June 18, 2018
Sorry about last week. Zone P-day activity sucked up the whole day, and I realized at 4:45 I hadn’t emailed anything. A few details from 2 weeks ago that I’ll include in this week’s email:
Elder Caringer, a greenie here in Southaven who’s been out 4 weeks, and I also went on exchanges. Elder Caringer grew up in Denver and Ohio, and is a very cool guy. He loves to work out, and we go to the gym every morning with him and Elder Garn. I really enjoyed spending time with him.
Well we had a little exchange miracle. I have not baptized a Hispanic my whole mission, and have been praying that the Lord would make that possible for me in these last two transfers. On Thursday, while on exchanges with Elder Caringer, we got a call from our apartment office asking us to help a lady move in. Turns out she is from Guatemala, and her name is V. She told us to follow her to a storage shed to get some furniture. As we followed her we realized we were leaving the area, the storage shed turned out to be over by the Olive Branch Elders apartment. However, we felt the Spirit of the law confirm that we were okay to proceed.After getting two very heavy couches moved in, we talked to her and told her who we were. She said she had seen missionaries all over in Las Vegas but had never talked to them. She said she recently had a divorce, and she needs to get closer to God, develop a relationship with Him, and help her children do the same. We set an appointment for the next day, and brought a Spanish speaking member who lives in the apartment building literally across from her.
We taught the Plan of Salvation and she loved the doctrine of the Spirit World and that families are forever in the Celestial Kingdom. The same member and his wife stopped by her place and left cookies, and their kids get along really well. This last Thursday we came back and visited her with Bishop, which went really well. We taught her the Restoration and invited her to be baptized and she said yes but we didn’t invite her to commit to a date. She said she might come to church, but might doesn’t get you very far, so we didn’t see her on Sunday. Right now she is on the belief step and we need to get her to the next step of Action, which means we need to invite more boldly by the Spirit. It’s probably a blessing that she didn’t come yesterday since it was Father’s Day, which might be a sensitive subject since she recently divorced.Zone Pday was pretty fun. The whole zone met up at a park in Southaven. Elder Cepeda and I bought 64 hotdogs and buns, and brought a tiny little charcoal grill we found in the apartment. We were pretty dang excited, but our barbecue turned to be an epic failure. For whatever reason, we couldn’t keep the coals lit. Eventually Elder Caringer got fed up, and dosed it in way too much lighter fluid. When he lit it, half of his arm hair was immediately incinerated in a big ball of fire. We laughed so hard it made up for the fact that we didn’t have hot dogs to eat. At least the Oxford Elders brought a giant watermelon that was super delicious. Being in the south has only enhanced my love for watermelon. Afterwards we played kickball, softball, and ultimate frisbee.
It was so dang hot outside, and we were sweating buckets, and we had only brought one case of water bottles, which was gone real quick. All of us were dying of thirst so we went to the church to play basketball and email to end the day. In my case I lost track of time and just played basketball, so again I apologize.
Then the Senatobia Elders, Elder Miller and Elder Stewart, stayed the night with us. They are really good missionaries. Elder Stewart is from Gunnison, Utah. He is a total cowboy, literally. He rode broncos at home, and got sponsored by a clothing company named total cowboy. Elder Miller is from Orem, and looks exactly like Andrew Garfield, the actor who plays Peter Parker in the Amazing Spider-Man. I was in Memphis when he started his mission in an apartment just a 5 minute walk from us. We used to go over to their apartment in the mornings and work out with him and his trainer, Elder Raish, so we got pretty close. I missed him for sure when I got transferred to Dardenelle, so it’s been fun to be his Zone Leader. The next morning, we got up early to work out together, and then headed to Zone Conference. Elder Perkins of the Seventy was presiding at Zone Conference. He is a very spiritual man (of course) and definitely helped the mission out. The big message was that we need to become more powerful teachers, use Preach My Gospel more, and role play more.The next day was MLC, in which Elder Perkins was also present. He instructed us about faith, and how to turn faith into power, extremely insightful. To have a basic belief, we must hear the word of God. To have faith, we must act. To have a witness, we must endure a trial. To have power, we must have zero doubt and fear. I have a lot of doubt and fear I need to work on.
Yesterday in sacrament meeting, I was thinking about how grateful I am to have such a great Father. As we sang the closing hymn, O My Father, a memory came to my mind of right before I left on my mission. I was writing my farewell talk in my room, and my dad came down to check on me. I read to him part of my talk to see what he thought, and when I looked up, I saw he was crying. As I remembered that experience yesterday I began to weep, so much that I could hardly sing. In that moment I felt how much he loves me and is proud of me. I’m so grateful for a Father that loves the Lord, honors his Priesthood, and has taught me to do the same.Well I’m out of time! Love y’all!
Pics:
- Saying goodbye to Elder Merrill, my face looks extremely greasy in this one lol!
- The Spanish speaking gang, Elder Díaz showed up because he missed the Arkansas Zone Conference!
- America vs. Mexico
- Titus at church on Sunday
- Ben Johnson, a kid from the Ward that left on his mission this week, it’s crazy that the class of 18 is already leaving on missions!A
No comments:
Post a Comment