May 14, 2018

Fam, 

A few important things happened this week. We had Elder Magalei's birthday, Zone conference... I mean phone conference, and Mother's Day. 

Tuesday was Elder Magalei's birthday. We didn't do a whole lot because we were busy but we baked him a cake. He appreciated that and we had a nice day. On another note, on April 16 I bought and planted a Chile de árbol seed in a cup filled with potting soil. I watered it and waited. The packet said that it should have germinated within 14 days. 14 days came and went and I was a little annoyed. It's almost like everything I plant dies. May 8 a bud finally popped out of the soil. To my surprise there are now two buds after having thought I planted one seed. In Alma 32 in the BoM gives powerful insight on how the word of God can be compared to a seed which can sprout up into increase faith. So I guess the lesson is that as we give place to one seed two will sprout up. 


Wednesday we went out to Mercedes. It's kind of a weird situation. We meet her about 10 weeks ago after a member of the Holland ward brought her to our branch. With the help from the Pectols we were able to set up a lesson with her, and we just had an absolutely fantastic lesson with her. She lives about 40 miles away which makes it really hard to stop by to see how she is doing so we kept pretty good contact with her over the phone. For various reasons she had to cancel a few lessons with us and then she dropped us after about 3 weeks of back and forth. We weren't able to figure out why and so we kind of had to leave it at that. Flashforward to last week she comes to church and we were able to talk and set up another lesson. So within those few weeks of no contact she had been reading in the BoM, watched General conference, watched the longer Restoration video, Legacy and some other church history movie all on her own volition. It was quite the surprise, nigh unto miraculous even.

Later the same night we had a lesson with the Sarmiento family that went well. We had left them The Family - A Proclamation To The World, a document put out by the church in like 1995 which obviously is about the family, to read. We had a good discussion on how homes centered on the gospel are stronger in all aspects of life. Daniel really impresses me with his ability to just capture understanding when he applies himself. A few lessons ago we left him and his family a question to study for which has really kick started his reading. At this lesson we started off by asking everyone what they had learned. Daniel clearly had a very solid understanding of the paper we left. In my experience there is a significant variance of the amount of information people can take in at one time, and for Daniel that level is pretty high.

Thursday was z(ph)one conference. It was an enjoyable zone conferance, and I have a smart phone now and no longer the terrible blue brick! 

Sunday was Mother's day. It was fun to talk with the family. As we walked to our car to drive to church Elder Rencher and I both realized that our Skype calls home would be the last one during our missions. The next time we will see each other will be when we come home... Scary. Elder Magalaei swiftly made a  joke about how old we were. Although the room I was in wasn't the same as my first two phone calls, don't worry, it was still the same home. At the end of this transfer, this Monday, so my next P-Day is this Saturday. I'll have been in this branch for about 16 months, 6 of those months with Elder Magalaei and about 8 months with Elder Rencher.  

Ah. New rules regarding technology:
1) We have Facebook! But we can't chat with friends and family unless we have approval for missionary business 
2)We can write letters, but back and forth chatting is no longer allowed. This one hurts but apparently it comes from the area authority over President Brennan.