I honestly don't even remember what happened this week, it seems like a very long blur. Last week we had a cold front come in and I think I caught a cold from that this week. One plus side to this all was that I got to take cold medicine which made me sleep like a baby...no I'm not addicted, I just like good a good night rest.
Tuesday was a fun day, we had our zone training and then after that all we did was go and doing the departing devotional stuff with President and Sister Smith. We only had 2 missionaries leaving but we still got to go to a really good restaurant..Genghis Grill. On Wednesday we sent them off on the airplane and then had a lesson with a recent convert that moved here from California. This lady is a saint, I only wish that I can be as dedicated as her one day. She has a disease and had to go to California for three weeks and she has studied so much. When she left she was just going through the Book of Mormon and was in 3 Nephi somewhere. On Wednesday she told us that she had finished the Book of Mormon and is now in the 88 section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Everyday she reads the Book of Mormon, DC, and something from the Latter day prophets. This is the same lady that had a daughter die right before she was baptized.
I went on a tradeoff with the Pensacola zone leaders this week and I love that zone, my old stomping grounds. I heard about the FSU shooting that day and I was hoping all of the campus missionaries were ok. Other than that we have been in our area trying to find more people to teach, it has been really hard the past two weeks for some reason, we have some good potentials but we really need to broaden our teaching pool. No sermon on the mount today for y'all...mostly because there are no mounts here to teach on but I just hope everyone reflects on the blessings they've received this week. Love and miss y'all, all is well!
What a busy week! I feel like Elder McPherson left about a month ago but in reality it was only 9 days ago. The major events of this week seem almost like a blur to me. We are changing the way we do our tradeoffs with the zone leaders and so this week was our trial run with that. Normally Elder Sorenson and I would have driven all the way to Mobile and do 2 tradeoffs at once, blitzing their area and then moved to Pensacola and Fort Walton after that. Now we have to meet in the middle and go back to our respective areas, boy does it give us more time to work in our area. With us making a goal to be at the missionary standard for lessons taught in a week, we have been working our hinny's off! We were well on our way to the goal we set for the week but a ton of lessons dropped, more than the usual. You could say that was discouraging, which at first it was but I think we can keep our spirits high. To try and kick start our area we have been doing this lesson with members about examples and relating it to a pumpkin...I won't go into detail about that but I promise its good! We talk about being an example to others by setting our pumpkins on the porch and not in the back room (Matthew 5:15). We then talk to them about referrals and how in all reality missionaries ask for referrals to keep it on the members minds. We understand that if members already had a referral, they wouldn't wait until we asked to give it to us..therefore. We commit them to pray as a family that night for a less active family or area we can go and contact and then we would follow up with them, we've seen great results from this!
Not too many events happened this week. President and sister Smith had their mission president seminar up in Atlanta so he was out of the mission for half of the week, it made our schedule a little busier but he's back now! There are a couple of missionaries leaving this week and so one of them have been staying with us this past week, I love trio life! I was invited to sing a duet for the stake priesthood preview yesterday and that went really well! All of our investigators are a work in progress right now, we really need to find more, please pray for us! We have been super busy all week, one thing Ive learned as I've thought about it is this. Idleness is always not talked to highly of in the scriptures and so I've always tried to stay busy on my mission; however, not having a purpose in your life is no better than being idle. You can work as hard as you want but you'll be going in circles. I love the holiday season, it never feels like it here because it is warm but the spirit of Christmas is still here. I don't know about other missionaries but I love to milk the season! All is well and I love yah!
Another crazy week in the books! Im happy, healthy, loving my mission but boy am I tired!! I feel like we have been all over the place this last week! This email is probably going to be all over the place and hard to understand so I'm just going to apologize in advance.
Last week was Family History week! We kept track of appointments set up using family history. All of the missionaries in the tally zones met up at the stake center and we played dodge ball! We split up into districts and got matched up against the other districts! My team did a black out!! We killed everyone! My team won and all of our games were super fast! It wasn't even close! The trophy was a big FSU flag and we wrote our District name on it, the dates. We get to keep it till next dodge ball tournament! We will have one every transfer and who ever wins get the flag and takes it to district meetings. Tuesday we had district meeting and after the meeting we played volleyball as a district. We then went and picked up all of the new missionaries! They always look so young and innocent! Im sure thats how i looked when i came in! That night all of the missionaries who will be training this transfer came into Tallahassee and will stay the night with missionaries here in tally! All of the new Elders stayed in the mission home and we dropped all the new Sisters off at a hotel!
Wednesday morning we got up and went and trained all the trainers how to be good trainers! I always feel a little bit awkward there because I've never really trained, Im pumped to when Im done being an assistant though. The meeting went really well! After that was all done, those missionaries loaded up and headed to their areas! As for us it was just the start of a long long day!! We loaded up our mini van, the transfer van and its trailer, and the pickup and trailer! We headed over to Crestview, Florida. We got there and everyone who was getting transferred met up and we got everyone into the chapel and started announcing where they will be serving and who they will be with! It was a lot of fun being up on the stand and getting to see everyones faces when you announce where they will be going. I got to see Elder Clayton for the first time since I left Mobile so it was a nice reunion. It was fun! Then we loaded up and headed back to Tally! We brought all of the departing missionaries back in our cars and it was fun! There was 25 missionaries going home this transfer, they were all really good missionaries!
