Well, this week was another interesting week. We had another fall-through baptism. It seems like every time it happens, it has to out do the time before. Well, this guys baptism was going to be Saturday at 6 pm. His interview was going to be Friday night at 7:30. Long story short he never showed up and wouldnt answer his door when we went over to talk with him. He met with him the next morning and he's pretty much just been lying all along to us and it caught up with him that night and he was just embarassed. So, no baptism. All the other people that were lined up for next week won't be getting baptized either. So that is a bummer, but life goes on. I grew a lot from this experience. We were upset that night but over the weekend i turned it into a growing experience. "Forgive us of our debts, as we forgive our debtors" was in my mind a lot the next few days. Not that this man owed me anything, but we all depend on the same God for forgiveness.
At church a couple of people were "complaining" that we hadn't called everyone to tell them that there wouldn't be a baptism. They said that luckily they found out from someone else that there wasn't one, or else they would have had to have gotten dressed.....and would have changed their plans for the night.......Luckily it was in the morning and i didn't really care.
It has been tough of late to get people all the way there. They've gotten so close to baptism and then just drop like flies. I just figure that this is preparing me for something down the road that i am not aware of. But we're still working hard, so at the same time it doesn't bother me too much. I'm doing what i can, people just are using their agency in poor ways.
On saturday we had transfer calls. I remember reading jeff's letter last week and him saying his mission president made a mistake because he was becoming district leader. Well, President Darrington has made an even bigger mistake. I'm going to be the district leader in this....district....so i am staying in Sanford once again. My comampanion is staying as well. So i will be district leader over 6 missionaries. Us 2, the spanish elders, and one set of sisters. It should be fun. I'm looking forward to it.
Well there really wasnt much more news this week in terms of missionary work. I went on exchanges with the Assistants this week and had a pretty fun time. There are a lot of elders going home this transfer.
Well, i'm glad little Wade was born with health to his bones. I'm not sure what that phrase means. Maybe someday he'll grow to be a better basketball player than his uncle....and i'm not referring to Mike.
I did get your package of brownies and cookies. Oh they were definitely a treat of delight. I think i've eaten them all by now, there might be a few brownies left.
I really can't think of much else to write about that we did this week. It was just one of those tough ones that come around too often. :) I did see a pretty funny sign somewhere. Someone else got a picture for me, i didn't have my camera, so i'll get you a copy somehow. But we saw this sign that overlooked a field and it said, "No Swimming." Well the funny thing about it was that there was absolutely no water to be seen in sight. I also plan on getting a picture by the "wildlife crossing" sign, with me, the wild one, crossing the street. This week we didn't cut up any more watermelons and use them as helmets, so i can't really say we got too bored.
This week i'll hit 7 months in this town. I'm getting tired of the lack of help we're getting from the members in terms of helping us find people to teach. It's tough work on your own as i've learned here.
Well, life seems to be going well back home. Keep up the good work. Love ya.
Friday, August 17, 2007
August 6, 2007: A stellar week
Well, not that this may make sense to many of you, but this week was probably the best week in a long time, maybe in my mission, in terms of progress made. By the end of the week, our three investigators with dates for baptism this month (august) all were at church and all are progressing. So i was very happy about that. Although, you would think, by looking at the names of these three people, that i am a Spanish elder. Danilo Frias will be getting baptized this weekend. German Perez and Alexander Martinez will be getting baptized the next weekend. Yesterday at church i taught the Gospel Principles class and, once again, if someone had walked in to that room they probably would have thought this was the Spanish branch. So things are in the process of pickin up again. There is one more week left to the transfer. President Darrington told me last week i'll probably be staying (again) but we'll see about that. I'm going in this last week with the idea that i'll be out of here next week. One of the guys set for the 18'th might move his baptism up to next weekend. If you remember, Alexander Martinez is the guy i've been working with forever...who was on probation....whose wife said no....but he's determined to do it. So we'll be praying for him. I love meeting with him and having him say the closing prayer. "I thank you God for sending your minister to me to teach me the true gospel." Always brings a smile to my face.
One quick question for Mike, or for anyone who may know.....when you came home from your mission, we often times ate corn beef hash for breakfast. What goes into that? I want to make it. Lately i've been making hashbrowns, eggs, and ham. Oh so good, a tasty treat. Thats my new breakfast.
