Buenos Dias!
Well, the crazy life just keeps continue to get crazier... Both of our bikes this week are out of commision and we're borrowing other bikes (since they're our only source of transportation!!) until we can get them fixed and everything. Elder Johnson had to order a whole bunch of new parts and my gear changer literally fell off after I got a couple massive holes in my tube. It's just one thing after another! But "the truth of God will go forth, boldly, nobly, and indepent" - we are definitelty not slowing down in any way, and we're working as hard as ever. We haven't had a ton of success this week and it was a definite wake up call. We realized that we need to change up a little bit how we do everything and how we're finding new people. we haven't had enough new investigators and we really have to keep on expanding our investigator pool because so many of our new investigators fall through and don't work out. Elder Johnson is definitely keeping me on my toes and reminding me of how important it is to take advantage of every single second of the day. We're going to start cutting time off of lunch and making our lessons a lot more shorter and focused, so that we're fulfilling our purpose as focused efficient missionaries. It's easy for missionaries to get too used to everything and in the same old schedule/routine. They easily lose that fire and sense of urgency that we all need to have on a daily basis! This message is a big deal and every single person needs it. There's never a reason to not talk to somebody we pass on the street or see anywhere.
We had a really good zone conference this past week (my first one actually) and so we got a lot of training from the AP's and the President. It was really cool to learn about how we can be better, how we can start lessons better and be more powerful missionaries. We're still really studying the "Fundamentals of Preach My Gospel", which really focuses on the Spirit, and being led in our lessons. Our President is amazing and I learn so much from him all of the time. He talked a lot about the blessings that our Heavenly Father has for us and every single one of His children. If we saw or knew what these gifts were, it would be so powerful that it would literally take our agency away and we would do everything we could. So much comes from obedience and from doing everything we can to follow the Savior and become more like him. Everyday we come to the Savior and every day He asks us if we're willing to give ALL. There are blessings predicated for every degree of our obedience and when we do give our all, we're promised everything the Father hath. The Savior gave every bit of himself - didn't leave out the tiniest little bit. It has to be the same way with us! We can't leave out the tiniest bit or try to get by and only have some things we fall back on. It has to be 100%
We also had a pretty intense training by the AP's on how we can better use our language and have more effective Spanish studies. I know that I could be a lot better about practicing Spanish. Elder Johnson and I have started to try and just talk Spanish to each other, and it's still kind of shaky (esp since our vocabulary's aren't massive yet) but it's coming :) I've gotten compliments on my Spanish lately from random people so that's always exciting, but I feel so incredibly inadequate at times and get frustrated when I don't understand 100% of what people are saying. A lot of it just takes time I guess so it'll come. I think it's kind of funny - I've totally noticed a lot of changes in my English now, and I'm scared that my English is going to be horrible when I get back to college!
I literally don't know where all of the time goes... It seems like every day I don't have near enough time to do everything I want to. Every night I want to write a bunch in my journal about the day, but I have so many things to do that I barely get around to maybe writing a little bit.
Oh, and we have had a couple new investigators the past couple weeks that are way solid! We'll see what happens, but we've given Book of Mormon's and they promised they would read. We've passed by a couple times and they're actually reading and praying! I'm kind of excited and can't wait to teach them more. Being a missionary can definitely be addicting - I know teaching is addicting. I love it!
So it looks like we're just e-mailing today and taking our P-day tomorrow, since so many people are busy and can't do lessons tomorrow. I'm excited to have a legitimate P-day! Last week I spent the entire time doing a traffic class online and staring at a computer screen for hours. By the way, I did get all of that stuff done and took the test, so I'm pretty sure I'm done with all of it. We're having a big Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow and then we're going to one of our investigators to have a very Mexican meal a little bit later for dinner. I'm kind of excited to see what a Mexican Thanksgiving is like - apparently with them Thanksgiving isn't quite as big of a deal as it is to us, but hey if it's a reason to party they're all about it!
Speaking of giving thanks, I learned something really cool this last Sunday at a fireside we had. When you really think about it, EVERY single thing in our lives, EVERY single thing that happens to us is a gift and blessing from God regardless of how we look at it. I had always heard that trials are good for us and it's the only way to grow but I guess I had never really fully understood that. So as I'm going through every day here, I'm definitely going to thank the Lord for everything - no matter what happens.
One thing that's also is pretty sweet is that we just got a free membership to a gym here! A member owns one and we went there this morning. SO nice to have all that equipment and I'm going to be super sore. But with that and all the biking that we do, I'm actually staying in surprisingly pretty good shape - despite how much people feed us. Good thing we don't have a car!
