fam,
As for missionary work, this week was a little rough. In summary, two sick days + zone conference + a trade off= not a lot of proselyting time.
Monday Elder Magalei was sick so we quickly did our shopping and he slept almost all day. Later that day we had a lesson planned with Mary. It was really good. We talked about the importance of having our own spiritual experiences through Going to church, Praying, and Reading your scriptures (CPR). When we planned for the lesson we felt to put her on a really ambitious baptismal date and mid way through the lesson we extended that invitation and she said yes. We explained a little about what baptism entailed and gave her a warning that Satan doesn't what her to progress and to expect things to come up that will make her progression harder. Mary has been progressing really well. Some things she has told us during our last few visits is that while she has been reading through the Book of Mormon she has completely lost the desire to smoke, an addiction she has had since she was 14. She also has a strong desire to return to being close to God. She says her fear is she wants real change but feels if she slips up and falls back into old habits she would be hypocritical. We emphasized how the spirit has a way of helping us have the strength to really change. I think we set a pretty good foundation of CPR.
Some one in the branch needed a visit so we got up and out. They needed a blessing and we had a member who is leaving on a mission on Tuesday to japan administer. It was a really sweet experience and the spirit was really strong as we were there.
Tuesday came around and I woke up really sick and took a day. Elderly couples are literally the best thing ever. We called up the westons and asked them to cover for us. They picked up and had a great time at a Noche de Hogar and an investigator lesson we had planned, allowing us to recover in our apartment all day.
Wednesday we had a great zone conference. Our zone conference this week was really good. We had Elder Snow from the quorum of the seventy come out on Wednesday. He talked with us on the steps of conversion into the gospel. He came with the reported numbers kept track by the mission and talked about the individual needs of our areas. It was really interesting, but nothing really too crazy or interesting. Towards the end of the conference we got a call from Mary, remember we told her that things tend to pop up when people start to try to change their lives for the better, turns out her family doesn't like us and wants to kick her and her daughter out. It was a pretty sad phone call but we were able to set up something for the next day to talk with her. Come the next day we had a lesson at the church which was just awesome. We have her a tour and ended with hymn in the chapel. She really liked the tour.
Saturday was Elder Magalei's first real tough day. We had a relatively stacked day and everything canceled mid morning after we planned. We had just visited with everyone we could the day before and met with most of our investigators the day before so we were confined to basically find all day. Elder Magalei picked out a street to hit and we knocked for quite a while. The street was pretty white which typical means a tough crowd, and it was.
Sunday I spent a good time talking with Natividad. We just talked about his family and church for a few minutes. He brought up that he watched the women's conference that was last Friday and said he really liked it. He also mentioned that the talks were really good, that the organ was massive, and the conference center is gigantic and was completely filled.
LDS Women's Conference 2017
I don't know what we are going to do with him and his wife, but we haven't felt like we can drop them which keeps us in a weird limbo of trying to figure out what each step needs to be. We haven't felt good about asking him and his kids to get baptized without his wife, who isn't progressing anymore. We have been asking the ward members and leaders to visit them without us and talk with them.
Next Saturday and Sunday is going to be awesome. General conference is a spirit filled weekend that happens every 6 months where we can listen to the prophets, apostles and other leaders of the church and receive their direction.
Hebrews 1:1-2
Ephesians 4:10-15
Showing posts with label sick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sick. Show all posts
Monday, September 25, 2017
Monday, February 27, 2017
2/27/17 White shirts, Spanish, Bellybuttons, Cubans
Family and friends,
It's been a pretty good week and an interesting week.
We volunteer at a food pantry run by some church in the area. We basically just cleared out a bunch of expired food. We had three hours of service planned, but we did all the work in just over an hour. Some nursing students came in a little after we finished and asked if they could practice taking our blood pressure and blood sugar levels. It was really fun talking to people our age and in English. One of the nurses taught me how to take blood pressure levels. I'm basically a doctor now.
Two days this week we did exchanges. The first day we went out with our district leader, Elder Waters. We knocked doors for a little bit, with no success. I think one person on the whole side of the street opened their door to say they weren't interested. Elder Waters and I just talked for a little bit. He is from Portland and was home-schooled. He also has 12 siblings. That night a ward member bought us pizza. We met him at the place, but he was late. This group of old people were talking about us very indiscreetly. One said, "You can always spot Mormons by their white shirts." We just kind of laughed to ourselves, but we should have talked with them. Oh well. The next morning I wasn't feeling that good. I had really bad stomach cramps and almost threw up. I was getting worse and worse, and then I asked Elder Guerrero to give me a priesthood blessing. That turned my symptoms all around. We later went to CVS and I grabbed some meds and am feeling much better now.
