Alright, well good mornin’. My companion, I love him to death. He’s a great guy. Hard worker, um, yeah. Things around here have been going great,
we’ve been already seeing some miracles happen lately. We’ve been teaching the Bowman family, they
are a recent convert family. They are
starting to slack a little bit on reading, which is, I mean, we all do
that. One of them is starting to drink
iced tea again. And we’re like, “Hey
guys, come on!” So we had this great
like spiritual pow wow lesson. Read the
book of Mormon, and taught the word of wisdom, and they’re like “You’re right!”
and re-committed. It was great. We had that last night.
So far we’ve had another lesson with Jacob, he’s our
progressing investigator right now. He’s the grandson of an active member, he’s
from Salt Lake City, Utah. He goes back
in about a month, month and a half. And
we asked him yesterday, we were “So, you’ve been taught the gospel of Jesus
Christ,” and the grandfather was very clear in the beginning that we were not
to push him to be baptized. And we’re like, “Okay. Yeah.”
We don’t try to push anyone but, yeah, we made sure to be extra careful.
He’s like “If you two won’t do what I want, I’ll find some other missionaries
who will.” We’re like “okay.” (laughs)
So we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ yesterday- Faith, Repentance,
Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. And when we got to baptism, we’re like “So,
this is the purpose of it, these are the blessings of it, this is why we need
it.” We shared the scripture about “Except a man be born of water and the
spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And you know, talked about
it and we’re like “So, our goal here is to help others come closer to
Christ. This is something that WILL do
that. So when you know that all this is true, will you be baptized?” And he’s
like “I’m already one step ahead of you, I’m hoping to get my answer…” He’s
hoping to really know that this is all true, at the very least by the last
week, before he leaves, and then get baptized on that Saturday, get the Gift of
the Holy Ghost on that Sunday. We’re like, “That’s awesome! Okay!” I had a
great lesson with him though, he’s funny.
Love him to death, he’s 18 and we might be going to the YSA FHE (Young
Single Adult Family Home Evening) with him tonight. So that will be an adventure. It’s over in Lolo and one of the guys here
might be giving a ride.
Funny story, there’s a guy here, Lane, his mother and sister
are less active and we’ve been teaching.
Super, super awesome lady, and by the time I got here she was pretty
much active again. But to see the
progress she’s made and it’s gotten to the point where almost every lesson we
have with her, she like puts in her testimony of the gospel. And she’s like “Oh it just brings me so much
peace with these little rascals I got.”
She’s a mom trying to balance a job, and two really young kids, like 7
and 2. And she has a husband, but he’s
gone a lot, well working and… she’s just super hilarious. Loving working with her. Kinda reminds me a bit of you actually.
Personality wise. (laughs) Yeah. She
loves to sew except hates working with certain fabrics, she calls them her
“S.H.I.T. fabrics.” She spells it out too. That’s written on the box, in her
garage. She refuses to work with tulle or anything with tons of glitter on
it. She has this one that she just HATES
that she had to use for a dress one time.
It’s this super glittery tulle actually.
She was saying, she’s like, “Yeah the mom asked me to make this dress
for her daughter, it was a Christmas present, they had just done a lot for me,
so of course I was going to do it.” But
she’s like, “Man, at least I can sleep well knowing that that dress is still
pooping glitter all over their house.”
(laughs) She’s like, “I hated that thing.” She’s great. And anyways, Lane is, he reactivated himself,
or with some missionaries when he was in college. He’s just a little older than me, I think
he’s 21. Or about that age. 20, 21. Went
to college over in Missoula, and basically got in with the missionaries and
they reactivated him as well with a couple of other people. And he was
attending a YSA ward over there. Now
he’s preparing to go on a mission. Like
as in his papers are almost in, and he’s getting stuff taken care of that he
needs to do, and come to find out, he has two unpaid traffic tickets. One he didn’t even know he had, and one that
he had completely forgotten about, and they are both in Great Falls so he went
to court this weekend to pay them off, but its been so long that they
classified him as evading the law. And
here in Montana the only way to pay that off is with you pay a fine, pay the
tickets, and then also you have to do two nights in jail, but because the
judge’s secretary or something is Mormon, you know, he goes up, and he’s
pleading his case, and he’s like “I’m just trying to get this taken care of,
I’m trying to go on an LDS mission…” And the judge kinda smiles at the guy and
goes, “Okay, actually we are going to put you last. Come back in in an hour.” And he goes “What? Okay. Crap.”
Thinking that they are going to wreck him. They got through everyone else that they
needed to get through that day, and then apparently talked, and the judge asked
exactly what a mission was, what the requirements were, what kind of a person
you have to be like, he talked to the secretary and then he came back in and
he’s like “So we decided to drop one of your tickets, and basically drop that
extra fine, but because of the law we can’t drop those two days in jail on that
other ticket.” And he’s like “Crap,
okay. So, what do I do?” And they are like, “Well, there is a way
around it. We can do two days in house
arrest, but you have to be here in this county.” And so he has an aunt there, so he just spent
the weekend up there with an ankle bracelet.
