Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Two weeks to Take off


July 13, 2016
    Today was the official 23 month mark of my mission.  Elder Asplund had to say goodby to all of his old sectors today.  In this mission we are allowed to use our last p-days to say goodbye to people.  Next week it is my turn to go see a few select people.  This morning, I did a lot of exercise so I felt good all day long.  It was weird going to visit with people that I didn’t even know.
Miracle 704: One of the families offered to give us lunch which was good we wouldn’t have otherwise had the time to eat.
    After the whole thing, we went to write and drop by the church to print up a list that we have been working with, but our list wasn’t there.  It would appear al though someone deleted the list from the computer.  Luckily, my comp is computer savvy and he was able to find the old version and with just a little bit of work, he restored most of the document.  The funny part of the day was buying and playing with laser pointers that are so strong they hit hills more than a mile away. 
July 14, 2016
    Today was long and slow.  This morning we had a very laborious weekly planning that mostly consisted of chatting and adding a bunch of people to our area book.  After adding all of them, we went to the chapel to do some list work and back to the house for lunch. We has a nightmare lesson with M. because he was pouting virtually the entire time.  We were supposed to have our English class at 6A:00,. but no one ever showed up so we just wasted an hour.
Miracle #705: For the first time in my memory, I went to an old investigator and we go back tomorrow.
    The funny part of the day happened while playing with a dog using my laser pointer.  The dog was having a blast playing with the light and at one point it stared barking at the light  Wanting to see if I could get the owner to come out to talk to us, I shined the pointe on the door making the dog bark at his own door.  Just as I got bored and stopped, the dog’s owner opened the door and quickly yelled at the dog to shut up whipping out a quick kick.  The poor dog.  I felt badly for getting him into trouble.
July 15, 2016
    Today we had a good and frustrating day at the same time.  This morning, we had a decent lesson with Hermano N.  Afterwards we went to the church and did a little more computer work.  Hermano N. gave us a phone that is exactly like the other missionaries have.  Our phone is a piece of junk, so we switched it out.  I was really happy.  For lunch we had what was quite possible the WORST lunch I have eaten in my entire mission. I think that it was chicken liver sauce over rice.  It was so nasty that I had to swallow it without chewing or breathing. 
Miracle #706: We were with a member and I was impressed to go by to see a specific person.  He was home with his kids which was very unusual because he is often away for up to 3 weeks at a time and he is not usually home during the daytime.
    The crazy part of the day was seeing a guy who I assumed was dead.  People were shoving him into a taxi.  Apparently the police took the guys kids away from him so he decided to burn his house down.  The entire neighborhood put the blaze out with buckets and hoses. The guy was trapped by the fire and was passed out from smoke inhalation. I guess that the taxi was faster than an ambulance. It was pretty intense.
    Our last lesson of the day was with V. and his family.  It wasn’t our best lesson, but even at that they were so receptive that it turned out fine.
July 16, 2016
    Today was long.  Elder A. and I started making a powerpoint presentation to teach the mission how to make the list of members that we have been working with to help us find people to teach.  The list has worked very well and we have been able too send out over 60 names and clean up our ward list a lot.  The only problem is that it has taken hours and hours to make only half of the presentation. 
Miracle #707: We went to do contacts and for the first time in the entire week, a contact was nice to us.  They actually gave us juice and cookies.
    The fun part of the day was cleaning the church.  it was the ward missionaries day to clean the chapel.  Excluding the full time missionaries, there should have been 7 people there to clean.  Only one actually showed up on time and ironically that one person is the most irresponsible person int he ward.  It was a fun time because the cleaning crew consisted entirely of 20 year olds joking around and cleaning. The funniest part of the day was when my comp fell asleep in lunch.  He was exhausted today and was like a zombie.  We really didn’t work as hard as we could have today.  We are both loosing steam.  Pretty much every time we tried to contact people today, they were absolute jerks to us except for our miracle.
July 17, 2016
    Today was a good end to the week.  Church itself was not the best because V. and his family didn’t end up coming. It was a little bit of a let-down.  We did have a little lesson with them today in the afternoon which turned out pretty decent.  After teaching them, we went to some people who we haven’t taught for a while and last of all we walked far out inner sector to go see if a few people on our list lived there. Not a single person that we looked for lived there anymore.
Miracle #708: This morning I was super grumpy at church and it got to the pint that I was feeling angry.  I found somewhere to be alone so that I could pray.  The irritation just disappeared and I consider that to be a miracle.  It is incredible to me that God loves me enough to answer a prayer for something so insignificant.
     The funny part of the day was eating double lunches.  The first one was with V. family. We only ate it because we had not been able to confirm the second lunch appointment.  Then after we had already eaten, they called us back to confirm.  It was so hard to eat again, but we didn’t want to offend anyone.
July 18, 2016
     Today was a good day.  In spite of not having hardly any planned lessons it was pretty okay.  The most interesting part of the day was contacting this super stubborn guy who was ridiculously focused not he fact that you have to guide yourself based on what the word (Bible)says.  When we quoted the scripture in John 4:2 that says that the Holy Ghost will teach us the truth of all things, he just argued with us  and said, “No, the word of the Bible is more important!” (facepalm)
Miracle #709: Hmmm that is a hard one today.  Probably finally finishing the powerpoint that we have been working on for way too long.
    The funny part of the day was watching a little bit of a show called Brain Games and it was talking about anger.  Every time a new aspect of anger was discussed I thought to myself, “that happened to me just yesterday” or “well that sounds very familiar.” It was pretty funny trying to teach the last lesson of the day because i was trying to focus on the needs of the person that we were teaching while my comp was plodding through the lesson.  Also I tried to chase down a garbage truck and got garbage all over the street in the process.
July 19, 2016
    Today literally everything fell through.  We had 7 planned lessons and not a single one worked out.  We walked all day long and just couldn’t find anyone home. 
Miracle #710: The last 2 hours of the day we were very tired and sore from walking all day long, but we were blessed to be invited into houses for these last tiring hours of the day.
    The funny part of the day was probably when we were so bored that www just decided to protect a poor lady’s female dog that was being attacked by a large group of male dogs.  A Colvin boot in the butt is a big turn off.  The girl dog was super grateful and followed us around for nearly an hour.  She was a really sweet dog.
    We gave the presentation about our MLS today and it went well.  the other cool part of the day was finishing our part of the list of less active members.  We have now confirmed ALL of the people in our ward.  Other that that, today was a very trunk day.  I did not want to be on the street at all.