We're still working hard with everyone, and hopefully there'll be a couple baptisms within the next couple weeks - I'll be baptizing an 8-year old girl and then hopefully Hna Amparo and the Barraza's will follow soon after.
Les quiero a todos y estoy trabajando tan fuerte como posible!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Another week in the life of a missionary... 11/17/2010
Wow, well life refuses to get any less exciting or wild for us. We have had quite the week and we think it's so interesting that from the very second Elder Johnson got here, everything's been so incredibly chaotic. We definitely know the adversary's working super hard on us and our investigators but we're keeping super optimistic and just loving it. My companion has the best outlook on everything and I love how he just always has a smile on his face and is just excited to be here. It really is an adventure with the two of us together - every day is exciting and to be honest, we wonder how much more can go wrong! His bike has been falling apart like crazy this week and he's gotten into at least 2 pretty solid bike wrecks as well as almost getting run over by a truck at least 5 times. It's been pretty out of control. We had to start out the week fixing his tire and then on Sunday his pedal straight up fell off!! It's been wild.
But one thing that was SUPER cool this week is that we had a baptism, and what made it cooler was that there was a wedding too! It was quite exciting. But it was also pretty nerve-racking because we didn't know it was all going to go through until about an hour before the baptism!! We had planned it all out and gotten him interviewed, but he (his name's David Limones) was nervous about some legal issue and him owing child support from his previous marriage. He was seriously considering waiting and not doing it, and I was getting all kinds of calls from them, from the branch president, and the branch mission leader because I guess they couldn't get ahold of each other - my head was spinning as I was trying to understand all of it, all these unfamiliar terms, in Spanish. But we prayed way hard Friday night and Saturday morning, and sure enough got the call that they were going to go through with it all and we were so happy! He's been waiting for a way long time, and we did not want him to wait any longer. When you put the Lord first, the rest will work out. That's all there is to it.
So it was really cool, because I got to watch Elder Johnson baptize him. I'm such a proud "father"! He was excited to be Elder Johnson's first baptism. But yes, prayers are definitely answered and we were so lucky to be involved with it all. It was kind of funny, because it was also our branch president's first wedding, so he was about as nervous as my companion. It all went way good though, and he had support from a lot of the members here in the branch.
My legs are still 100% destroyed from all this bike riding and then running sometimes in the morning. I'm starting to get worried that some of my slacks won't fit because my legs are starting to get big from biking! But we've definitely been needing the exercise because people have been feeding us way too much lately. I'm pretty sure yesterday, I've been more filled than I've just about ever been in my entire life! We had this massive dinner with carne asada and I was totally filled. Afterwards, the member took us to a hot dog stand (that was owned by some members) to support them, and got us a massive hot dog and stuff. We visited the Barraza family afterwards and helped out Cesar Sr. with his yard. He was so grateful that guess what he did? Took us to another one of those stands and got us all these hot dogs and sopes and drinks. Oh my goodness, I don't know if I've ever felt that huge in my entire life. But I think I might finally get some hunger sometime later today. Good thing we're on bikes! Hopefully the Barraza's will finally get baptized here in the next couple weeks - he had been waiting to finish baseball (since he's the coach and feels obligated to his team) so it might have to wait a little bit. It's so frustrating when people keep postponing something this important! The Lord needs to always be our #1 priority and we shouldn't let anything ever stand in the way.
We've been making more progrsss with Francisca Amparo, and apparently her husband has been in the way of baptism too, but she always feels the Spirit and knows it's true. Make that leap of faith!! We're praying and trying so hard with all these people - I know that they will get baptized, I'm just not totally sure when.
We picked up some new investigators this week, people that we had just talked to out in the streets. It's so nice and rewarding when people will actually let you in and teach them. They all seemed genuiniely interested and are starting to read the Book of Mormon. We visited this one girl who we talked to on the street a couple weeks ago and we will hopefully be teaching her whole family next week! We gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon and found out that her dad stole it yesterday and was reading it! That was way exciting. So there's a lot of potential we've been finding lately - we just hope it all works out!
Also this Sunday, for Stake Conference there was a broadcast and we got to listen to Elder Cook and President Monson!! I totally wasn't expecting it so it was a pleasant surprise. President Monson really focused on reaching out and rescuing the less-active people, inactives, widows, and people who are struggling. He told this really cool story about the Lost Battalion in some war and how we need to really reach out to those people that need us. That's definitely what our members here need to hear. We've been spending a lot of time with less-actives that just need some visits and help, and it needs to be the members here that do that so we can be focused on finding, teaching, and baptizing others.
