those who don't know home teaching is something that the church has setup for its members to visit each other and make sure everyone is doing well and uplift them and help them in any way you can. You teach a spiritual message put out by the first presidency of the church each month. The first presidency messages are always really good.
I miss everyone and hope you will keep me updated as to what is going on. I appreciate all emails and everything!
Love,
Elder Alarid
It's good to be reporting back to the West Coast and semi-less Western folk. How have you all been? Everything is going well here. Having a blast and trying to work hard. The work is proceeding but we're having trouble finding people to teach. We're planning on dropping two of our non-progressing investigators and we only have one that is progressing but she is in Nigeria until mid-August now. Lame! But anyways I'm not too worried. We are doing everything we can and I don't stress about what isn't happening at this point because I know God is leading the path. Even if we don't feel like it's happening I know we are doing what he wants and needs us to do. I just trust that whenever something doesn't seem like it goes right, that it really went right we just don't know what needed to happen. But anyways This is P-day of week 6 of the transfer. This is the last week which means transfers are next Tuesday. Transfers are when we get moved to different areas every six weeks for those of you who don't know. It's done through prayer and inspiration by our mission president and you don't always move. I think Elder Johnson and I will probably both stay because he is training still. I train for two transfers. But sometimes you have a follow up trainer instead of staying with one for both so he may transfer out. I could technically transfer too but it'll probably be him. So if I transfer I'll be moving areas Tuesday so if you have something you want to mail and haven't yet, probably wait until next Monday when I can let everyone know if I'm transferring. Don't want to miss it. Anyways I miss the heck out of everyone and hope you are all doing well. My assignment for you this week is to watch the message "You Never Know" it's great. https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-00-008-you-never-know?lang=eng. Anyways here's what my week consisted of.
Monday was P-day and we did all the normal P-Day stuff. We gave a bunch of food to a guy who didn't have any and hadn't eaten in a few days. It seems like emails from myldsmail to myldsmail take a couple hours to go through which is hecka annoying.
Tuesday was cool. We taught our investigator Efey (Eff-ay) we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and I invited her to be baptized on August 29th and she accepted. We had to extend it far out because she left yesterday to go to Nigeria until August. She's awesome though! We taught the Tremblays the restoration with their home teachers, Brother Rino (Ree-no) and Brother Smith. It went well. We had Book of Mormon class and I had studied for it that morning so I was able to teach it actually pretty well I think. Afterwards we had ice cream with the Cases, Sister Tremblay, and Sister Collins. Fun times.
Wednesday we had exchanges right after district meeting. I went to Wolfeboro with Elder Reed. Elder Reed is from Idaho, he's pretty cool. We met an investigator kid named Tyler who isn't keeping commitments and seems like he kind of thinks it is a game. I committed him to fast and pray about the truth of the church Sunday for fast and testimony meeting. He had never fasted before. Oh cool story I was kind of feeling weird about exchanging and being out of my area because I have stewardship for my area and am supposed to further the work in my area. But then we got asked to come to dinner by a family that their non-member sister was there and turns out she's from the Plymouth area. So I actually got a referral for my area while I was on exchanges in Wolfeboro. The people we had dinner with were the caretakers of the Marriott compound which is basically a private community of all the summer homes for the Marriott family, like the hotel. They are all church members. Wolfeboro is like where all the rich people go for summer. Mitt Romney goes to that ward for summer I think he is there now. We got a tour of the compound it was pretty crazy.
Thursday was cool too. I was still in Wolfeboro. We met with a less active member who is moving to SoCal. We shared a message called "Encircled in His Gentle Arms" which was the first presidency message from the March Ensign. It turns out we mixed up our plans and had planned that for someone else but it was like perfect for him and went super well. Pretty cool. Later we met a guy who had like two types of cancer pretty bad and was getting ready to start chemo. He had a great positive outlook on it and it was pretty inspiring. We exchanged back after that and when I got home I found out Elder Johnson lost the Tiki Spoon. He couldn't even make it through one exchange with it! What a slacker! Haha.
Friday we met with Efey and taught her the Word of Wisdom which is about abstaining from unhealthy substances. She said she would try it and pay attention to the spirit she felt. I also got her to pray for the first time with us in the lesson. She tried to get out of it but I persisted and convinced her to. It was a great prayer and was so cool. I felt like I finally was able to see where she was at with what we're teaching her by hearing her prayer and I think she's doing great. She heading to Nigeria yesterday so hopefully everything goes well there that she'll be able to keep progressing when she returns. We met with the Tremblays for one of the new member lessons and dinner. Then we played volleyball with them for a little bit. It was super fun. We all had a blast.
Saturday, happy Fourth of July. We mostly spent all day tracking down less actives and updating their info, the missionaries must have been really lax before on updating it because like 90% of them have no info. We're trying to update everyone. We pooled money together to try and make a decent meal (hamburger helper) but Elder Johnson burnt the heck out of it like really bad. It was pretty terrible but luckily we had also bought a couple small Ben and Jerrys so that kind of kept our spirits up about it. Nope, we didn't get to see any fireworks. No exceptions allowed about the 21:00 in the apartment rule. Kind of lame but it is what it is. That's not what I'm here for but it would've been cool.
Sunday was good. It was fast Sunday and man was I hungry all day. During testimony meeting I bore my testimony on the importance of following promptings and opening your mouth. I talked about how Satan tried to bind Joseph Smith's tongue before the first vision of God, the Father and Jesus Christ and how Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke during a devotional while I was at the MTC and he said all Satan has to do to win is to keep us from opening our mouths. I related this to missionary work especially and then also to testimony meeting and how people needed to hear what you are prompted to say. Also how if they feel like they need to go up and bear their testimony that is from the Holy Ghost and how if afterwards they feel like they don't want to, that is the devil trying to bind their tongue. Before I went there was long pauses in between testimonies and afterwards it was pretty rapid fire so that was pretty cool. Also lots of people began to bear their testimonies about missionary experiences which is awesome. Afterwards we went and visited the Cases and their daughter and Brother Case's sister were there. When we talked about sharing a message with Brother and Sister Case the daughter and sister decided to go for a walk. The daughter is inactive and the sister isn't a member of the church. It's hard to know how much the gospel can bless the lives of those you care about but not know how to show them. We shared a Mormon message with them called You Never Know which is about how we don't see the good that comes from our actions and how it affects people. We encouraged them to keep setting good examples and to have faith in our Heavenly Father for his plans are beyond our sight and they always are better than whatever we can imagine for ourselves. We went and home taught with a member who's home teaching companion is in Australia. For those who don't know home teaching is something that the church has setup for its members to visit each other and make sure everyone is doing well and uplift them and help them in any way you can. You teach a spiritual message put out by the first presidency of the church each month. The first presidency messages are always really good.
I miss everyone and hope you will keep me updated as to what is going on. I appreciate all emails and everything!
Love,
Elder Alarid
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