Exchanges with the zone leaders were really good though. We taught a lesson with a recent convert that was interesting. It was really hard to stay focused because he kept talking about League of Legends and how he is in the top 10% of the world. We compared the water cycle to testimonies. The sun evaporates the water (our testimonies) and we have to do a few steps to replenish that water. By reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church we grow the volume of water we have.
After the lesson we knocked doors for a little bit. Elder Medina, the zone leader, was with me and he only speaks English. We talked with a few people, all English speakers, and picked up a two potentials. We ran into three people who didn't speak English: A man from Bosnia, someone from Vietnam, and a latino. We gave ITL cards to the Bosnian and Vietnamese man, but the latino guy let us in. That was way awesome. I talked with him with moderate success. I basically told him who we are, why we talk to people, asked him about his faith. I understood most of what he said which I was pretty proud of. I also told him we have friends who speak better Spanish than I can and would love to talk with him more. He said yes and said he would come to church next week. We grabbed his info and left. It still surprises me when people will actually open their doors and talk with us for a few minutes. When we were leaving The man quoted something from the bible and said something about it, and I literally did not get a single word. I just replied, "Si, es verdad" smiled and left. Haha oh well.
One of the days this week we checked up on a less active kid. He let us in and we invited him to come to church and taught a little lesson. The lesson was 50% Spanish and the rest was English. It was a decent lesson, but the kid's little brother who was probably 5 years old kept trying to play with me, and the TV in the back room was on but muted. I was not really into the lesson, his younger brother kept taking my stuff and trying to play Pokemon with me. The kicker was the 5 year old didn't speak English and he would listen to me when I said, "I can't play right now," in my best Spanish.
Elder Guerrero and I don't have that many investigators, and we had to drop two this week. They are both Dominican and are basically impossible to understand. Our investigator said she doesn't want to change her faith, because she has been Catholic her whole life, but she feels that she knows what she has to do, but won't do any of our commitments. Her husband is on the same page as her. We, more accurately Elder Guerrero, taught a really powerful lesson about faith and how sometimes we need to just act and demonstrate our faith. We shared a few scriptures and left. They asked us to pray for them, and they told us they always feel something different when we are around teaching. We told them we want them to know that they could call us at anytime, and we would love to see them at church, but we can't see them every week. After that lesson we checked up on someone who lives with them who also is taking lessons from us. He is basically a perfect investigator, he just hasn't been to church in a while. It was already late when we went over to where he was, so we basically just invited him to try to make it to church every week. He said yes which was really awesome, and we set up a ride for him. We also got him on a baptismal date, April 8. When Sunday came around he was there for the entire time. He seemed to have a really positive experience. Our branch is pretty small but they fellowship really well.
Door knocking is always a little interesting. This week we had two funny/interesting experiences. The first was with a group of Africans, where only one of them spoke English. About half were Baptists and the other half were Seventh-Day Adventists. The Old African women sat on the couch with us and their 15 or 16 year old daughter translated. They didn't really listen to us and we didn't really get a chance to talk about who we are and what we could do for them. It was also really confrontational. They were asking us how we can have more scripture and how is it not adding false doctrine to the bible. We talked about how God has always worked through prophets and how the Bible is more of a library of teachings of prophets and wasn't a book written all together. We also touched on how we have to give the book a try, and test it for ourselves, because the only place we can get spiritual truth is from the Lord. It was really hard to not be confrontational back, but they invited us back lol. The other was a Cuban atheist and his Seventh-Day Adventist wife. I got about 60-75% of what his wife said in Spanish, but I got maybe 5% of what the Cuban said. He talked so fast and cut words like nobody's business. I kind of just sat in silence while Elder Guerrero talked. Towards the end Elder Guerrero turned to me and said "I don't know, what do you think Elder?" That caught me a little off guard, because the last few minutes the Cuban guy was going off, Elder Guerrero told me in English that he had asked two questions. The first being did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons? The other being when we are in heaven how do we know who people are? I told his wife, who translated for me, in the Bible, it says we were created in God's image, so the better question is does God have a belly button. That really changed the atmosphere of the "lesson" and it was much more friendly, because he thought that was funny. The other question I said the scriptures don't really talk about any of those questions but that I think that if we look different in heaven for whatever reason, we would just know who people are. We got an invite back, and Guerrero said if we come back we need the lesson to be a little more calm. I'm pretty sure the Cuban was on something though. He grew out his pinky fingernail fairly long as if to snort stuff more easily. Either way, when we come back to both of those people, it will be interesting.
