Monday, January 28, 2013

herrrrrro!

Oh man. Do I love life or what?!
I haven't got any letters yet, so I'm going in blind. Not that it usually makes too much of a difference..... 
This week for personal study I studied more of the atonement and grace and then some of the question - "Why did Jesus Christ have to be crucified?" And then a lot of studying of the plan of salvation.
Interesting that the difference between Christ’s and Lucifer’s plans- one was salvation and the other slavation. Literal thanks be to God that we, and He, chose the first.
Oh, and my phrase of the week has been, "What a blessing." I say it allll the time. 

Kk. so the week!
So Monday a little after emailing all you loverly people I did a coin car wash for the first time ever. It was super fun! It was freezing though and I got really wet because I wasn't quite sure how to keep the water from getting me all wet while spraying the car down. But it was a nifty new experience! The car looked super clean afterwards. After that we went to the Schwenke's house for dinner where we made our own spam mousubis (sp?). It’s fried spam and rice and seaweed. It was actually really tasty. They are such nice people. I wonder what we'll eat there tonight?! They are a sweet, sweet family and love the missionaries and all their neighbors. It was sweet to hear them talk of Hawaii and all their memories and all the tips they gave me if I ever go out there. After that we visited a less active member who is trying to prepare himself to go on a mission. I don’t remember if I talked about him before. He is 22 and wants to make something of himself. He was baptized when he was young but his parents separated and he and his sister never really went to church after that. He has such a strong desire to do what is right. He wanted to know about the commandments and kept asking and asking what they meant and the best way to keep them. After we had taught him the 10 and the 2 great ones, he asked us how he should repent if he broke them. I might say this too much, but I about cried! It was so touching to see such a desire to be right with God, and to please Him. That's choosing the right, repentance. He was great. After we had taught him a lot we tried to go but he wanted us to stay and teach him more because it made him feel good. What. A. Blessing.

Tuesday! Tuesday was a great day. We had Zone Conference at 8am. It was so good. It went from 8am to 4pm. Before my mission I would have thought that anything after noon would have been a waste because no one can pay attention that long! But now that I am here and striving to be my very best, I was just as edified from the beginning as I was from the end. Some might have gotten left behind, but not me! I'm never gonna let that happen. I learned so many ways to become a better missionary and then later to become a better part time missionary but still full time disciple. I love learning like that. It is such a wonderful blessing. Then we rushed to our appointment that was scheduled to be at 4. It was kind of funny because we were told that everything would be over at 1 so we had things scheduled but we had to cancel and then runnn out of there. At the lesson with Juan Pablo he committed to be baptized on the 16 of February, so pretty soon! He is almost ready. He has done the first part of life and gotten rid of the bad parts and bad habits, but he hasn't quite gotten to the point where all the gaps are filled with good habits and good things. Most specifically church. He goes, but not very often (his wife is a member but on the less active side [attendance wise]). But he is smart and has great faith and loves learning more. He asks a lot of hard questions that I would struggle to answer in English! Luckily Elder Crespo has this whole 'Spanish' thing down pat. I love meeting with him. He has changed so much since the missionaries first started teaching him. Yolanda, his wife, actually has a very interesting conversion story. She was raised Catholic and one Easter morning was watching the Ten Commandments movie. When it got to the part about the commandments she realized that she wasn’t keeping them, and that her church wasn't helping her to, or even teaching her to. So she began searching for which church was right and went to about all of them until she found ours. And now she is here to stay. Great woman. She always says to us that if we don’t like what we have for dinner to come to her and she'll make us whatever she wants. Awwwww.

Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Alvarez in my area. He knows how to work with members really, really well. He is super friendly and knows how to get close with the families right away. And they give him a lot of free food. I've picked up a few tricks to add to my own bag of charm. I love exchanges because I get new ideas on how I can be a better missionary. We had a lesson with a recent convert and he told us his life story. I won’t go into all the very private details, but it is such a pleasure to be able to meet and talk to and serve such wonderful people. I am always floored with how awesome people are. And I get to meet so many great people. He was telling about his gospel knowledge and said that the topic he was most comfortable with was agency. Smart guy. And every time we go to his house he is either serving someone else or getting back from helping them. 
Shoot. No time. 
Wednesday we had dinner with a family and it was right before the pine wood derby and we prayed that the kid would win... and he did. He was sure that we were prophets. Is that cheating??

Thursday was a great day. We met with a family that has 17 kids. 17 with the same 2 parents! That house was crazier than the foster family house. I got mistaken for a cop 3 times. That happens a lot around here. Idk what to think about that oh and I got attacked by a husky-wolf mix. It was a huge dog and  my coat is super messed up. I’m okay though.

Friday we had a b-day party for the Sisters in the zone and then we planned and then later we contacted a referral and they didn’t understand at all. I testified of eternal families and he says "yeah it’s sad. I have to explain to my kids that one day we will die and won’t get to be together but that's my job as a parent. He cries but some things are hard to do as parents." We tried to explain again but he didn’t get it. It made me so SAD!!!! Life should be happy, we are that we might have joyYY~!!!

Saturday we went to the temple! What a blessing and then later we cleaned up horse poo for 3 hours in the middle of the city. Fabulous Las Vegas and we cleaned horse and stables. We filled an entire dumpster up with manure. That night we talked with a missionary who came home early from Africa because of an eye infection. That would be so tough to have to come home early. He was on a date the next day.... I don’t think I could handle that (maybe more on him later). Hopefully he comes out with us before he gets too distracted. 

Sunday was great too! I got to go to 3 different sets of meetings so that took a lot of time and then we maybe picked up a former investigator and her sister to teach which would be so awesome! OH then that night we were at a member’s house and the 2nd counselor pretended to hit us when we were outside the house. I almost peed my pants I was so scared. When I saw that it was him, I almost peed my pants again. It was funny. I’ll tell the story better when I get home or something.
Sorry!!1
I love you all so much
Sam
byeeeeee

sorry it's short today. :(

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