But yeah, we're loving life - Elder Johnson and I are ridiculously similar (even down to having 4 boys and 2 girls in the family!) and we get along so incredibly good. It definitely makes missionary work enjoyable and we love just getting out there, talking to people and teaching. So life in Yuma is good!!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Most EXCITING week of my life! 11/10/10
I'm not giong to lie, it has probably been the most exciting week of my entire life. And by exciting, I mean that more has happened and I've had to deal with more things than ever before. It all started out awesome when we first went out Wednesday night. We found everyone at home and had a bunch of lessons, which is super unusual. Thursday is where it started to get a little crazy though. We started out the day by waking up super early and going for a big run. We had already been running for quite a ways when we took a couple turns and ran into massive dead-ends everywhere. We hit one after the other until we eventually ended up re-tracing our steps and going back the way we came (which was not a short ways). So we were exhausted and did a sweet workout with weights. It's actually pretty cool - Elder Johnson has a ton of the P90X workouts written down so we're starting to do those every morning after we run. But anyway, after that Elder Johnson had some pretty interesting experiences with OYMs. We talked to this old lady on the street, and let's just say he saw more skin than he wanted to... We run into some pretty crazy people.
But then... the highlight of the week, I totally got into a little accident with the car! We were pulling up to this intersection, and I stopped at the stop sign - I looked both ways and then continued ahead. All of the sudden this car came speeding out of nowhere and I hit his back end. The sun was exactly where this car was coming from, so I'm pretty sure the glare from it hid it from view. So we had to wait around forever to find that nobody was sure if the other guy had insurance and I got cited for not yielding at a stop sign. So that was kind of a pain, and now I'm going to take a traffic class online (hopefully next week on P-day) so I don't have to pay quite as much and also so I don't get any points taken off my license. So we've been on bikes ever since then and our car got taken to Tempe to get worked on. But that wasn't even the end of the day. We didn't have any batteries for the LED lights that we had just bought earlier that day, so we had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up batteries (you can't ride bikes at night without lights). Somehow both of the "speedy" check-out lines we were in took 20 minutes! So we got a way late start. Then, we headed to the other side of Yuma to visit this investigator David Limones - who is actually getting baptized this Saturday - and after going miles and miles across town he wasn't there! We did catch him as we were leaving though, which was sweet, and had a quick lesson with him. We sped-rode back home to get in before 9:30 and when we got there I searched my pockets and couldn't find my keys!! I was about at the breaking point and immediately got on my knees. I'm pretty sure I prayed harder than i just about ever have. The second I opened my eyes the phone rang, David called saying the keys must have fallen out of my pocket at his place, and he brought them over as we chilled outside our apartment. Meanwhile, the mission president's wife Sister Howes was trying to call me and the phone kept on dropping her calls! It was definitely a day for the record books and life hasn't seemed to get a whole lot easier since then. But we decided if Satan's going to work that hard on us, we're just going to outwork him and show him what's up! :) So that's what we've been trying to do.
It's actually been pretty sweet - we've been having a decent amount of lessons and everything else seems to be going really well, all things considered. We've been getting greenie blessings since every day last week we got a new investigator. That's always been a tough thing here, getting new investigators every week. But even though our teaching isn't terribly great (our Spanish is getting the practice that it really needs), the people seem to feel the Spirit and things are going well. So yeah, David is getting married and baptized this Saturday morning! They're going to do it real simple and real quick, because he just can't wait any longer. We stopped by with our branch president Monday night and finally got everything worked out. I'm so excited for it - he's an absolute stud with just a radiating Spirit - and I've definitely learned a lot from him.
I also found out why Hermana Amparo hasn't been baptized yet last week! We've been really working on asking inspired questions so we can help people better, and we found out that it's because of her Catholic baptism and her parents. She really loves her parents who were super good people who didn't know the Gospel. She doesn't know how she feels about being baptized again and thinks maybe it's going to somehow take her away from them or go away from the things they taught. So we have a lesson with her tonight and hopefully we can set up a baptismal date and show the need for it. But it's been fun with Elder Johnson as we focus on the basics and really stick to the fundamentals. I think our lessons are much more effective this way and people will be more willing to act when they're more involved in the lesson and can see how much we care.
We've also been teaching and helping out this less-active woman here, because she really wants to come back to Church and have her daughter baptized. She is awesome, so full of faith, and wants me to baptize her 8-year old daughter so we're going to teach her and hopefully do it soon. Younger kids are so much easier to teach because they are so full of faith and so much more open to the truth. I wish that more people were like that. So anyways, that should be pretty sweet.