We got a call from President the next morning and he said that we need to make some changes to the transfer already, that has to be a record or something! He had some missionaries saying that they were going to go home so we had to make some changes! Elder Sorenson and I went to work and taught a few lessons and Elder McPherson and Elder Condie ( he stayed with us, he's going home with Elder McPherson) worked with President in the office! It was a wild and stressful day!! That night we met up and President Smiths house and had the departing Devotional!
Friday we had another missionary stay with us! So we had Elder McPherson, Kray and Condie all staying with us! Friday morning we woke up, had breakfast at the mission home and loaded everyone's luggage up and headed to the airport! It was a sad day! We had to send them off! It was hard saying goodbye to Elder McPherson! A lot of weight just dropped on Elder Sorenson and my shoulders! But we got this! We then had to set up for Elder Soares coming into town so we did that for the rest of the day!
Saturday morning President Smith met the Jacksonville mission president half way to pick up Elder Soares! He had a meeting with The Stake Presidents, Bishops, and Ward Mission Leaders in our area and we were able to be present for the training because we were the tech support! We originally had planned to do the training in the chapel and about an hour before Elder Soares asked us to change it to the gym...but there was one problem. There was a baptism going on so we only got 1/3rd of the gym. we smashed 40 missionaries plus President and Sister Smith, Elder Soares and our mission president Councilors all in that little tiny area(free throw line down)! Oh and a piano, projector and screen! Elder Soares and President instructed us and it was great! I learned a lot of really powerful things! They talked a lot about goals, and desires! It was really neat! Elder Soares had Elder Sorenson and I walk with him to the car after the meeting and he challenged us to be baptizing a convert once a month and be teaching 25 Investigator/less active/recent convert lessons a week to set the example to the mission! Wow! We are teaching on average about 6-9 lessons a week! So we are going to have to step our game up! But Elder Soares had complete confidence in us! So i know we can do it! Please pray for us! He also wants up to be bringing all of the zone leaders to our area when we do exchanges! Instead of us both going to their areas! We will now meet halfway and one set will come back and work our area and one will go work theirs! This is going to make our transfers so much busier! But i think its going to be great! Im excited for this new challenge! I love and miss y'all...just a heads up because it'll come super fast..start thinking about goals for next year.
We had a good week! We had a lot of work to do with transfers!
Tuesday we had district meeting, then went up to Presidents house and did the conference call for the mission, then had lunch, we had cafe rio burritos, she's such a great cook! We had a super good talk about how they got called and the trials they have had to overcome as they have been out here! It's amazing how strong of faith they both have! I have learned so much from their examples! It's a great privilege to be able to be around them so much! We then all gathered in a room and had a projector set up on the wall! We pulled up all the missionaries in our mission and where they are right now and who they are with! Then we talk about concerns we had with certain missionaries and struggles they are having! President has some people already moved around so we look at that and tell him how we feel about the moves! Then we jump into it! We start dragging and dropping them in different areas with different companions and talk about everything! How the work is, if they are obedient, how they will get along, who is going to be zone leaders, sister training leaders, district leaders, who's going to be training! We take everything into account! Its fun, but also sorta stressful! Know this missionaries out in the field....if you are obedient you can be placed anywhere and with anyone in the mission, if you are disobedient you can't go just anywhere. Its so amazing how it works! That night we had homemade Pizza! So good! Then we got to watch "Meet the Mormons" It was really good! The church sent President a copy and we are going to be watching it at our Christmas devotional! But we got a sneak peak cause it was Elder McPherson's birthday present! All of it was so good, the last section tugged on my heart a bit but all in all it was great.
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While we were working on Transfers on Wednesday President got a call from Salt Lake informing him that Elder Soares of the Presidency of the Seventy will be coming to our mission on the 8th! So we got that thrown on us with short notice!! But it will be great, We will be having a MLC with him! After we worked on the transfer board we broke out our bikes and rode to some members houses! I haven't rode for a long time and the road we were riding on was hilly, I was worn out! We came back showered and went over the The Pattons and had dinner and a lesson with Celine! We talked about the who, what, why and how of Patriarchal blessings!
Thursday we taught Derrick! We have been teaching him for awhile and he's making some progress, slow but steady. We then went to the Merkisons! We carved pumpkins there with their little kids! It was actually really fun! Then we taught a lesson using the pumpkin as the lesson! We related it to us and how Heavenly Father is the Master Carver! We had to let him into our lives to be cleaned out and changed! Then we need to let our light shine through our example!
Halloween was good! We all switched tags so i dressed up as Elder McPherson and Elder McPherson was Elder Sorenson and Elder Sorenson was me! Super funny! Not very many people noticed! In the morning we had some stuff at the office and got a text from a potential investigator that lives in our apartment complex and he said he wanted to meet with us and that he had a friend with him as well! So we dropped what we were doing and went and taught them out on a bench at our apartment complex! It was a really good lesson; Michael and Reed are their names! We taught about how our church was different and about the Book of Mormon and praying to know! As we were talking about the Holy Ghost and how he works, Reed said "Wow, thats exactly how i feel right now!" SO cool!! I hope we can get somewhere with these 2! They really need the Gospel! We got invited to a Halloween party but some members so we went there! It was fun! Then we had to come in so we didn't get into trouble! We set up our little portable dvd player and watched a movie!
The whole weekend was filled with transfers and logistics from that, talk about stressful! Elder McPherson leaves this week so i will be taking the lead. I need prayers!
Love and miss y'all. All is well.
