Monday, June 10, 2013

GREAT WEEK. NO TIME. SO SORRY.

So here's the transfer doctrine:
I'm staying. Elder Johnson is leaving. It was a painfully short transfer. He's the best. I will be with Elder Ledezma tomorrow! He is an older elder in the mission and I don’t know too much about him. I'm excited to have the new chance to serve and love and grow. AND! We will be 3 packin'. I will be training a new missionary! Idk anything about him. He gets here Wednesday. And I'm still district leader. It's going to be another 6 weeks of intense growth. I love getting better. 
Man it's been a crazy, crazy week. Black and white couldn't do it justice and I didn't take any pictures. So... 
I'm not going to write anything.
Jk

MONDAY! We played bball for the 1st time on my mission (I think) and it was fun. I played on a team with the other 3 elders in my district and we dominated. They are the best. I'm so lucky to have them. Monday afternoon we got invited to eat with a Hawaiian family. We ate this awesome meal but I don’t remember what it is called. It was basically like personal Benihana’s with this awesome meat and sauce. That night all our lessons flaked but I started an exchange with Elder Andrews. He is in one of the other districts but his companion needed some practice in his Spanish so I sent him to Desert Bloom with Elder Johnson. He and I have served around each other before but never really gotten to know each other so we had a nice long talk and got pretty close. He's awesome.

TUESDAY! I got to spend the day on bike, in the heat in English! What a blessing. We biked like crazzzy. Over the course of the day Elder Andrews fed me a ridic amount of food. Like sooo much. He made me bfast and lunch and all these members fed us. I felt like I was wearing a backpack over my stomach! We met some really cool people. One was a couple who were converts of about 20 years. They had married in the temple and sent children on missions and were getting their life in order to become temple workers. They are awesome missionaries. They are always sharing the gospel and fellowshipping and doing everything they can to get others to be happier. They told us their awesome conversion story. I can’t tell it all bc of lack of time. But basically the man opened the door one afternoon and the elders were standing there and he felt something saying to him, “Invite them in, what they say is true.” So he did. And he listened. And then got baptized. Long story short - his life in the church was then dotted with miracles. They told us that they contacted the 8 missionaries that taught the two of them -- all inactive. They were devastated. It was such a happy story to hear but so sad to hear about the missionaries. They did so much good for this family but they lost it :/. Life's hard sometimes. Dinner was ground beef tacos. Eating them I thought how I really don’t ever want to eat faux Mexican food again. It's just not nearly as good. Not worth it. Then we had a sickkkkk lesson with an investigator. We said a prayer to start but then the member and him started talking about work for a few minutes and the investigator said, “Alright alright, let’s start again. Can we say another prayer?”  So sick. Then when we were talking about the Atonement he got a little emotional. It was such a powerful experience to teach someone with such real intent and such a testimony of the Savior’s love. He'd lived a hard life. More on that in 2 years. That was defff the highlight of the day.

WEDNESDAY! We got a free lunch! Then we had a lesson with Martha (the eternigator). She said she'd been pondering since the lesson on Sunday (about baptism) and she wants to get baptized! That threw us off. She said some other weird stuff but the desire to be baptized was a new thing!! We later went to a members house which was cool too. Members love us which rocks. We visited a family of recent converts and when we asked what we could do to help they said, “Stay safe, find people who need you, and come back soon.” Warmed my heart. That night we had the craziest night with a LA [less active]. We sat in the complete dark talking. Sounds weird but it wasn’t the first time I've done it on my mission. It's odd. But I guess people are comfortable doing it. 

THURSDAY! We had 3 lessons set up but all fell through. People are hard to catch here. Then out of nowhere the ZLs called and asked us to do an emergency exchange with Elder Fahina (who I look up to a lot. He's a great missionary with a great attitude and he works hard and is very Christ-like) We had a miraculous day. It was soooo good. We had an amazing experience at dinner. The sister who fed us was a single mom of 5 (2 sets of twins!) and really struggling with a lot of things. Her kids don’t respect her and she is trying to get herself active in the church and everything. We read some of the Book of Mormon with her and she started crying and really opened up to us. She said something like, “I've got one foot in and one foot out and it's tearing me in half.” We testified of the scriptures and their power and it was such a spiritual experience. Nights like that are the reason I’m here. When you want to talk to God, pray. When you want to hear His voice, read the scriptures. I love the scriptures. We had a great night and I learned a lot from Elder Fahina.

FRIDAY! We had a District Leader training meeting and a Zone Training Meeting. Both were super good and I learned a lot of things I can do to improve.  I always want to be better. Then we continued our exchange, Elder Fahina and I. We visited a bunch of LA and had a really good night. With a PMF [part member family]we had an awesome lesson about the Book of Mormon. Want to have a good lesson? Teach the Book of Mormon! It's the best! I love it. It was a great day.

SATURDAY! We found out the transfer doctrine, Elder Johnson to Green Valley and me here in the 3pack. I’m excited. I've served in sooo many 3packs it’s kinda funny. We got a free box of donuts for trading in an ugly tie. We had a couple great street contacts. 

SUNDAY! Great day. A bunch of people at church. The A. family (our golden family) are being so well integrated. They have a group of friends and a support group and are progressing really well. We went out with a recent convert at night and talked with formers and stuff. It was a good experience but we didn’t get in anywhere. Just as we were about to call it a night we knocked on one more door that we already knocked on. The person we were looking for didn’t live there but a PMF did! Cool! They were super interested and we are going back soon.

We see so many miracles here.
The church is true. I know it.
I'm going to miss Elder Johnson but I'm pumped for a new chance to learn and grow.
I love you all so much
Sam

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