But yeah, it seems like Satan never really stops working on us. Every day is certainly an adventure, but it is definitely never easy and things have been somewhat difficult lately. We woke up this morning to find that the water had been turned off in our apartment, so we couldn't shower, use the bathroom, or do all of those somewhat necessary things. I definitely find it all somewhat amusing that this many things could all happen in one week. I do know, however, that it's going to do nothing but make me stronger and that I'm going to be all the better for it. Thank goodness for prayer and the scriptures, that help us out so often in this crazy life. I honestly don't know how people get by without it - I know I would be lost. And it's funny too - my body has been destroyed this week as I've gone from not much the past 3 months to ridiculous amounts of workouts and bike riding in one week. Hopefully I'll get adjusted to it soon and maybe we'll get a car here too.
So that's it for this week - nothing else too terribly exciting :) it's a good thing my companion's a stud and has an awesome sense of humor. We get along so good, and are so similar. I've laughed a whole lot more recently than I have in a long time. We definitely enjoy life no matter what it dishes us and work like crazy since that's what wrestlers do. So life is good and busy, and seguire adelante! Thanks for everything!
But then... the highlight of the week, I totally got into a little accident with the car! We were pulling up to this intersection, and I stopped at the stop sign - I looked both ways and then continued ahead. All of the sudden this car came speeding out of nowhere and I hit his back end. The sun was exactly where this car was coming from, so I'm pretty sure the glare from it hid it from view. So we had to wait around forever to find that nobody was sure if the other guy had insurance and I got cited for not yielding at a stop sign. So that was kind of a pain, and now I'm going to take a traffic class online (hopefully next week on P-day) so I don't have to pay quite as much and also so I don't get any points taken off my license. So we've been on bikes ever since then and our car got taken to Tempe to get worked on. But that wasn't even the end of the day. We didn't have any batteries for the LED lights that we had just bought earlier that day, so we had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up batteries (you can't ride bikes at night without lights). Somehow both of the "speedy" check-out lines we were in took 20 minutes! So we got a way late start. Then, we headed to the other side of Yuma to visit this investigator David Limones - who is actually getting baptized this Saturday - and after going miles and miles across town he wasn't there! We did catch him as we were leaving though, which was sweet, and had a quick lesson with him. We sped-rode back home to get in before 9:30 and when we got there I searched my pockets and couldn't find my keys!! I was about at the breaking point and immediately got on my knees. I'm pretty sure I prayed harder than i just about ever have. The second I opened my eyes the phone rang, David called saying the keys must have fallen out of my pocket at his place, and he brought them over as we chilled outside our apartment. Meanwhile, the mission president's wife Sister Howes was trying to call me and the phone kept on dropping her calls! It was definitely a day for the record books and life hasn't seemed to get a whole lot easier since then. But we decided if Satan's going to work that hard on us, we're just going to outwork him and show him what's up! :) So that's what we've been trying to do.
It's actually been pretty sweet - we've been having a decent amount of lessons and everything else seems to be going really well, all things considered. We've been getting greenie blessings since every day last week we got a new investigator. That's always been a tough thing here, getting new investigators every week. But even though our teaching isn't terribly great (our Spanish is getting the practice that it really needs), the people seem to feel the Spirit and things are going well. So yeah, David is getting married and baptized this Saturday morning! They're going to do it real simple and real quick, because he just can't wait any longer. We stopped by with our branch president Monday night and finally got everything worked out. I'm so excited for it - he's an absolute stud with just a radiating Spirit - and I've definitely learned a lot from him.
I also found out why Hermana Amparo hasn't been baptized yet last week! We've been really working on asking inspired questions so we can help people better, and we found out that it's because of her Catholic baptism and her parents. She really loves her parents who were super good people who didn't know the Gospel. She doesn't know how she feels about being baptized again and thinks maybe it's going to somehow take her away from them or go away from the things they taught. So we have a lesson with her tonight and hopefully we can set up a baptismal date and show the need for it. But it's been fun with Elder Johnson as we focus on the basics and really stick to the fundamentals. I think our lessons are much more effective this way and people will be more willing to act when they're more involved in the lesson and can see how much we care.
We've also been teaching and helping out this less-active woman here, because she really wants to come back to Church and have her daughter baptized. She is awesome, so full of faith, and wants me to baptize her 8-year old daughter so we're going to teach her and hopefully do it soon. Younger kids are so much easier to teach because they are so full of faith and so much more open to the truth. I wish that more people were like that. So anyways, that should be pretty sweet.
But yeah, it seems like Satan never really stops working on us. Every day is certainly an adventure, but it is definitely never easy and things have been somewhat difficult lately. We woke up this morning to find that the water had been turned off in our apartment, so we couldn't shower, use the bathroom, or do all of those somewhat necessary things. I definitely find it all somewhat amusing that this many things could all happen in one week. I do know, however, that it's going to do nothing but make me stronger and that I'm going to be all the better for it. Thank goodness for prayer and the scriptures, that help us out so often in this crazy life. I honestly don't know how people get by without it - I know I would be lost. And it's funny too - my body has been destroyed this week as I've gone from not much the past 3 months to ridiculous amounts of workouts and bike riding in one week. Hopefully I'll get adjusted to it soon and maybe we'll get a car here too.
