by the "going home in two weeks" fact! There is something great about
every week and I just don't want it to end. I don't know if it will
hit me until I am on the plane ride home. Let's hope it never hits me
too hard. Well here is why this week was so great...
Monday was super! We went to the Cornish's and painted the bowls that
we made weeks ago. I can't wait for mine to be done. That night we
went to go teach our investigator F***, but she was unable to meet
with us, we even had a great fellowshipper come, Aubrey from Richland.
Then we went and taught B*** and I*** and we had a surprise there for
us. A***, B***'s twin now wants to take the lessons and be baptized.
We asked her what changed her mind and she said she noticed when B***
came home from the lessons hat she was happier and she wanted that. It
is so wonderful having the spirit touch someone's heart. After their
lessons we went and taught C***, one of our returning members about
the Ten Commandments and prophets. It is so cool to see how much his
testimony has grown as we have been teaching him.
Tuesday we had MLC. It was a super great meeting. During it we needed
to use the restroom and we headed there and got super distracted by
the huge storm going on. It looked like there was going to be a flash
flood. But it let up after a while and so everything was good. At MLC
we really focused on the importance of constantly making changes in
our lives. Change is hard and sometimes we don't appreciate it, but if
we look at the big picture that is the reason we were sent here to
earth. We wanted to gain experience and understanding. So don't be
afraid of change (that is what I keep telling myself about going
home). After MLC we got to teach lessons. We ate dinner with one of
ward mission leaders and a family we are teaching. After dinner we
headed into the big music room they have and Sister Bearce played the
organ for us and then her and her daughter played a piano/violin duet.
It was super pretty. Sister Hedley asked if they had a flute and they
actually had one they were getting rid of and so they gave it to her.
So we are practicing a flute/piano duet. Hopefully we can make it
sound somewhat good by the time I got home. The rest of the lessons
went well.
Wednesday we ate lunch super quick so that we could go practice our
duet. The we planned for our ZTM's with the elders. We had a lesson
and we were teaching a returning member the gospel of Jesus Christ. He
had lots of really great questions and so we barely got through part
of the lesson before we had to go. We decided to go and contact a name
of a non member that was given to us by a bishop. We took a different
approach than we normally do and it was cool to see how well it
worked. When he opened the door we introduced our selves and then we
showed him a picture of the "first vision". We asked if he had ever
seen this picture before, when he told us no we decided to explain the
background starting with the fact that when Christ was on the earth he
set up his church and that is the same church we have today because it
was restored to the prophet Joseph Smith. He had this longing in his
eyes to know more as I was able to quote the first vision to him. We
set up a return appointment but sadly we had to hand him off to the
elders because he is a YSA. Our chapel tour that evening went really
well. We had some one we were teaching there and the spirit was so
strong. We were able to teach him a lesson afterwards and he told us
that he is excited for the day he can take the sacrament again. We
then ran over to see if we could meet with F*** before our 8:00
missionary meeting. We were able to teach her about families can be
together forever since that is a huge importance in her life.
Thursday was ZTM number 1. But we had an interesting morning that made
us a bit late. We locked the door handle the night before and normally
we just lock the dead bolt. As we were going out for our morning run I
closed the door behind me and the realized that we never unlocked the
handle. So at 6:30 in the morning we were locked out of our house and
it happened to be a super cold morning and I didn't have a jacket. So
we went for our run and then waited about 20 minutes or so for our
land lord to finally open the door, after ringing and knocking trying
to wake them up. ZTM went really well. After ZTM we decided to do
weekly planning so that on Friday we could go check up on sisters
whose area are kinda struggling. After dinner we had a no show on our
chapel tour which ended up being some what of a blessing because we
over booked ourselves that night. We went to go teach a new family and
they weren't home yet so we went and picked up a young women who is
deciding if a mission is for her. We were able to bring her to the
next two lessons and both lessons were super awesome. The new family
opened up about their desire to come back after having some pretty
hard addictions ruin their lives and the other lesson we got up to
leave and she said "that's all?" So you could tell she really has the
desire to know more.