I had a couple of cool experiences this week. On Wednesday we had a little training on more effective contacting, ways to talk with people. Afterwards, we drove over to a street named Copper Ridge Circle, which is a street i've been thinking of for a few weeks. We biked past it once and ever since then it has stuck in my memory. Well finally we got over to it. We walked up to the first house and knocked. Using my newfound techniques, we taught the man for 20-25 minutes or so and set up a time to come back the next day. It was pretty amazing. The first house we knocked, and actually the only house we knocked on because we had to leave after that. But for a week i had just kept putting it off for some reason, and Wednesday felt like the right day. Also on Wednesday we went to the temple for a sealing of a family here in the Sanford ward. This family is pretty sweet. Sister Bendoski comes amazing, although not as good as mom's style. But it was nice to go to the temple for just a little bit of the day. Also, on the way to the temple i saw a van drive by that was covered in the Dark Side of the Moon cd cover art. I'll send a pic.
Friday night we had a ward party. They called it a Louisiana Boil. They boil shrimp, chicken, and sausage and then just drump it out on a table and you grab what you want. Well, the cool part of the story is that there was also a cake auction to raise money for the boy scouts. My companion and i decided to make a Book of Mormon cake. we borrowed some food coloring and spent a bit of time trying to get the right color. We ended up using tons and tons of food coloring. We then realized that whoever would eat it would have quite the stained mouth. Well someone bought it for 24 bucks and then i'm sure they regretted it. We also used peanut butter puff balls to spell out "The Book of Mormon." Oh, and of course i got pictures of the beauty.
Well the work is going well. Can't really complain. We just keep on working and we know things will come from it. Bishop doesn't want me to leave. Bishop always comments on how he rarely comes across something in the ward that i haven't already found out myself.
Oh, a funny story. We talked with a lady for half an hour or so, a nice lesson about the restoration of the gospel. At the end i asked if we could pray with her and she told me no, because she didn't know what kind of evil spirits we might have. "You never know..." is what she then said. But i asked her to pray, which she did, in which she called us servants of God. So first we have evil spirits, then we are servants of God.
Well i hope all goes well with the baby on the way. I'll make sure to keep Jen and...Wade Matthew in my prayers. I hope this is a message of encouragement for you Jen, but keep in mind this bit of info. I myself was born 7 weeks too early, and look how i turned out.....I'm not sure if that is encouraging or discouraging to know how i turned out from being born early. I blame that more on my upbringing.
Well, like i said, one more week till the transfer. We'll probably be having some changes. There's a lot of zone leaders going home. Pretty soon the mission is going to have a lot of different faces. Enjoy the pics that i'll send.
Love you all. Thanks for your e-mails. I'll talk to you next week. It's true :)
One quick question for Mike, or for anyone who may know.....when you came home from your mission, we often times ate corn beef hash for breakfast. What goes into that? I want to make it. Lately i've been making hashbrowns, eggs, and ham. Oh so good, a tasty treat. Thats my new breakfast.
I had a couple of cool experiences this week. On Wednesday we had a little training on more effective contacting, ways to talk with people. Afterwards, we drove over to a street named Copper Ridge Circle, which is a street i've been thinking of for a few weeks. We biked past it once and ever since then it has stuck in my memory. Well finally we got over to it. We walked up to the first house and knocked. Using my newfound techniques, we taught the man for 20-25 minutes or so and set up a time to come back the next day. It was pretty amazing. The first house we knocked, and actually the only house we knocked on because we had to leave after that. But for a week i had just kept putting it off for some reason, and Wednesday felt like the right day. Also on Wednesday we went to the temple for a sealing of a family here in the Sanford ward. This family is pretty sweet. Sister Bendoski comes amazing, although not as good as mom's style. But it was nice to go to the temple for just a little bit of the day. Also, on the way to the temple i saw a van drive by that was covered in the Dark Side of the Moon cd cover art. I'll send a pic.