So that's it for this week - nothing else too terribly exciting :) it's a good thing my companion's a stud and has an awesome sense of humor. We get along so good, and are so similar. I've laughed a whole lot more recently than I have in a long time. We definitely enjoy life no matter what it dishes us and work like crazy since that's what wrestlers do. So life is good and busy, and seguire adelante! Thanks for everything!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Ya soy papa!!! (por la genealogia misional) 11/4/2010
Hola todos!!
Wow, well this has been quite the week. We got transfer calls Monday night and I was scared that I might be transferred out of Yuma, which I totally do not want to happen any time soon. The first call we got though, was from the mission president - President Howes - and we were wondering what was up. He talked to Elder Cuthbertson and called him to be a zone leader (which is super sweet and exciting!) and then told him to hand the phone over to me. I was shaking like crazy and freaking out a little bit, wondering why he wanted to talk to me. Turns out he wants me to train! This time it's for real and he just said that he had every confidence that I would do a good job. Entonces en mi mision, ya soy papa! It was cool because my "great-grandfather" on the mission, Elder Ries, just extended his mission and is now an AP, and gets to see his first great grandchild so to speak. I find all these mission genealogies somewhat amusing. Trainers are your dads and their trainers are your grandparents and so forth.
So I had to go up to Tempe yesterday morning for a trainer's meeting and to pick up "my boy"! It was a fun trip going up 3 and a half hours and then back after the meeting, but I could not be more excited about my new companion. His name is Elder Evan Johnson, and he's a wrestler from Illinois! He's a total stud and I know that we are going to do awesome work here. He's super similar to me (just a tad bit taller) and we already get along perfect. In fact, we already had a bunch of lessons last night and all of them went good! He's about at the same stage I was with the Spanish when I first came in, but he does great and is good at asking questions, which is what I need a lot of practice on. You don't really get anywhere in a lesson if you're not involving the investigator and getting them to think about why they need this in their life. So it's just a process, and you always have to work at being a better teacher and studying the material more yourself to get new insights and be able to teach it simply and purely. This is another reason why I'm excited to train - as I teach him we're going to be starting over and I'm going to be able to study thoroughly those basic things that make good missionaries great! I'm also excited because since I'm a greenie training a greenie, we're going to have tons of greenie fire here and hopefully some greenie blessings as well!
We just had quite a few lessons and miraculously found basically everyone at home! That definitely does not happen often. So we got to visit everyone and all of the lessons actually went really good! He definitely came prepared and it's going to be a learning experience for the both of us. I'm pretty sure he's going to be training me at the same time I try to train him. And that's why I love this whole process! Everyone always keeps learning and improving as an individual and as a missionary. That's definitely what I need right now, because I feel totally humbled and inadequate. I have no choice but to rely on the Spirit and put my trust in the Lord, because I'm still so new to everything. I'm not perfect with my Spanish and I don't always know exactly where to go and what to do, but I know that we will be guided and helped as we do all that we can.
Halloween was definitely different for us this year... We weren't allowed to be out on the streets after dinner, so we ended up going to the trunk-or-treat at the Church. It was kind of funny - I could tell that we were combined with an English ward right off the bat. I could tell because we had gotten there I think right on time and there were actually a bunch of people there! That's when I knew it couldn't just be our branch. There's usually maybe one or two people that get there right on time, and that's usually the people that are in charge of it, and setting it up! I found it somewhat funny. So for our costumes, we just switched up our nametags and I put on one of the zone leaders'. I pretended to order everyone around while the missionary who had Elder Cuthbertson's tag (Elder Cuthbertson is our district leader) pretended to brown nose super bad and just give me all kinds of compliments. It was all pretty funny. So yeah, I didn't get any candy this year (didn't want any) but I did have some amazing agua de pina and horchata, which made me 100% happy. It was cool to see investigators and less-actives there but we felt kind of ridiculous having 10 missionaries all there at the same place not really doing anything. So we took off and went to one of the missionaries' apartment to play Monopoly. We did feel kind of worthless that night, but it was also pretty fun.
Since we couldn't do anything Sunday night either, we got to go to this way cool missionary fireside and sing Armies of Helaman with 12 missionaries! That was pretty cool and we got to hear some awesome conversion stories. The Lord definitely prepares people to accept the Gospel and it really can be throughout their life.