And he’s like, he’s a sweet, funny guy, would never really do anything
wrong, but he’s forgetful. Kinda reminds
me a bit of myself in a way. Probably
not as forgetful as I am though. I’m
just picturing him, trying to do everything right, preparing to go on a
mission, just got his mother reactivated and now he’s under house arrest for a
couple of days. I’m like, “Oh, I hope I
learn that lesson from him and never have to do that…” So yeah, that was that.
Oh! There was
something I was going to tell you about, I wrote it down… lets see… utilities,
google keep…. Things to tell family about.
Oh yes! So there’s this member
here, Brother Augusto, love Brother Augusto, he’s a hoot. He’s about 60-65, he’s retired, but he’s the
main fellowshipper for one of our investigators, and in fact we’ve never met,
because Elder Johnson always saw him on exchanges. But we went over to his house the other day
to talk to him, get to know Brother Augusto and see what we could do about
Jess, because neither of us have met him.
And we’re talking about missions and such and we found out that he
served in the Gilbert Arizona mission. Well, not the Gilbert Arizona mission,
the Arizona Mission back when he was my age.
It covered Arizona and part of New Mexico, a bit of Nevada, and some of
California, and I’m like “Holy Cow!” And he was telling me, he was like “You know,
you’re from Gilbert, I remember back then, it’s a small town.” And I’m like, “Uhhh, sure?” And he’s like, “Yeah, you had some Mormons
there, there was a nice branch when I was there.” And I’m like “There was a branch?!?! You served in Gilbert when
there was just a branch?” And I’m
sitting there, “Well we just made another new Stake…I don’t know if it’s 5 or 6
stakes, but about that.” (Nick was
wrong, current count is 11 stakes) And I mean, he would just not believe me.
Like, “No Way!” And I’m also like, “We have a temple.” I showed him pictures of
it and he was just about to go into tears.
It was really a touching moment as he was seeing how this valley had
grown. And to think that the area he had served in was just a small
branch. I’m like trying to think of it
compared to Boulder. A small, small
farming community, explodes into this amazing place with the gospel. And we got just talking about the importance
of missions and I just couldn’t help but think that I’m certain that the work
he did there, because he spent a bit there, definitely helped to prepare the
valley for the gospel. The Lord always has a plan for us even if we don’t see
it. He never knew that Gilbert was going
to explode and turn into this whole giant valley with a temple and Stakes
and… He was telling his wife, and he
told us this when I took Elder Hand over, and he’s like “Yeah, I told her that
Gilbert had like 5 stakes and she thought that you were mistaken and that you
meant 5 wards. She could see that, but she’s like ‘Stakes??’ and I’m like
‘yeah…’” So that was kinda cool to see.
Let’s see also ‘Cleaning’…. I don’t know what that is. I guess while Elder Johnson was packing,
that’s right I deep cleaned the house. You can’t tell now because I discovered tons
of clutter that had just been like thrown… We absorbed another, Stevensville
used to be two areas, and they closed down one of the areas and the apartment,
and we absorbed all of that apartment’s stuff. And so we have tons of stuff, including like a
futon with a mattress and a box spring on top of it, and apparently they had
thrown just tons of stuff underneath this futon. You know, trash and all this
stuff, and so I was cleaning, and I lifted it up to sweep or something and I
discovered all this stuff. Supplies, a radio, a CD player… And I’m like okay,
well let’s take all this stuff out and organize it, throw away a bunch of
trash… piles of clothes… get rid of this… that’s kinda that. I don’t know why… Yeah, so I wrote that. It was a bit of an adventure this week.
Pretty much packed all day Tuesday, that was a bit, I don’t
know, yeah. That happened.
Our pilot lights keep going out on our stove. We’re going to buy a lighter today. So, all the windows have been open around our
kitchen, thankfully it’s like, the kitchen is a small space and it like… In our
house… I mean, it’s a small kitchen, but it’s kind of a box and on two sides of
this box there’s windows that open and there’s a big opening into the living
room/kitchen table and chairs where we have other windows that can open, so
we’ve been kind of ventilating it, but when you walk by the stove you smell
gas. That’s a thing. The small little pilot light isn’t as bad as
the other one though, the main one underneath the stove for the oven went out,
and that was oh you could just always smell it.
It was bad. We just got to go buy
a lighter and wave it over the thing and light it.
I’m trying to think, so we haven’t met with Amanda again,
she was busy this week, but we have a lesson with her next week.
Oh yeah, I never responded to your email of your
hypothetical situation. So in that
hypothetical situation, I would totally be fine speaking the next day. So, yeah.
I got an email from Bishop Hixon this week. That was really nice to get. It’s kinda weird to picture him as my bishop,
but at the same time, it totally feels right.
I can just see him as the most loving bishop ever. People are like, “What is your ward and stake
like back home?” And I’m like, “I don’t
know! I’ve never been!” I guess I have been in the Spectrum ward, I’m assuming
it’s about the same. But I’m like, “I
really don’t even know my Stake President. I’ve heard he’s a really great guy.”
But, yeah.
The wards here are super small, like the overflow never gets
opened. I’ve seen it happen like once at
a stake conference, or another time when a general authority came. It just
ain’t the valley.
