Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Josiah's deutoronomuic reform of the temple

Wassup! 
I love you guys all so much. Thanks for being the best.
This has been a great week. I'm so tired, but so happy. 

MONDAY! We had a sick LESSON of the RESTORATION with a new FAMILY of INVESTIGATORS! How SICK is that? (Maybe I'll type like this for increased skimmability). They were SUPER INTERESTED and asked a lot of GREAT QUESTIONS. It was really hopeful. They have gone to CHURCH twice before this and are super solid. It is a family from Mexico, a young couple with their three kids. They are all SO NICE. They are the really close friends of a MEMBER in our ward. It was pretty cool because the member family was super excited to give us the "referral" so that was neat to see. And the lesson went so well. After the lesson we stopped in on a member to see how they were doing and they said, “ oh wow we were just thinking how we probably should have done family home evening and then you showed up!” So they made us read a scripture and then they made us helote (corn on the cob with all sorts of toppings) and crepes. Pretty good trade if you ask me, I get to read the scriptures AND eat? Nice. The members love us and its super cool. I try hard to be likeable and not a jerk but I don’t deserve the treatment. Not complaining!
Again lemme stress how great life is here. I've never had so much fun, and worked so hard, and given so much and gained so much. It's dope.

TUESDAY! Another great day. Like the 200th in a row or something. We had interviews with President Neider! While we waited for out turn, Sister Neider trained us on how to give the first lesson. The best part for me was this: “Think about you and a friend coming home after a long day of rabbit hunting. You meet up with a group of friends and sit on the couch and someone asks you how it went. Are you going to sit and be bored and boring? NO! You're going to be excited and happy and engaging.”  I thought about that for a long time. Because I definitely love the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and all this stuff more than I like killing innocent rabbits all day. So I should be at least that excited! It’s hard to explain. But I think you all get the point. I don’t think I'm a boring teacher but I could maybe be more energetic. My interview with President was great too. Later that day we taught a lesson to an old woman who doesn’t have a ride to church and is always busy but reads the scriptures a lot. She was so sweet and talked about her studies with us. Later in the night we visited a member who had just had a stroke a few days earlier but seems totally fine now. The doctor couldn't explain why he was so healthy. We had a cool time with him talking about that and we taught him how to consecrate oil and give blessings. He was so grateful to us. He has had the oil and the priesthood and hasn't been able to give his family blessings until now.

WEDNESDAY! We had DM[district meeting]. It was pretty good. It was about planning and I did a better job than last week, but not as good as I want to do this week. It’s really tough to train. It’s hard to explain over email but it’s difficult to give a good 'training'. It's not like giving a talk because it’s based around practicing the skill to use. AP [Assistant to the President] Elder Fisher was there and gave me some critiques and some compliments which I liked a lot. He's an awesome missionary. I'd love to be his companion and just soak up his vast amount of missionary skills and knowledge. We had a lesson which flaked so we had some time to talk to a bunch of people which I loved. Just as we were about to peace out we saw a family moving and we jumped in to help. 1st move of the week. They were super grateful and we were able to share the gospel a little bit too. But it was most awesome because I don't know how they were planning on carrying a lot of their stuff without Elder Johnson's muscles. I love helping people. Later after dinner the member told us how tired she was so we convinced her to let us do the dishes really quick. That made her pretty happy. Then we taught a lesson to a recent convert family. It was super cool. We just talked about the conversion process and they shared cool stories with us. We also got to hear about how they met in Mexico which was pretty cute. Long story short - Love at first sight at a huge communion party. Didn't get a chance to talk. Found each other again later by accident. Got married at the same place they 1st saw each other - still in love more than 40 years later. Awwwww. Anyway. Then we taught a sick lesson about the Word of Wisdom to Carolina (the super solid investigator) that went super well. She committed herself to going to church which was the only thing holding her back from baptism. She'd been hit by "anti" stuff a bunch since she started telling everyone about her baptism but she was fine. 

THURSDAY! It rocked too! We were talking to people and saw a family moving and we helped them and just as we gave them the information of the English missionaries, a member of the ward called and asked for our help in helping him move out too! 2nd and 3rd moves of the week. It was good. There were a bunch of members there to help and it was a good time with the ward. They tried to pay us like 50 bucks. I don’t like getting offered money. I also don’t like when people ask for our papers to sign. I'm doing this because I love you and want to help you! But oh well. We had some really good visits with members that day and then had another lessons with our SICK AWESOME FAMILY OF PEOPLE THAT WANT TO GET BAPTIZED! It was a good lesson focused on the Book of Mormon.

FRIDAY! Another great day. It was our planning day but for some reason we felt that we should go out for a little bit before we planned. We walked outside and there was a family packing up and moving. So we stopped to help them. The woman was so, so, so happy. When she saw us she said "Oh! The Mormons ain’t so bad after all!" We worked hard and fast and kept a good attitude and by the end she opened up a lot to us. She was telling us that she thought we were bad people and stuff like that but now she has completely changed her mind. She told us about her struggles with racism here in Vegas (she's black) and all the threats and things. She was having a horrible day and was really depressed and didn't know how to keep going on. But then we showed up! We were an answer to her prayers. She like praised the goodness of God for like 5 minutes with us which was pretty cool. She said "I want you to know that you are doing God's work and you are his angels." It was bomb! I thought she was going to hug and kiss us which kinda freaked me out. Then when we rejected the money I thought she was going to have a heart attack! She said, “You know what? When I get to California, I'm going to the Mormon church.”  She asked for our card and number and stuff. We helped her not only be happy but to have a huge change of heart. 4th move of the week. We taught a lesson to a PMF [part member family]which was pretty good. They opened up to us a lot when we told them that we didn't want to push him in the font.  We are there to first help him build his faith in Jesus Christ. They told us some good stories and he ended by saying that when he’s ready he'll get baptized. Worst part of the day? Carolina dropped us over text. Like I mentioned earlier she'd been getting antied hard core. Like all her friends trying to convince her not to go and sending her to crazy sites on the internet. So she got fed up with all the mess and texted us and said that she doesn’t want to get baptized. It was horrible. She texted us one of the links she visited and we had a member go on it for us. It's just some mean, mean, not true stuff. It’s sad. She was sad. We were sad. BUT! We haven't given up on her. She'll come back eventually. We know that she knows it’s true. She's just confused with all the crap she's been hearing.

SATURDAY! We did our planning today. Then we taught a lesson about The Book of Mormon which was sick. Then we went to a baptism in LOS FELIZ FOR JUAN PABLO!!!! I got to see all missionaries from back there. That rocked. But most important JP got baptized:) :) :) I was so happy. I also got to see the ward leaders which was cool too.

SUNDAY! Great fast and testimony. Great lessons at church. Then we helped another family move. 5th of the week!!!! We were sooo exhausted by then also bc we were fasting. Then we went to a Spanish fireside and our AWESOME family went!

Such a good week!@!!!!! 
:) 
I love you all so much.
Sam

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