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
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