We had two really good dinners this week with members. The first was with the Rosales family. It was our Car fast day, which is a day in the week we go without our car, I don't know why and it kinda sucks a lot. We had a ride set up to pick us up from door knocking but they came way late and we had a lesson between door knocking and dinner. Everything went long, and we showed up an hour late to dinner........ That wasn't good. But they let us in and and graciously hosted us. I felt a little bad about that, but they were really nice. They gave us these amazing tacos with homemade tortillas.
As we ate, Hermana Rosales talked with us. She talks really fast but really clearly, which I've found to be a rare combo. I was able to follow along, probably getting 80-85% and was able to accurately guess another 10%. She talked about conversion. I shared a point that the first generation Mormons on my Mom's side took the lessons for I believe 19 years before they joined. She was impressed that I was able to follow along and add something of value to the conversation. The other dinner was with a member named Andre who is from Guatemala. Last week we talked with a guy who kept talking in Mayan. Turns out the language is called Mum, but is a Mayan language, and Andre speaks Mum fluently. He taught us some words and it sounds pretty sweet. We are going to try to get him to come out with us on a lesson with the guy who also speaks Mum.
Elder Johnson
It's been a pretty good week and an interesting week.
We volunteer at a food pantry run by some church in the area. We basically just cleared out a bunch of expired food. We had three hours of service planned, but we did all the work in just over an hour. Some nursing students came in a little after we finished and asked if they could practice taking our blood pressure and blood sugar levels. It was really fun talking to people our age and in English. One of the nurses taught me how to take blood pressure levels. I'm basically a doctor now.
Two days this week we did exchanges. The first day we went out with our district leader, Elder Waters. We knocked doors for a little bit, with no success. I think one person on the whole side of the street opened their door to say they weren't interested. Elder Waters and I just talked for a little bit. He is from Portland and was home-schooled. He also has 12 siblings. That night a ward member bought us pizza. We met him at the place, but he was late. This group of old people were talking about us very indiscreetly. One said, "You can always spot Mormons by their white shirts." We just kind of laughed to ourselves, but we should have talked with them. Oh well. The next morning I wasn't feeling that good. I had really bad stomach cramps and almost threw up. I was getting worse and worse, and then I asked Elder Guerrero to give me a priesthood blessing. That turned my symptoms all around. We later went to CVS and I grabbed some meds and am feeling much better now.
Exchanges with the zone leaders were really good though. We taught a lesson with a recent convert that was interesting. It was really hard to stay focused because he kept talking about League of Legends and how he is in the top 10% of the world. We compared the water cycle to testimonies. The sun evaporates the water (our testimonies) and we have to do a few steps to replenish that water. By reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church we grow the volume of water we have.
After the lesson we knocked doors for a little bit. Elder Medina, the zone leader, was with me and he only speaks English. We talked with a few people, all English speakers, and picked up a two potentials. We ran into three people who didn't speak English: A man from Bosnia, someone from Vietnam, and a latino. We gave ITL cards to the Bosnian and Vietnamese man, but the latino guy let us in. That was way awesome. I talked with him with moderate success. I basically told him who we are, why we talk to people, asked him about his faith. I understood most of what he said which I was pretty proud of. I also told him we have friends who speak better Spanish than I can and would love to talk with him more. He said yes and said he would come to church next week. We grabbed his info and left. It still surprises me when people will actually open their doors and talk with us for a few minutes. When we were leaving The man quoted something from the bible and said something about it, and I literally did not get a single word. I just replied, "Si, es verdad" smiled and left. Haha oh well.