My companion is from Northern Florida, right on the border,
kinda right by Georgia. He’s a redneck,
as we established last night. I called
him a Southern Hick, and he went “No. I ain’t no trailer trash, I’m a
redneck.” I’m like, “okay.” A back woods
redneck. He’s got a giant Confederate
flag that he hangs up. He’s just
awesome. He’s hilarious. I love him to death.
How long has this been going on? 15 minutes.
I’m probably going to pause it here, I don’t have too much to say right
now, I don’t want to just ramble on, especially since I know that you get
really busy. I hope you have a wonderful
day, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and have a great day at work. I wonder, does Madison get these too? I
might send one to her and see how she’s doing.
Cause I feel bad. I just don’t
want to type emails. I really don’t
anymore. I type an email to president, I
try to respond to you, and then like all my energy is just gone as far as
writing emails go. But I sent a weekly
out last week, I’ll try to do that again this week.
Did you read Elder
Basham’s email last week? It was super
good. It was kind of a kick to the gut
for me, I’m like, “You’re right. I need
to write weeklies.” So I related a bit
to that email, and I’m just like, “okay, Elder Basham. I love you.
You are just a great freaking example and a stud.” How amazing is it just to think of Liam, or
Elder Basham and his, just where he is now and the kind of person he is. I love reading his emails. You probably don’t
ever read them, I don’t even know if you get them. But this last transfer he was saying how he
has a hard companion right now, and he’s like “You know, I’ve kind of fallen in
a trap where I’ve been just like doing things that are more, or just like given
in.” His companion would like, I don’t
know that this is exactly what it is, but he wrote “things that are more
entertaining than doing missionary work.”
From experience here, there are missionaries that would like set up a
movie with a less active something and go watch it. And he’s like “Now I’m learning the joys of
standing up for what I know is right, even if it means standing alone.” I thought of Gordon B Hinkley’s talk, and Elder
Basham, Such A Stud. I mean, he even
gave up his thing over at ASU, he’s going to BYU, doesn’t want to be around
that influence. I’m just like, “I have
so much respect for you. You’re
awesome.” He’s grown so much, and I…
He’s awesome.
Umm, oh! I freaking lost my copy of the Book of Mormon. That one that I was marking in. The Doctrine of Christ read through. I got up to Alma, and I lost it. I’m still continuing to go through, except
this time in just my quad, just marking stuff that sticks out to me that day,
and studying for my investigators. Not
starting over, I still want to go through, at least finish it another time on
my mission, but I’m hoping it will turn up.
Cause I was really proud of that so far.
All the tabs, and all the markings, and like, that sucks. I think it’s at the church somewhere. The last time I saw it was, let’s see we had
Amanda, then dinner, then we had basketball at the church, and then we went to
a brief active member lesson with the Vrues (sp?). We’ve checked with the Vrue’s and dinner, I
guess I haven’t checked with Amanda. We
sorta checked the church, I want to check there again just in case. So like we didn’t go too many places that
day. At least that evening. I KNOW I had it before. So yeah, I’m sure it
will turn up. I doubt I have evil
goblins following me around “Ha ha, I have his book of Mormon.” If worse comes to worst and someone finds it,
they’ll be blessed by it I’m sure. We were
just told of a story of a guy in our ward, he served a mission in… he was our
ward mission leader, he served in Germany.
He had his quad and everything, really nice, that he had lost, like
right before he went home. So at that
point when they had discussions, he had his quad all marked up and perfect for
all the discussions and color coded, so he could just flip to any scripture he
felt prompted to, he could see tabs on the side. It was all marked up with two years of
annotations and notes, he loved it and lost it. Their car got broken into. No,
it wasn’t our ward mission leader because it was in California. Their car got
broken into. That’s right, because he
said they were in the city and everything was always getting broken into. So I don’t know who it was then, but it was
in our ward. But, some time goes by,
he’d been home about like 18 months, when he gets this picture in the mail,
with a letter, of this family of a kid
who’d been walking. Basically this guy
broke into the car and stole everything including this bag that he had with his
scriptures and everything in it, and so he lost that. Well this kid was walking by a dumpster and
found this set of scriptures. In Spanish. Picked it up, and since it was a
Spanish speaking mission in California, they were Spanish Scriptures. And so he read it. Or started reading
it. He took it home and his whole family
were like “woah!” They read it a bit,
but just kinda forgot about it, but they knew it was special and later
missionaries knocked on their door, and they let the missionaries in and they
started teaching and asked them “Can we give you some scriptures to read?” And upon seeing these missionaries with these
nice quads they have, they’re like, “Oh, well we already have one of
those.” And the missionaries are like,
“No, these are kinda special, you probably wouldn’t have some like this.” “Well
yes we do.” And went to the back room
and grabbed them with this other Elder’s name on it. And they are like
“Oh. You do.” And the family ended up getting
baptized. And they contacted the mission
president and got this old missionary’s contact information, and mailed the
picture and a letter to him.
Yeah. There’s that
random side story. I should probably
finish this so I can still send it off. Twenty- Two minutes, yeah. Love
you. Hope you have a wonderful day, bye!
No comments:
Post a Comment