Well good morning again!
So, just finishing my burrito, my laundry is done, at least the whites,
and to make it a little less monotonous and boring, I figured I’d make a voice
mail while doing it. Oh. I also need to make my bed today. Ok!
Good to know. I’ll remember
that. And pick up some stuff in my room. Like, for the most part its fairly clean.
Most of the stuff is off the floor.
Except there’s a couple corners that I’m like eh…. I should probably clean
up, and it wouldn’t hurt to vacuum.
Anyways! Yeah. That’s life. I need to do that.
I wonder… If I’m going to be over here, I can probably set
this down right here. There we go. Okay!
Folding time. Slash hanging
time. I’m trying to think of eventful
stuff that has happened this week. Or
other eventful stuff… Well lets check
the area book.
(whistling) Signing in… Going through the 9000 hoops to
access the records…. Cause you know, privacy laws. Lots of peoples personal information is on
here. Splits this week. I went and taught the Bowmans with one of our
ward mission leaders. Super awesome guy.
Brother Hall. He served a mission
in Germany. Really fun to talk to. He
was telling me about one time that he had a companion that was from like southern/central
Utah, had a bit of a drawl, and had this giant purple bike. Just Purple, light purple bike. He’s like “You have a pink bike”. “No I don’t.
It’s pank.” But he was saying it
was just a really worn down bike, the poor kid had to hold the light that’s
normally supposed to be attached to the bike, he was holding it in his hand
while riding and somehow didn’t see… In
Germany, the street signs weren’t on the street, the bike path is attached to
the sidewalk in a sense, there’s a small gap between the bike path and the
sidewalk where they put the street signs.
And he said it was late at night and they were kind of rushing to an
appointment, and they weren’t paying attention too much to whether or not they
were staying in the bike lane, or the sidewalk, they were just kind of weaving
back and forth, no one is there, it’s night time, and they’re rushing to an
appointment. And his companion somehow
didn’t see the street sign and biked just right into this thing. Just “Boom!” He ended up actually denting the
sign, and like bent the whole sign at a 45 degree angle. Pole and
everything. He was a big kid. Brother Hall was telling us “ I never really
saw exactly what he hit, I knew he hit a sign.
But I was like ‘Get up! Get up! Get up!’” And he got back on his bike, his bike was
okay, and they continued to run down to the appointment and make it in time,
and he was telling me, “The whole lesson we kept asking if he was okay, like he
was really, really pale and he wasn’t saying much.” They offered him food or
water, but he just did not feel like taking any. Once they got home, he took
off his shirt and there were giant, giant welts, like waist up to his neck, his
whole face was turning purple. He said
he was totally fine and ended up recovering well, he just was… yeah. We were laughing at that with him.
We had a great lesson with the Bowmans, taught them the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, as part of their new member lessons. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is in essence just
the 4th Article of Faith, it’s just Faith, Repentance, Baptism,
Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. For them we made sure to talk a lot about the
Sacrament and the importance of it, and enduring to the end, like really
focusing on that, because they’ve had this lesson before and it’s simple. We
basically just try to get them to open up about how they’ve grown lately, like
say for faith, how they’ve exercised faith recently. We pointed out how being baptized for them
was an exercise in faith, and how they’ve kept the commandments of the
Lord. It was a really good lesson. So it’s a single mom, and her two kids that
were baptized. The mom, 18 year old
daughter, and a boy who is nine? I want to say? And they were baptized like
half a week before I got here. Super
great family. But Collin, he’s a nine
year old boy. He’s like not always
paying attention, or at least it looks like it.
And he’s kinda like lying down on the couch, they’re trying to get him
to sit up, and I’m just like “I was a nine year old boy once, I know what it’s
like. I ain’t gonna judge.” And at one point we asked the family a
question, like “What’s enduring to the end?”
Or something like that. And while
laying down, or no I think he kinda sat up a bit, he gives this answer, he’s
like “Well, we have to endure to the end, we have to increase our testimonies
every day in Christ and strive to do that otherwise we’re gonna fail” or
something like that, and I’m just like “What?!?! That came out of your mouth?!?
You’ve been paying attention?!?” And
everyone was shocked, I mean like, Brother Hall… He’s just like “What?!?” And
he’s like “Well I paid attention. I
don’t look like it, but I know everything you guys say.” I’m like “Oh my goodness Collin!” So he’s not getting off the hook now. Like we’d ask him questions the rest of the
time and he’d pretend not to hear us.
And we’re like “Collin we know you’re listening to us.” And he’s like “You’re right…” And he’d answer and give these amazing,
amazing answers.
Like I’ve had this experience time and time again. Primary kids – the Lord uses them. Their faith is just so pure and so
strong. They know things. Like I’m fairly certain I told you when I was
in Butte about the family, the Blakens, that their youngest daughter wanted to
get baptized, she was I think 8. Seven
or Eight when her grandmother started taking her to go to church. Like, the
family would go to church every now and then, or the kids would at least. Mom wasn’t active, and dad wasn’t a
member. And this little daughter wanted
to get baptized, so she made sure she would go to church every week. Including when her grandmother couldn’t take
her. The days that her grandmother
couldn’t take her, she’d go and wake up her mom and say “Hey mom, can you take
me to church?” And she’s 8! And her mom
would say “Okay, well go get yourself showered and dressed and then come wake
me up.” You know thinking, that she’s 8 so she’ll get distracted and forget
about it and stuff. And she’d
immediately reply to her mom, “I already am.”
She already got herself up, dressed, changed, showered, and then woke
her mom up in time to take her to church.
Over time through baring testimony to her family, and getting them to
take her to church every week, she got her siblings and her mom all active
again, and we’d be sitting down in lessons with her dad and she pretty much got
her dad to be “Hey. You need to listen to these guys.” And of course her mom coming back, and
feeling the spirit, and they worked on the dad, and he’s awesome. I don’t think he’s baptized yet, but I know
he’s getting close. He knows it’s true,
he’s just struggling to give up stuff.
You know, having a cold beer at the end of the day, or … It’s hard.
I get it. But this 8 year old
girl got her whole family reactivated.
And to the point where… Her testimony is just fantastic. We’d be sitting down to the lesson, and we’d
ask a question, and she’d just raise her hand, and just give the most profound
doctrinal answer, just so pure and so faithful.
I’m like “Oh my goodness.” The spirit
would be so strong every time she spoke, because she KNEW the gospel was true.
She had no doubts. And so I have a
testimony of kids and Collin was just an amazing example of that this week.
How long has this been?
Only 10 minutes, ok. Immediately
I can’t think of anything else. Did some service this week. Got to help out a
guy named Chris. We’ve been doing
service for him about every other week and helping him out. This week we laid down some irrigation pipe
again, he fed us lunch. He always does
amazing, amazing food. Oh yeah, we de-weeded a lot of his green house. Which considering how hot it was here, like I
thought about getting a greenhouse back home so I could grow some fun trees,
like banana trees, and I’m like, “No.” I don’t want to be de-weeding in a
greenhouse, if it’s this hot here, I
don’t even want to know how hot it would be in Arizona. But yeah.
Had a great time helping him out.
That’s about it I think for this week. I committed myself. I’m going to make an email, even if it’s
short. So expect one from me. Follow up
with me. We’ll be busy most of the day
so it will probably be in the morning while we’re driving or something. Or as
we’re driving back. I’ll type out something.
But I won’t have a lot of time to be in wifi today, so that’s probably
what I will be doing.
Love you, have a
wonderful day. May the Lord bless you
and keep you. Bye.
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