Friday night we had a ward party. They called it a Louisiana Boil. They boil shrimp, chicken, and sausage and then just drump it out on a table and you grab what you want. Well, the cool part of the story is that there was also a cake auction to raise money for the boy scouts. My companion and i decided to make a Book of Mormon cake. we borrowed some food coloring and spent a bit of time trying to get the right color. We ended up using tons and tons of food coloring. We then realized that whoever would eat it would have quite the stained mouth. Well someone bought it for 24 bucks and then i'm sure they regretted it. We also used peanut butter puff balls to spell out "The Book of Mormon." Oh, and of course i got pictures of the beauty.
Well the work is going well. Can't really complain. We just keep on working and we know things will come from it. Bishop doesn't want me to leave. Bishop always comments on how he rarely comes across something in the ward that i haven't already found out myself.
Oh, a funny story. We talked with a lady for half an hour or so, a nice lesson about the restoration of the gospel. At the end i asked if we could pray with her and she told me no, because she didn't know what kind of evil spirits we might have. "You never know..." is what she then said. But i asked her to pray, which she did, in which she called us servants of God. So first we have evil spirits, then we are servants of God.
Well i hope all goes well with the baby on the way. I'll make sure to keep Jen and...Wade Matthew in my prayers. I hope this is a message of encouragement for you Jen, but keep in mind this bit of info. I myself was born 7 weeks too early, and look how i turned out.....I'm not sure if that is encouraging or discouraging to know how i turned out from being born early. I blame that more on my upbringing.
Well, like i said, one more week till the transfer. We'll probably be having some changes. There's a lot of zone leaders going home. Pretty soon the mission is going to have a lot of different faces. Enjoy the pics that i'll send.
Love you all. Thanks for your e-mails. I'll talk to you next week. It's true :)
July 30'th, 2007: Some good news and some not so good news, but not bad news, so don't worry
Well, i'm going to start off with the not so good news. Well this last friday marked good old 10 months of missionary work. I was excited to see a package come from home in the mail. Well, almost excited....until i noticed a sticker on the package that said, "Received unsealed. Received empty." Fortunately, they delivered me the package you sent....without the contents. So hopefully there wasn't anything in there extremely valuable....hopefully it can be sent again :). I looked at my companion and said, "i can't believe someone stole my package." And he replied with a very true statement of, "I can't beleive someone stole my bike." So, count your many blessings.
Now on to the good news......President Darrington has obliterated some of President Farnsworth's Law of Moses-esque rules. We can now listen to a wide variety of uplifting music. No longer can we only listen to pretty much the Tabernacle Choir, but we're back to the white handbook rule. Also, i can play guitar now. Isn't that glorious news? I remember seeing a small guitar at Goodwill awhile back, so later we are going to see if it is still there. The dinner rule is still the same, although i guess it is "under revision" at the time.
I think the most memorable event this week was while we were riding around on bikes. We came across a lady who was having a yard sale. I figured we'd act interested and knock her out with the Gospel. Well, i REALLY had to act interested. The items were all.....decorating type ornaments and clay..figurine objects? See, i really didn't know what they were. Then, i saw what i needed.....a 25 cent plastic bat. So i bought it from her and talked to her. She wasn't interested, and now i had this plastic bat that i had to figure out how to transport home on a bike. Well, i had my backpack.....so i stuck half of it in and the other half hung out from the top. So it looked like i was prepared to break somebody's kneecaps. We talked to a few people, and i think they weren't interested because they thought i was going to harm them. I sure felt safe though. Now, the bat sits in our apartment as a reminder of the worthless purchase that it was.
We had President interviews this week, the first one with President Darrington. He informed me i'll probably be staying in this area for 2 or 3 more transfers. If that is true, then i'm looking to be in Sanford till towards the end of the year....We'll see if that actually happens or not.
Yesterday in church my companion and i spoke in sacrament meeting. He prepared a pretty good joke. I was jealous. He got up and said, "Well, i really hope i don't get nervous.....when i get nervous, my eyes sweat....and i can't read my mom's handwriting." We talked on how the ward can (needs) to do better missionary work. I think i told you our Bishop really liked what he have been presenting, so i think he had a stake counselor come and listen. I'll need to send you the outline of the talk one of these days.
Well, at the end of the week, we have 4 people commited to baptism in August. One on the 11'th and 3 on the 18'th. That reminded me of back in November when we had 5 commited for one day and none happened. :) So we'll be working hard to make sure we can get as many of these as we can.