So last Preparation Day we went bowling, since the missionary who just finished up and was going home (Elder Bunderson) wanted to. It was way fun, and it was cool to do it with a big group of missionaries. What was even more cool is that I got to go on exchanges with Elder Bunderson last Friday and it was awesome! We biked around everywhere talking to people and individually talked to over 50 people on the streets (so 51 OYMs for the day!). That's more than some missionaries get in a week and I was glad we got to have an awesome day like that before he went home.
So yep, Elder Cuthbertson is now a zone leader and he's serving on the ASU campus, working in English. And I'm here in Yuma, training Elder Johnson and loving it. I'm finally on a solid workout schedule and excited to work hard in missionary work as well as in getting back in shape! Sweet!
Wow, well this has been quite the week. We got transfer calls Monday night and I was scared that I might be transferred out of Yuma, which I totally do not want to happen any time soon. The first call we got though, was from the mission president - President Howes - and we were wondering what was up. He talked to Elder Cuthbertson and called him to be a zone leader (which is super sweet and exciting!) and then told him to hand the phone over to me. I was shaking like crazy and freaking out a little bit, wondering why he wanted to talk to me. Turns out he wants me to train! This time it's for real and he just said that he had every confidence that I would do a good job. Entonces en mi mision, ya soy papa! It was cool because my "great-grandfather" on the mission, Elder Ries, just extended his mission and is now an AP, and gets to see his first great grandchild so to speak. I find all these mission genealogies somewhat amusing. Trainers are your dads and their trainers are your grandparents and so forth.
So I had to go up to Tempe yesterday morning for a trainer's meeting and to pick up "my boy"! It was a fun trip going up 3 and a half hours and then back after the meeting, but I could not be more excited about my new companion. His name is Elder Evan Johnson, and he's a wrestler from Illinois! He's a total stud and I know that we are going to do awesome work here. He's super similar to me (just a tad bit taller) and we already get along perfect. In fact, we already had a bunch of lessons last night and all of them went good! He's about at the same stage I was with the Spanish when I first came in, but he does great and is good at asking questions, which is what I need a lot of practice on. You don't really get anywhere in a lesson if you're not involving the investigator and getting them to think about why they need this in their life. So it's just a process, and you always have to work at being a better teacher and studying the material more yourself to get new insights and be able to teach it simply and purely. This is another reason why I'm excited to train - as I teach him we're going to be starting over and I'm going to be able to study thoroughly those basic things that make good missionaries great! I'm also excited because since I'm a greenie training a greenie, we're going to have tons of greenie fire here and hopefully some greenie blessings as well!
We just had quite a few lessons and miraculously found basically everyone at home! That definitely does not happen often. So we got to visit everyone and all of the lessons actually went really good! He definitely came prepared and it's going to be a learning experience for the both of us. I'm pretty sure he's going to be training me at the same time I try to train him. And that's why I love this whole process! Everyone always keeps learning and improving as an individual and as a missionary. That's definitely what I need right now, because I feel totally humbled and inadequate. I have no choice but to rely on the Spirit and put my trust in the Lord, because I'm still so new to everything. I'm not perfect with my Spanish and I don't always know exactly where to go and what to do, but I know that we will be guided and helped as we do all that we can.
Halloween was definitely different for us this year... We weren't allowed to be out on the streets after dinner, so we ended up going to the trunk-or-treat at the Church. It was kind of funny - I could tell that we were combined with an English ward right off the bat. I could tell because we had gotten there I think right on time and there were actually a bunch of people there! That's when I knew it couldn't just be our branch. There's usually maybe one or two people that get there right on time, and that's usually the people that are in charge of it, and setting it up! I found it somewhat funny. So for our costumes, we just switched up our nametags and I put on one of the zone leaders'. I pretended to order everyone around while the missionary who had Elder Cuthbertson's tag (Elder Cuthbertson is our district leader) pretended to brown nose super bad and just give me all kinds of compliments. It was all pretty funny. So yeah, I didn't get any candy this year (didn't want any) but I did have some amazing agua de pina and horchata, which made me 100% happy. It was cool to see investigators and less-actives there but we felt kind of ridiculous having 10 missionaries all there at the same place not really doing anything. So we took off and went to one of the missionaries' apartment to play Monopoly. We did feel kind of worthless that night, but it was also pretty fun.
Since we couldn't do anything Sunday night either, we got to go to this way cool missionary fireside and sing Armies of Helaman with 12 missionaries! That was pretty cool and we got to hear some awesome conversion stories. The Lord definitely prepares people to accept the Gospel and it really can be throughout their life.
