October 28th

Well my area is super awesome. Its like a non stop petting zoo. Ive petted a donkey, chicken, horse, and more its been super fun and my area is gorgeous!!!!! I seriously love my area!!!! So after I emailed you all last week we went to zone sports and I spent most of the time on the stage writing letters their all finished its just getting them sent off now. But afterwards we had dinner and the elders had the same dinner appointment so my companion and I were waiting for the elders when we saw a chicken at the church yard. My companion was bored so out of nowhere my companion started to chase the chicken it was hilarious. After dinner we tried a bunch of families but the hard thing of our area is most of it is dirt roads, with no address name and if you do find it none of the houses have house numbers so we tried a bunch of people but no such luck :(

 

Tuesday-  Super slow day :( We tried a bunch of people but literally no one opened their door it was super frustrating but we kept going we were able to share a message with a non member which was the highlight of the day but otherwise it was a super slow day.

 

Wednesday- Almost like Tuesday but better!!! We were able to go to a less actives house and share a message with the mom and while we were there her teenage daughter came home and talked to us. She was super cute and we found out later that the young women have been working with her to get her active again. But they were super fun and we found out that the daughter loves to cook so we working to find a way to help with that. On our way out we saw a guy outside so we stopped to talk to him but he turned out to be a bible basher  And he went on forever. We finally were able to get away but man he went on FOREVER!!!! We later went to a less actives house which was pretty interesting we had no idea what she was even talking about. She said her daughter was in the hospital but then her daughter walked in. We then found out that she has dementia and Alzheimer's which explained a lot. She talked about the Jehovah witnesses ALOT and told us that she said no to baptism with them. So it was pretty interesting... Later that night we saw a less active named Sister Hassel shes pretty awesome. we are going back for lunch tomorrow we are excited and we are hoping to get her back to church.

 

Thursday- So Thursday is set apart for planning but the elders showed up and asked if we could go with them to do service. We told them yes so we went with them to a less actives house. So we went and helped build a fence with them.

it was pretty fun. They had chickens, ducks, and horse that loves to follow you. I pretty much fell in love with their horse. After that we worked on our weekly planning for the rest of the day.But then we also saw a part member family. The wife who is not a member was really fond of us and told us to come back so on Halloween we will be teaching her the 1st lesson. Afterwards we went looking for some houses on our way we ran into people and were able to give out pass along cards it was pretty nice.

 

Friday- We had district meeting. My district leader gave us a topic and told us to talk about it. They gave the the holy ghost which luckily was my farewell talk so I felt pretty prepared but then our zone leaders and the assistants walked in. I was freaking out but it went well and they said I did a good job so phew. After that meeting we went and taught one of our investigators. Their names are Josephine and ross alredite. The elders found them 2 weeks before we came into the area. They told the elders that they are struggeling so the elders gave them priesthood blessings and they were super impress by it and have been doing better since then. When we got there ross had to sadly leave for work but we stayed and taught Joesephine the plan of salvation and she was super impress by it. She told us about her son who just got out of prison after 16 years!!!!! And she said that he wants to change his life and that might be the way so we are hopefully meeting her son this weekend. At the end we asked her about baptism and she said she wants to learn more before she decides.  Afterwards we went back with the member that went with us and she showed us her craft room and she shared with us her life story it was pretty cool. That night was pretty slow but overall pretty good day.

 

Saturday- was good. We had lunch with the RS president and we got info on our area. Afterwards we tried 2 less actives that let us in!!!! it was awesome it was the first time that we were let in everytime we knocked on the door. After dinner we went to a Halloween party where a bunch of less actives were and met and talked to them.

 

Sunday- meetings, meetings and meetings but it was good and we tried a bunch of people but no such luck :(. But we are going to keep going this week and make it good. I love you all and hope all is well..

 

But I want to write some advice to you all to help those who are preparing for missions

 

Weekly Planning- That I absolutely HATE. But there are ways to make it fun so some advice that ive heard from missionaries to make it fun is. 1) Food. Either go get some fast food from somewhere near by, get ice cream, my companion and I bake some baked goods during lunch and then eat during planning. Have a picnic..., 2) play church music as you do it that way your not completely bored.

 

Teaching people- Be Visual as you teach. Have pictures, if your teaching the plan of salvation MAKE SURE that you have some sort of visual to make it more understandable for example drawing it having cards. ect. Also videos help to Mormon messages are awesome so if you can buy the Mormon messages, or any other video that the church or your mission president approves USE it!

 

Preparation day- Make it fun!!!! A lot of missionaries sleep on it but seriously do something fun. if your allowed to spend time with other missionaries do it! Play sports with them, go to a zoo, just do anything fun.

 

Also missionary work is not just sitting and teaching you can do other fun things with it. Missionaries have birthday parties for members or investigators, there were some sisters that had a movie night with an investigator they watched Legacy and had popcorn and candy. Get creative and fun on your mission. Even our prophet laughs and has fun. So have fun I love you all. and have a great Halloween.