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
No comments:
Post a Comment