So last Preparation Day we went bowling, since the missionary who just finished up and was going home (Elder Bunderson) wanted to. It was way fun, and it was cool to do it with a big group of missionaries. What was even more cool is that I got to go on exchanges with Elder Bunderson last Friday and it was awesome! We biked around everywhere talking to people and individually talked to over 50 people on the streets (so 51 OYMs for the day!). That's more than some missionaries get in a week and I was glad we got to have an awesome day like that before he went home.
So yep, Elder Cuthbertson is now a zone leader and he's serving on the ASU campus, working in English. And I'm here in Yuma, training Elder Johnson and loving it. I'm finally on a solid workout schedule and excited to work hard in missionary work as well as in getting back in shape! Sweet!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Busy busy... 10/27/2010
Buenos Dias!
Well, this week's been great as we've been enjoying absolutely perfect weather! It's in the 70's and there's been a nice breeze so I definitely can't complain there. We actually went running this morning and it was pretty dark and almost just a tiny bit chilly! I loved it, even though I kind of destroyed myself. My companion has had issues with his leg so he can't really run too much - we ran with a couple missionaries here and I probably ran way too hard. My lungs were toast, but it's SO nice to get a good workout and it was nice to know that I'm at least in way good shape for a missionary :) haha.
But this week's been great, it's looking a lot better than last week, which was kind of slow. Members are coming out with us to more lessons and helping us get people baptismal dates who are ready. David, who had to wait for over a year to be officially divorced, is going to get married and baptized next Saturday and it looks like Hermana Amparo is finally going to get baptized either next week or the week after! We have this sister in our branch here, Hermana Leos, who is seriously the best missionary EVER! She brings up baptism all the time, has no fear doing it, and really helps the investigator know how much she cares about them and wants them to enjoy these blessings. It also helps so much when it comes from somebody besides us. I hope some day that I can be as good of a missionary as her, honestly. She's a branch missionary here and every single investigator she has been working with so far has gotten baptized. It's pretty sweet to be a part of, really.
Well, we haven't had a chance to visit the Barraza family too much lately. Cesar Jr.and Nathalie did get to go to the San Diego temple on Saturday though and loved it! They couldn't believe how white and gorgeous everything was inside. They said they literally felt like they were in heaven and said they've never felt anything like it before. They were asking how long it would be before they could get to sealed together as a family, and we said it could just be a year if your parents would get baptized now! Cesar Sr. also wanted to go to the temple real bad, and we told him he could if he hurried up and got baptized. They were going to do it this weekend, but it's pretty crazy with Halloween and everything so we're going to shoot for next week sometime. Maria Barraza, the mom, says she still wants to know more, but does know that she's not going to any other church and I think she wants to be more committed or something when she gets baptized. But she's sharing it with her very Catholic family, reading the Book of Mormon every day, and the kids are stronger in the Gospel than anyone else I've taught so far. It's so cool.
This week, it was pretty cool - for our missionary work fireside we had a movie night and everyone brought friends while we had some amazing agua de pina (basically the most amazing pineapple drink you can imagine) and horchata (which is super delicious as well). We got quite a few potential investigators out of the deal and we had a lot of less-active members and a few investigators there as well. So I would call it a success! It seems like a lot of our work lately has been re-activating members and working with less-active families which is way cool too. A lot of people lately have had the desire to come back to Church. Last P-day this lady came into the Church as we were playing games and talked to us in Spanish about how much she wants to come back and be involved again. So she did come on Sunday and we had a lesson with her yesterday! It's interesting that it's always the mothers that see the need for the Gospel in their lives, and I guess that's the main reason that we're teaching almost all females! They're usually a lot more open and I guess more receptive and sensitive to the Spirit in general.
Another thing that's cool is that this week we're really focusing on opening our mouths (OYM's) and we set a massive goal as a zone. It's way more than we've ever gotten before but so far it's going really well and the missionaries here are all doing their best to talk to everyone. This means talking to people about the Gospel outside of tracting and lessons and everything. But yeah, we're getting probably 3 or 4 times as many now than we were before as we seriously talk to every single person we see. So far not too much has come from it, but we definitely feel better and we know that everything is going a whole lot better with our investigators and that we are getting blessed for it.
One thing that was pretty sad is that we had one investigator, Ester, who is one of Cesar's friends, who we can't really visit any more. She's super interested and things were going awesome when we talked to her, but her mom is super against the Church and doesn't want us over any more - doesn't want her to go to Church either. Ester really wants to keep coming and learning more, but we'll just have to see how it turns out and be careful. It's sad to see parents keep their kids from such a wonderful thing. But she's awesome and I know she'll get baptized sometime.
