Hey fam.
Monday was a cool day. We pretty much just hung out all day. We went bowling for a bit. After pday ended we didn't have any lessons but still found success setting up lessons and talking to people.
Tuesday we had district meeting. Our stakes high counselor over missionary work came just to watch how it goes, so he could get some ideas for our Ward mission leader trainings that will occur every other week. That night we taught C. and B., emphasizing the word of wisdom. They both have a strong desire to quit, it just seems that they lack faith in themselves. Then we taught A. and her family, who are super excited for A. and An's baptism on the 15th!
Wednesday not too much happened.
Thursday we taught a less active, J., who we are trying to help return to the temple. He's a great guy and it's been a blast teaching him, he just needs to get his dang butt to church. We had dinner that night with a super cool old couple. They used to be the mission president in some other country. They talked a ton. But man, I sure got a lot out of what they said. Something that stuck out to me was that every mission president has hospital elders, meaning elders that the mission president can trust to send any missionary that is struggling to be their companion and they will learn how to work and love it. I thought that was interesting... That night elder Kremer and I ran the Ward mission leader training almost exactly like a district meeting with role plays and everything. Of course only half the Ward mission leaders showed up, and of course they were the ones who needed the least amount of training, but it was a great meeting. Everyone had a blast and learned a ton.
Friday we had a great weekly planning session, then had lunch with elder and sister Block. They fed us some Killer Salmon. I ate probably an entire fishes worth. Then for dinner someone took us to village inn, who was having an all you can eat fish and chips night. I ate a lot of fish Friday. After dinner we taught a referral, M., and picked him up as a new investigator. Super nice guy with a thick Boston accent. He was raised Catholic and strongly believes in it but says he wants to learn more about the LDS religion. The only problem is that he believes a little to strongly in Catholicism, to the point that if anything we say contradicts what he believes, it must not be true. So we just need to get him to open up his heart a bit. That night in the apartments we saw B. headed to the pool with his fam, and we stopped to talk to him and noticed he had a fresh pack of cigs with him. Long story short he reluctantly gave those to us so we could soak them in milk for him.
Saturday, while headed up to teach C., his brother and sister in law were headed down stairs with their kid, and she -she's an inactive member, he's not a member-asked us what time church was cuz they wanted to go. We were stoked. So we told them, and then of course wouldn't miss an opportunity, we asked if we could come back that evening and share a message. So we did, and they are a great little family that seems super prepared to improve their lives. Her name is S. and his name is A. A. accepted a baptismal date and S. was excited to come back to church. Something that we were worried about was that A. didn't look like he was doin too hot... He looked like he was gonna barf the whole time. So Sunday morning we got s text saying they weren't gonna make it cuz both A. and their kid were super sick. Dang.
Monday morning we had a new phone training, the mission switched to AT&T, and the rumors going around were that we were getting iPhones. So everyone was super excited at the meeting until they pull out basically the same phone we had before. Except it's worse cuz the software is garbage. We still haven't figured out how to use it. Ha. Right after the training we had a zone meeting. We had some good lessons Monday. We taught D. and B., who are doing so well! B. has just fit into the Ward perfectly and is loving it. We talked a lot about how we want them and C. to work towards getting sealed in the temple, and she told us that he went on his own to talk to the bishop about getting the priesthood so they could be sealed in a year. Made me so happy. Then we taught Sy. who also is doing stellar. Her family is so against the church, it's such a crappy situation for her to be in. But she is always making the best of it. We met and taught a small family that goes to the 7th day Adventist church. Literally the nicest people I've ever met. They talked a ton about grace, and how they believe that no matter what we do we are saved by grace. We are gonna bring them Brad Wilcox's talk 'his grace is sufficient'. (If you haven't read it, read it.)
Tuesday was another great day as usual, we had some juicy cheeseburgers with bacon overload for dinner, then taught N. (the Filipino lady we baptized). She is doin great as well. I am always happy to see those who get baptized recently doing so well. Then we taught A. and her fam again, it's been a blast teaching them cuz we have been doing it at their bishops house kind of like a family home evening. After that we went out with a Ward mission leader but sadly the lesson we had fell through, so we went by a referral the Spanish missionaries gave us earlier that day. They told us it was a black lady who was staying there only for a month or so, but when we showed up it was a little family that we have been trying to find for weeks. It's a mom from Guam and her son whose 14 and daughter whose 17. Originally we talked to the son on the street a few weeks ago who said he was pretty interested, but he wasn't there when we went by last night, just his mom and sister. So we taught them and the mom was captivated the whole time. The daughter was present physically but definitely not interested. We invited the mom to be baptized and she first said she already had been in her church but we taught her about the priesthood authority a bit more, the she accepted to be baptized July 2nd. He daughter accepted as well but it was kinda just a 'sure whatever' answer so we're not too expecting of that. But the mom is awesome. We set up another appointment tonight and the mom said she would make sure her son would be there so we can pick him up and put him on date too. Super excited!
Hope all of your weeks were as good as mine was.
Love
-Elder Ray
P.S. When elder Bednar came to our mission he said something I loved. He said he hated when to close a sacrament meeting with a prayer the person gets up and says "Heavenly Father, thanks for this day, etc, please bless all those who didn't make it that they can be here next week, etc, amen" he then said that he wishes that the prayer would be like this: "Heavenly Father, we are so sad that some of thy children weren't here. Please soften their hearts, because as soon as we close this prayer we are ALL going to each go find someone who didn't make it to Sacrament meeting and bring them to the other meetings. We know that according to the faith we have thou wilt grant us success, etc, amen" He talks a lot about how we CANNOT make people objects. And neither can God. He will respect their agency. We must be the ones to invite people. So maybe don't pray for the missionaries to be successful, but pray to be led by the spirit to find someone you can invite to meet with the missionaries. And then take the opportunity that you will be given :)
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| Elder Ray and New Companion, Elder Kremer |
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