This Wednesday we are going to the temple. There is a family in the ward that is going to betting sealed in the temple, and we are over there once or twice a week it seems like for dinner, and they invited us, so i got permission to go. This will be my first time on my mission.
Sounds like everything is going well back home. Mom is planning to make the food storage much better in the home, and dad is racing people down ygnacio valley in the escalade. What more could a son ask for? :)
Not much else has happened this week. The work continues on. It was tougher this week to find new people to teach. People just weren't all that interested this week, but we still worked hard. The main focus now is on those 4 people with dates for baptism. One of them is the man whose wife doesn't want to do it. He commited himself this time, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefulyl the 3'rd time is the charm.
we're thinking of buying lawn chairs to keep in the trunk so we can sit down with people outside and teach them. Which reminds me of the days spent with James, lounging in his front yard at the roundabout on Walnut ave., eating Panda Express.
Well we didn't make watermelon bike helmets this week or anything like that. Sorry i don't have any pictures to send. I'll get you some for next week. Love ya'll (there is my southern touch). Adios. I talked to some Spanish people a little bit in Spanish this week....im workin' on it.
Now on to the good news......President Darrington has obliterated some of President Farnsworth's Law of Moses-esque rules. We can now listen to a wide variety of uplifting music. No longer can we only listen to pretty much the Tabernacle Choir, but we're back to the white handbook rule. Also, i can play guitar now. Isn't that glorious news? I remember seeing a small guitar at Goodwill awhile back, so later we are going to see if it is still there. The dinner rule is still the same, although i guess it is "under revision" at the time.
I think the most memorable event this week was while we were riding around on bikes. We came across a lady who was having a yard sale. I figured we'd act interested and knock her out with the Gospel. Well, i REALLY had to act interested. The items were all.....decorating type ornaments and clay..figurine objects? See, i really didn't know what they were. Then, i saw what i needed.....a 25 cent plastic bat. So i bought it from her and talked to her. She wasn't interested, and now i had this plastic bat that i had to figure out how to transport home on a bike. Well, i had my backpack.....so i stuck half of it in and the other half hung out from the top. So it looked like i was prepared to break somebody's kneecaps. We talked to a few people, and i think they weren't interested because they thought i was going to harm them. I sure felt safe though. Now, the bat sits in our apartment as a reminder of the worthless purchase that it was.
We had President interviews this week, the first one with President Darrington. He informed me i'll probably be staying in this area for 2 or 3 more transfers. If that is true, then i'm looking to be in Sanford till towards the end of the year....We'll see if that actually happens or not.
Yesterday in church my companion and i spoke in sacrament meeting. He prepared a pretty good joke. I was jealous. He got up and said, "Well, i really hope i don't get nervous.....when i get nervous, my eyes sweat....and i can't read my mom's handwriting." We talked on how the ward can (needs) to do better missionary work. I think i told you our Bishop really liked what he have been presenting, so i think he had a stake counselor come and listen. I'll need to send you the outline of the talk one of these days.
Well, at the end of the week, we have 4 people commited to baptism in August. One on the 11'th and 3 on the 18'th. That reminded me of back in November when we had 5 commited for one day and none happened. :) So we'll be working hard to make sure we can get as many of these as we can.
This Wednesday we are going to the temple. There is a family in the ward that is going to betting sealed in the temple, and we are over there once or twice a week it seems like for dinner, and they invited us, so i got permission to go. This will be my first time on my mission.
Sounds like everything is going well back home. Mom is planning to make the food storage much better in the home, and dad is racing people down ygnacio valley in the escalade. What more could a son ask for? :)
Not much else has happened this week. The work continues on. It was tougher this week to find new people to teach. People just weren't all that interested this week, but we still worked hard. The main focus now is on those 4 people with dates for baptism. One of them is the man whose wife doesn't want to do it. He commited himself this time, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefulyl the 3'rd time is the charm.
we're thinking of buying lawn chairs to keep in the trunk so we can sit down with people outside and teach them. Which reminds me of the days spent with James, lounging in his front yard at the roundabout on Walnut ave., eating Panda Express.
Well we didn't make watermelon bike helmets this week or anything like that. Sorry i don't have any pictures to send. I'll get you some for next week. Love ya'll (there is my southern touch). Adios. I talked to some Spanish people a little bit in Spanish this week....im workin' on it.
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