So life is great and it looks like we're going to go to the Trunk-or-treat at the Church this weekend. We're not really supposed to be out in the streets Saturday or Sunday night so we're going to be seeing if we can have quick lessons or just go to activities and such. Most missionaries get to go to the temple Saturday, but we're too far away so we don't really have the option. Transfers are this next week, so we'll see how they go! I don't know if they're going to have me and Elder Cuthbertson together for another one... I know I want to stay though!
Well eso es todo por ahora. Gracias por todo! Que les vayan bien
Well, this week's been great as we've been enjoying absolutely perfect weather! It's in the 70's and there's been a nice breeze so I definitely can't complain there. We actually went running this morning and it was pretty dark and almost just a tiny bit chilly! I loved it, even though I kind of destroyed myself. My companion has had issues with his leg so he can't really run too much - we ran with a couple missionaries here and I probably ran way too hard. My lungs were toast, but it's SO nice to get a good workout and it was nice to know that I'm at least in way good shape for a missionary :) haha.
But this week's been great, it's looking a lot better than last week, which was kind of slow. Members are coming out with us to more lessons and helping us get people baptismal dates who are ready. David, who had to wait for over a year to be officially divorced, is going to get married and baptized next Saturday and it looks like Hermana Amparo is finally going to get baptized either next week or the week after! We have this sister in our branch here, Hermana Leos, who is seriously the best missionary EVER! She brings up baptism all the time, has no fear doing it, and really helps the investigator know how much she cares about them and wants them to enjoy these blessings. It also helps so much when it comes from somebody besides us. I hope some day that I can be as good of a missionary as her, honestly. She's a branch missionary here and every single investigator she has been working with so far has gotten baptized. It's pretty sweet to be a part of, really.
Well, we haven't had a chance to visit the Barraza family too much lately. Cesar Jr.and Nathalie did get to go to the San Diego temple on Saturday though and loved it! They couldn't believe how white and gorgeous everything was inside. They said they literally felt like they were in heaven and said they've never felt anything like it before. They were asking how long it would be before they could get to sealed together as a family, and we said it could just be a year if your parents would get baptized now! Cesar Sr. also wanted to go to the temple real bad, and we told him he could if he hurried up and got baptized. They were going to do it this weekend, but it's pretty crazy with Halloween and everything so we're going to shoot for next week sometime. Maria Barraza, the mom, says she still wants to know more, but does know that she's not going to any other church and I think she wants to be more committed or something when she gets baptized. But she's sharing it with her very Catholic family, reading the Book of Mormon every day, and the kids are stronger in the Gospel than anyone else I've taught so far. It's so cool.
This week, it was pretty cool - for our missionary work fireside we had a movie night and everyone brought friends while we had some amazing agua de pina (basically the most amazing pineapple drink you can imagine) and horchata (which is super delicious as well). We got quite a few potential investigators out of the deal and we had a lot of less-active members and a few investigators there as well. So I would call it a success! It seems like a lot of our work lately has been re-activating members and working with less-active families which is way cool too. A lot of people lately have had the desire to come back to Church. Last P-day this lady came into the Church as we were playing games and talked to us in Spanish about how much she wants to come back and be involved again. So she did come on Sunday and we had a lesson with her yesterday! It's interesting that it's always the mothers that see the need for the Gospel in their lives, and I guess that's the main reason that we're teaching almost all females! They're usually a lot more open and I guess more receptive and sensitive to the Spirit in general.
Another thing that's cool is that this week we're really focusing on opening our mouths (OYM's) and we set a massive goal as a zone. It's way more than we've ever gotten before but so far it's going really well and the missionaries here are all doing their best to talk to everyone. This means talking to people about the Gospel outside of tracting and lessons and everything. But yeah, we're getting probably 3 or 4 times as many now than we were before as we seriously talk to every single person we see. So far not too much has come from it, but we definitely feel better and we know that everything is going a whole lot better with our investigators and that we are getting blessed for it.
One thing that was pretty sad is that we had one investigator, Ester, who is one of Cesar's friends, who we can't really visit any more. She's super interested and things were going awesome when we talked to her, but her mom is super against the Church and doesn't want us over any more - doesn't want her to go to Church either. Ester really wants to keep coming and learning more, but we'll just have to see how it turns out and be careful. It's sad to see parents keep their kids from such a wonderful thing. But she's awesome and I know she'll get baptized sometime.
So life is great and it looks like we're going to go to the Trunk-or-treat at the Church this weekend. We're not really supposed to be out in the streets Saturday or Sunday night so we're going to be seeing if we can have quick lessons or just go to activities and such. Most missionaries get to go to the temple Saturday, but we're too far away so we don't really have the option. Transfers are this next week, so we'll see how they go! I don't know if they're going to have me and Elder Cuthbertson together for another one... I know I want to stay though!
Well eso es todo por ahora. Gracias por todo! Que les vayan bien
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