Hey everybody!! Hope everyone had a good week and is getting ready for Thanksgiving and what not! We had an awesome week and saw some amazing things!!
Enjoy.
Tuesday
We had a good day and were able to see some of my favorite Puerto Ricans!! Haha they always feed us and I'm starting to love this food called guandule. It's cool to be in the states but learning so much more about the Latino culture! My Spanish is getting better and we have an app called duolingo that tells you how fluent you are. I took the test today and got 60% so I guess that's somewhere to start! We also eat every Tuesday with the Harris family who are members here in the ward. They're going to college here in town so it's always fun to be with them! He's teaching me a little Tongan which is a dream come true. Miracles do happen. I still need to get a picture with him. Haha lets just say he's not your typical member. The first time I met him I thought Elder Renteria was messing with me! Hah it's just taught me that you can't ever judge someone just by how they look! I know that's something we hear a lot, but it's so true. I know I need to be better at this as a missionary!
Wednesday
This was an amazing day haha. It's amazing to look back at the end of the day and truly see how we were guided to be in certain spots at certain times! For example, we were supposed to have a lesson with a Sister that is pretty old and is super sick! It's not my favorite place to go because she always is coughing up her lung so it's kinda awkward... Anyways she wasn't home and it ended up giving us this other opportunity to talk to a guy who wants to come back to the church after he left as a teenager. But the best thing of all is we finally found the great Ms. Mysterio aka Tiffany!! Hah for 6 months the elders have been trying to find her because she's a child of record, but that's all we knew. As missionaries we're supposed to find them and see if they want to receive the lessons and continue in the gospel! Anyways we go to this house where she has some family and ask this teenage girl if her parents are home, she says no and it kinda leaves us awkwardly standing on the porch. As she's about to close the door, I just felt prompted to say "Hey do you know anything about a girl named Tiffany?" She says: "Uh yeah that's my sister, I'm on the phone with her right now." After Elder Renteria and I scraped our jaws off the floor, we asked this girl to ask Tiffany if she wanted to meet with us! The little sister says: "Well she's gonna be here In 10 minutes if you want to just talk to her." Hahaha we're like: "Yeah I think we can wait a little bit." The hunt is over folks. I was so happy, and so thankful that we had been guided all day to be at the exact right places at the right times. It was amazing and I know I need to be more willing to be guided. Also I need to follow as the Holy Ghost directs!! The coolest thing is she had been working for 4 months straight without a break and that was her first day off. It was amazing.
Thursday
We had another zone training in Erie. Pretty good time I guess! Haha sometimes they kind of drag on... The cool thing is we got to see the new Church Christmas video that comes out on the 29th, so I hope you guys all enjoy it! The theme this year is all about the why of the savior, and how we should discover for ourselves why our savior was born! I hope everyone is able to use it as a missionary opportunity. People's hearts are truly softened this time of year so it's a good opportunity to open our mouths and share what Christmas means to us!
Friday
We had a lesson with Stephanie and Jake who are two of our investigators. They're living together and have an adorable little baby named Emilia! She is a little over a year old and sadly cute little Emilia likes to ruin a lot of our lessons... Hahah I guess the Elders have been teaching them for awhile with not a whole lot of progress... So Elder Renteria and I went straight for the throat and invited them to be baptized. They still have a long ways to go but our teaching style is if we're not inviting people to be baptized or come back to church we're basically just shooting the breeze. I really like it because it weeds out a lot of the flaky people. The scriptures say that the field is WHITE already to harvest. Not brown, green, needs more water, or needs to be replanted. Since we've been doing this we've seen a lot more progress so I hope it continues to work out! We really need to find those ready to listen. I know there are people being prepared, we just have to find them!!
Saturday
We were able to see a lot of people and ended up teaching four lessons! The highlight of the day had to be teaching my main man, the local hero, the one and only, Schizophrenic Scott. Haha he invited us into his apartment which was a sight to behold. He has taken it upon himself to write all over the walls and absolutely destroy the place. It was very.... interesting! Also I'm 90% sure he didn't take his meds or whatever because he was a little crazier than normal. We ended up talking about the restoration of the gospel which included him having TWO potty breaks, and a smoke break to top it all off.... You never can truly be prepared for the moment when you're talking about Jesus Christ and the priesthood and a man says to you: "Guys, I really need to smoke." It's like broooo we're talking about Jesus, what makes you wanna smoke right now? Ugh. The answer to that question is some thing I'll never know.
Sunday
Church was a little interesting... Hah we only had 13 people show up counting myself and Elder Renteria so it was a good time. Church is really different when you come from a ward of 300 or so, to having sacrament where everyone can fit in one pew. I like it though, it feels a lot more close knit and these members really treat one another like family. Later that day we went to visit the Nichols. They're the ones who we went to the temple with that I think could die any day now. They're honestly in horrible shape, and it's so sad. We gave Terry a blessing and he was super appreciative. He's one of those older timers that isn't scared to talk about death which I guess is good, but a little awkward. He was talking to his grandson and told us: "I always take the opportunity to teach him the gospel cause I don't know If I'm gonna be here tomorrow." I wish I had half of the faith of this guy. He's been such an example and taught me a ton about patience and trusting in the lords timing. This saint of a man waited 45 years to get sealed in the temple and said of the experience: "That was the happiest moment of my life, especially after I waited so cotton pickin' long." Haha what a blessing it is to meet people out here that have taught me so much. I've always heard that the best convert you will ever have on your mission is yourself. I truly believe that! It's been amazing to see how far I've come and how much more room and time there is to grow!
Remember to take it easy everybody.
Much love,
Elder Halls
Elder Halls
No comments:
Post a Comment