One of the days this week we checked up on a less active kid. He let us in and we invited him to come to church and taught a little lesson. The lesson was 50% Spanish and the rest was English. It was a decent lesson, but the kid's little brother who was probably 5 years old kept trying to play with me, and the TV in the back room was on but muted. I was not really into the lesson, his younger brother kept taking my stuff and trying to play Pokemon with me. The kicker was the 5 year old didn't speak English and he would listen to me when I said, "I can't play right now," in my best Spanish.
Elder Guerrero and I don't have that many investigators, and we had to drop two this week. They are both Dominican and are basically impossible to understand. Our investigator said she doesn't want to change her faith, because she has been Catholic her whole life, but she feels that she knows what she has to do, but won't do any of our commitments. Her husband is on the same page as her. We, more accurately Elder Guerrero, taught a really powerful lesson about faith and how sometimes we need to just act and demonstrate our faith. We shared a few scriptures and left. They asked us to pray for them, and they told us they always feel something different when we are around teaching. We told them we want them to know that they could call us at anytime, and we would love to see them at church, but we can't see them every week. After that lesson we checked up on someone who lives with them who also is taking lessons from us. He is basically a perfect investigator, he just hasn't been to church in a while. It was already late when we went over to where he was, so we basically just invited him to try to make it to church every week. He said yes which was really awesome, and we set up a ride for him. We also got him on a baptismal date, April 8. When Sunday came around he was there for the entire time. He seemed to have a really positive experience. Our branch is pretty small but they fellowship really well.
Door knocking is always a little interesting. This week we had two funny/interesting experiences. The first was with a group of Africans, where only one of them spoke English. About half were Baptists and the other half were Seventh-Day Adventists. The Old African women sat on the couch with us and their 15 or 16 year old daughter translated. They didn't really listen to us and we didn't really get a chance to talk about who we are and what we could do for them. It was also really confrontational. They were asking us how we can have more scripture and how is it not adding false doctrine to the bible. We talked about how God has always worked through prophets and how the Bible is more of a library of teachings of prophets and wasn't a book written all together. We also touched on how we have to give the book a try, and test it for ourselves, because the only place we can get spiritual truth is from the Lord. It was really hard to not be confrontational back, but they invited us back lol. The other was a Cuban atheist and his Seventh-Day Adventist wife. I got about 60-75% of what his wife said in Spanish, but I got maybe 5% of what the Cuban said. He talked so fast and cut words like nobody's business. I kind of just sat in silence while Elder Guerrero talked. Towards the end Elder Guerrero turned to me and said "I don't know, what do you think Elder?" That caught me a little off guard, because the last few minutes the Cuban guy was going off, Elder Guerrero told me in English that he had asked two questions. The first being did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons? The other being when we are in heaven how do we know who people are? I told his wife, who translated for me, in the Bible, it says we were created in God's image, so the better question is does God have a belly button. That really changed the atmosphere of the "lesson" and it was much more friendly, because he thought that was funny. The other question I said the scriptures don't really talk about any of those questions but that I think that if we look different in heaven for whatever reason, we would just know who people are. We got an invite back, and Guerrero said if we come back we need the lesson to be a little more calm. I'm pretty sure the Cuban was on something though. He grew out his pinky fingernail fairly long as if to snort stuff more easily. Either way, when we come back to both of those people, it will be interesting.
We had two really good dinners this week with members. The first was with the Rosales family. It was our Car fast day, which is a day in the week we go without our car, I don't know why and it kinda sucks a lot. We had a ride set up to pick us up from door knocking but they came way late and we had a lesson between door knocking and dinner. Everything went long, and we showed up an hour late to dinner........ That wasn't good. But they let us in and and graciously hosted us. I felt a little bad about that, but they were really nice. They gave us these amazing tacos with homemade tortillas.
As we ate, Hermana Rosales talked with us. She talks really fast but really clearly, which I've found to be a rare combo. I was able to follow along, probably getting 80-85% and was able to accurately guess another 10%. She talked about conversion. I shared a point that the first generation Mormons on my Mom's side took the lessons for I believe 19 years before they joined. She was impressed that I was able to follow along and add something of value to the conversation. The other dinner was with a member named Andre who is from Guatemala. Last week we talked with a guy who kept talking in Mayan. Turns out the language is called Mum, but is a Mayan language, and Andre speaks Mum fluently. He taught us some words and it sounds pretty sweet. We are going to try to get him to come out with us on a lesson with the guy who also speaks Mum.
Elder Johnson
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