Hello my wonderful family!
So I want to jump straight into my experiences this past week! So on my preparation day last week it was very relaxing! I watched the Joseph Smith movie and wrote some letters and then cleaned a little! Yep, relaxing! As soon as my preparation time was over I then ran around looking for some people to find and teach and Elder Jones and I ran to Brother Murphy’s home. Brother Murphy is a less active member who is also a double amputee! It was very humbling to meet him and to talk about faith in our trials, he has been struggling since his wife died and then he lost his legs so things have been very hard for him! I am planning to go back this week and check up on him and see how he is doing! Well, on Tuesday, after study, I had lunch with a Pastor of a congregation here in town, I cant remember if he ever told me which church he preaches for or if he is Baptist or if he is Methodist but we had lunch with him at his home. After lunch we made a rather successful transition to talk on religion and we then spent two hours with him doing a question and answer session on our beliefs and on his! It was very rewarding for me because its not every day or with every missionary that he or she gets to let a preacher of a different church know what we believe! I bore strong testimony and he made us a promise that he will read and pray about the Book of Mormon because he said that he doesn’t like to live life as a ‘closed book’ and that he wants to meet again next Tuesday! Elder Jones and I have a suspicion that he is trying to Save us so he wants to keep meeting so we will se what happens! Also on Tuesday I was able to meet with a nice younger women who has a very remarkable story: we were told by her and the Bishop that a couple of Wednesdays ago she was working at her shop and she then went over to Sonic for no reason, but when she got there her car was having troubles and it wouldn’t start, so after another frustration which added to multiple that same day she just decided to start walking, she had had a very hard day and she was not sure what to do so she just started walking, she said that she was just fallowing her feet and when the sidewalk ended she looked up and she was at the door or the Church!!! It was a on a Wednesday so there were people there for mutual so she walked in and asked a young boy where she was, he told her where she was and he then took her to the Bishop! So we got a call from the Bishop after talking with her and he told us her story and we were able to meet with her and her sister last Tuesday for the first time! J we had a very good lesson on the Restoration of the Gospel and she says that she believes it all happened without a doubt! I am very excited for her yet a little skeptical and I will let you know why later! So that brings me to Wednesday, well on Wednesday I started my day off with six hours worth of service for the Habitat for Humanity crew, we were working on the foundation of a new house so Austin, I am building a house from the ground up! Hehe! Well after working with them and after some study time I then ran over to a less active family and I trimmed their trees in their front yard, as a reward they fed me some delicious chicken Catchatori! And then comes Thursday, Thursday was also a day of service, after volunteering at a non-prophet shelter for a couple of hours we were then recruited by the bishop to help him move a piano! After that I then had another lesson with Crystal, well actually we had a lesson after a rather exciting tour of her tattoo shop, she forgot about our lesson so we had to run to her shop to try and catch her so we got to meet her husband who is a very nice man, he is very very nice and they are both prime investigators to the gospel! So after taking a quick, yet kind of awkward, tour of their tattoo shop she came with us to the church and we had a fantastic lesson with her! She is the closest investigator we have to baptism and her husband wants to meet with us very much! So it has been a wonderful testimony for me when thinking about who is ready to receive the gospel and the places we will all go to spread the word! We have another lesson planned with her tonight so wish me luck! So on Friday we had district meeting and then we went on exchange, one of the Spanish elders from a neighboring area came with me to Roanoke and I got to drive for the first time on my mission! Thank you for sending me my license and my driving record! Did you get my letter? So on Friday I had actually set up a dinner appointment with a less active member who is from Puerto Rico, so we had a lesson and dinner with him and his Spanish speaking niece so that went very well, Elder Sanchez has been out for 16 months and speaks fluent Spanish! After dinner we then ran to another member’s house and we destroyed her jungle, we weeded and hacked at her plants in her back yard! We are going back to her house this Friday so we can finish! And that brings me to Saturday! Well actually not much happened on Saturday, we had a surprise lesson with the Grandmother of an investigator who wasn’t home so that went well! We have a return appointment for this Tuesday! And then we held a weekly planning session and some contact calls and the adult session of stake conference which we only saw a small portion of cause of computer issues, so a slow day compared to the others. And then Sunday! Sunday was stake conference and my mission president and his wife bore their testimonies so it was an excellent meeting! I love how stake conference and ward meetings and everything else still holds in store the same experiences and the same organization! It is very exciting! And then I went to bed and then I woke up this morning! Today we have a lesson planned with Crystal and we are heading over to the home of a youth here who wants to play basketball and ping pong with us so that will be exiting! And those are my experiences, things have been picking up and getting better here and they only seem to be improving! Wish me luck on my continued success and I love you all so very much!
