Hey there everyone,
This
week was such a great week in so many ways. So much happened and I
don't know if I can even remember it all, but I'll give it my best shot.
Well first off, I was going to tell you about last Tuesday
what happened before we came to email. So the basic run down was that we
got up did our studies and then went and helped on a farm. Pretty much
we went to help because of Bro Day, the Ward mission leader. He is
constantly volunteering our help to his staff at his dentist office and
none of them have ever taken him up on the offer. Well finally John
Mills (his wife works for Bro Day) took him up on the offer, so we got
to help on a farm. We helped them weed the carrots and helped lay drip
tape (like a soaker hose) next to some arugula and spinach so help keep
them from flowering. It was a cool experience and I also got really
dirty. Mud up my arms and my legs. the only part of me that wasn't muddy
was my face which was covered in sweat. We were outside for a while
doing that. He also let us pick some radishes, spinach, and arugula and
gave us some garlic somethings. We were then going into the cooled down
barn to help break apart some old boxes and palates. I was so cool in
there compared to outside all of the sweat and moisture on my body just
condensed and I had rivers running down my forehead. Oh but it felt nice
in there. We put the veggies in the staff fridge while we were in
there. We helped with that and then we had to get going. As we were
driving off we realized we left the veggies in the fridge. Oh well. It
was a great experience and we did exactly what Bro. Day wanted, to not
preach. We just went and helped him on the farm. He did ask us some
questions, but we did not push any doctrine. We just hope that something
might come from it in the future and that the rest of his staff will
let us come over and help.
I have also found out the help that exercise can be. In my
mind I never liked exercise and would rather just run around with
friends. Well this week exercise became important in my life. I was
struggling to get up in the mornings and struggling to get ready on
time. It was Thursday morning when this all happened. Most mornings I
would get up and try to find some position that I was trying to be
awake, but kept finding myself with my eyes closed dowsing off. I just
wanted one day to be able to sleep in. By the time I finally got in the
shower and got ready it was about 8:20 I tried to hurry and grab a bowl
of cereal and sit down for personal study. It was more like 8:30 by the
time I started. about 9:00 was companionship study. The first thing that
Elder Marsh talked to me about was the morning schedule. He showed me
the Missionary Health Guide. Why didn't I get that sooner. It has really
helped ever since. I'm feeling more energetic and more awake in the
mornings. Who knew exercise was important? :)
Thursday we also got to meet our new mission president. Did I
mention that we were getting a new one? President Manion and Sister
Manion are so amazing and will really be wonderful for the mission. Our
zone went up to Red Deer for it. Before hand we grabbed lunch and we
were all eating in the kitchen. I got to catch up with Elder Eyler (from
the MTC) and hear about what's been going on in his area. We then went
in and got to meet President and Sister Manion. They shared things about
them and some of their experiences. They are from the Fort Worth (don't
let Sean read that haha) area. Then all of the outlying areas had
interviews with them. We were the last ones, so while we were waiting we
got to talk with everyone else until it was just us and the zls. We
then had our interviews ( I would rather say get to know each other
times) and really got to know what great people they really are.
Well I also had a really cool experience Saturday morning. I
was really feeling down and feeling like I wasn't really progressing and
becoming a better missionary. I was really just feeling upset and
discouraged. Before we left the appt. I sat down and read through my
Patriarchal Blessing. It truly is a blessing. I read through it and was
really suddenly just feeling happy and hopeful. I love the guidance and
comfort that you can feel from it. It is like your own personal book of
scripture that is only yours to read and directly applies to you. It was
a much needed blessing at that time.
Yesterday at church was really cool as well. Sister
Woodruff, who is a single sister, texted us the night before and asked
for our favorite colors and the spelling of our names. We thought it was
kinda weird, but didn't really think about it much. We got to church
and she asked if we could come in her primary class for the last 10
minutes. We actually almost forgot, but went in and got to talk about
how the Lord has blessed us as missionaries. Her class had written notes
and taped them to different bags of treats. They were all put into this
burlap bag that had a name tag and a colored tie on it. It was really
sweet of her to do that for us. It was hard to not eat some of it, since
it was fast sunday. I love the members so much. They are so kind to us
missionaries.
Bishop Mower here also is really awesome. We have been
trying to get the Ferences to come to church. The parents and the oldest
child were baptized a few years ago, but went inactive. Elder George
and Elder Marsh were teaching the younger kids. Well I really shouldn't
call them kids. They are 15 and 13. They were teaching them and had a
baptism date for them that is past and gone. They wouldn't come to
church so that date came and went. We took Bishop Mower with us to their
house last night, mostly so he could just meet them. Pretty much they
still aren't going anywhere, but we are. Since watching the Work of
Salvation Broadcast we have been trying to get more member support from
the ward other than feeding us meals. I guess the Bishop is the first
one. He told us he wants to go every Sunday sometime and visit LA's or
PM's (Less Actives and Part Members) that he will choose. That is
exactly the kind of thing that needs to happen. The missionaries should
be going with the members, not bringing the members. It will be a really
opportunity.
We also got to go over and do another dump run
with Bro Ellis, one of the best people of Innisfail. He didn't know it
was going to be that nasty. He had a pile of debris that the dry wallers
that were building his house just through outside the door and left it
there. That was before all of the rain came a couple of weeks ago. So as
we were picking up the pile we found out it was mostly old rotting
drywall and gross drywall paste in a puddle of mud that was fermenting
for a while. It was a really gross clean up job, but it had to be done.
He said if he would have known it was going to be this bad he wouldn't
have called us to help. We didn't care because we got to help out.
So overall this past week has been really good. We really
didn't see any progress from anyone we taught last week, but I could
sure feel myself progressing immensely. I know that the Lord is always
with us to help lift us up. "Where two or more of my servants gather,
there I am, in the midst of them"
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