Friday was ZTM number 2. It went really good as well. It was crazy to
see how different the two ZTM's were. After ZTM we went to Kneaders
with a sister that just got home from serving a mission in Sister
Hedley's home ward. After that we went and helped sisters with weekly
planning. It was really cool because they finally started trusting us
enough and they asked for lots of good help. After that we went and
taught our investigator who is getting baptized on my last Saturday
here. She is getting so ready and excited. After that we went and
contacted a potential investigator and we had a funny experience. As
we pulled up the husband was outside and saw us, as we said a quick
prayer he went around back and turned on the sprinklers. We were
determined not to let a little water stop us, since that path up to
the house was being soaked. So we ran through and then they wouldn't
answer the door. Go figures... It was definitely something we got to
laugh about. For dinner that night we went and the lady had bought us
as a companionship two pizza's. Luckily we were allowed to take them
home instead of pigging out and making ourselves sick. After dinner we
had a lesson with a retuning sister and she was so tired. She hardly
could stay awake and we felt so bad. So we made the lesson quick. Her
son who always makes it a priority to get out of the lessons came to
the door and said "aww you guys are leaving already?" as he opened the
door. I think he was trying to make us think that he likes us but he
kindly showed us the way out, and he is only 7! We were able to stop
by the Watkin's family who we have seen in awhile and it turned out
that it was the perfect time to stop by. Sister W***'s had a really
rough day at work and really needed some spiritual uplifting. Our 8:00
lesson was super interesting, we were talking about forever families
and family history work and they had some experiences where people
have come to them in dreams telling them that they need to do their
temple work. Then all of a sudden, their door knob wiggled and the dad
is in the military and his reaction was crazy. He stood up and ran out
and ran out of the house to figure out what was going on. It turns out
someone was just putting papers on every ones doors about a job
opportunity.
Saturday we went to a baptism in the morning for Sister Hedley's
investigator from a previous area. Then we went to lunch at the
Cornish's. It was super yummy, we had breakfast food for lunch. After
that we ran home to write our talks we thought we had to give that
night for the adult session of stake conference. Then we had a lesson
and got to read the scriptures since he hadn't read that week. Then we
went to go do our hand off lesson with the elders for our investigator
we met on Wednesday. We waited forever for the elders to finally show
up and then when we knocked he wasn't even home. We had dinner with a
super awesome family. It was the first we had met them and when I told
them I was going home in less than 3 weeks they said that they would
be willing to celebrate and throw me a going home party. I might take
them up on it since they brought cake into the idea! Then we got to
head to the adult session. We were freaking out the whole time because
we didn't know if we would be speaking. But it turns out we weren't,
but since the rest of the program went by faster than expected we
ended up getting to bare a short testimony.
Sunday was the big regional conference for all of Utah and Wasatch
county. Something cool that they talked about was the rededication of
the Ogden UT temple. It is next week and we get to go. We got to hear
from Russell M. Nelson and Richard G. Scott. Elder Nelson told us that
over 500,000 people went to the Ogden open house! That is a lot of
people. After conference we had appointments booked for every hour for
the rest of the day. It was sad because most of them cancelled but it
allowed is to be where we needed to when it was the right time. One of
our appointments fell through and we were prompted to go stop by the
Smith's they are almost 2 weeks clean of smoking and it was a good
thing we were prompted to go over there because Sister S*** was
having a really hard time and was working her self really hard so she
wouldn't smoke. We were also able to see other people who we weren't
planning on seeing but it turned out to be a blessing. Something funny
happened durning our lesson at 7:00 with E*** and A***. We were
reading the Book of Mormon and all the light they had in their house
was the light from outside. It started getting dark and so Sister
Hedley started looking around for a light switch to turn on the light
and then E*** stopped and asked if she had just seen a ghost or
something. It was so funny!
Everything is going fantastic. I am happy to be here and I can not
believe that the end is coming so fast. There is no time to be wasted
these last 2 weeks. I am going to work my hardest and try to continue
to build the work up in this area. I do get to look forward to 3
exchanges this week which should be fun... We will see!
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