This week was fast, in many ways
lol. (you’ll find out why later)
Monday we played basketball and volleyball in Independence.
(this sounds arrogant but I am pretty good at volleyball. It was hard because I didn't want to be
arrogant but I didn't want to not try so I played hard and even though the
other team was athletic and my team wasn't super athletic we won) After P-Day
ended we visited a few people, and I don't think any of them even answered.
Tuesday was Zone Conference with Elder Renlund of the 70. He
talked about how as a 70 he is called to go places and to do things on behalf
of the 12... and he said he had 4 messages for us:
1) He said, "on behalf of the first presidency and
quorum of the 12 apostles, Thank you for what you do"
That was SO
COOL to hear. The quorum of the 12, and prophet and his councilors wanted to
thank us! It was a very special experience, and very humbling, I think at
that moment I realized that as a leader you are not called to stand at the helm
and direct, but you are called to stand behind and push with everyone else, you
are to be an example, not to talk a big game, but to play a big game, not sure
how I got that but that is what I got haha.
2) You have been placed by God to be where you are, and
you have a right to know that
There are a
few people in the mission who weren't originally called here, a sister in our
ward was called to Ukraine, but after waiting for a while for her visa she was
just assigned to be here, and there is a missionary in our zone who was called
to Africa but is waiting on his visa so those two probably needed to hear that,
but it was cool to hear that too
3) President Vest and Sister Vest have been called of God,
he said, "I have been all over and they are as good as mission presidents
as I have seen"
That
was really cool to hear. The Vests are awesome. I really love serving in this
mission, the history and the future of the church here are astounding, the
spirit at the church history sights is one that cannot be presented by a lesson
alone, so to have those resources, those places to take investigators is so
cool. Liberty Jail isn't just a history
sight, it’s a spiritual symbol of faith, perseverance and hope.... The history
of the place is cool, but the significance of what happened there stand as a
symbol of what enduring to the end is all about
4) He said, "I testify that Jesus Christ lives"
That
reminded me of a testimony of Elder Bednar when he said, "... He lives,
the tomb was empty" that phrase, "the tomb was empty"
always testifies to me of the validity of the resurrection.
The training was about retention and making sure that
investigators stay faithful.
Wednesday we lost
the car and so we walked around and visited a few people, we met with what said
was a less active woman but she seemed active, at least she talked like she was
haha. She was doing yard work so we told her that we would come the next day
and help her. That was pretty much how Wednesday went, we ate dinner with the
P. family, and we took them to the Liberty Jail, which is literally like a 30
second walk from their house!! It is one street over, and just a tiny little
street, you can see it from their house!! HOW COOL IS THAT!?! Before we took
them for the video we asked who they would like to baptize them, there baptism
is THIS SATURDAY, and the Dad said he would like me to baptize and confirm him,
and the daughter and mom will be baptized and confirmed by Elder Valdez!
Thursday was a day full of doing service, we went and helped
the sister who was listed as less active rake a bunch of leaves but we were
late so we had to run there, then the Investigator who is getting baptized is
working on overcoming drinking and smoking and he wanted to do a construction
project with us to stay busy, so he text us and we had to run like a mile and a
half to his house, then before we knew it we had dinner, so we had to run like
the mile home and shower and change, haha That's why It was a fast week, but
that wasn't all the running haha!! then we had dinner and visited with an
investigator in a part member family, Larry, he is super cool and he loves
magic, hes really good too! We have met with him twice now and he just shows us
magic tricks, we haven't even taught him anything, but it is SO entertaining,
and we were told to be very cautious and to ease the gospel into his life,
because he has a bad experience with the missionaries in the past.
Friday as we were doing our studies in the morning we got a
call from the sisters that a lady they were working with needed help moving a
stove, and we needed to be over there ASAP so we had to change then run
like 2 miles to this lady’s house haha, then move two stoves, one was down
stairs that she wanted upstairs, and she wanted the upstairs one downstairs.
With that and the fact that we had to do weekly planning we didn't get out of
the house until almost 5. So we just tried a few people then had dinner with
the Edwards
Saturday the stake had a service project so we went. It was
super fun! The Kansas City temple, which is like 10 miles from where we
live, is right off the 435 freeway so members of the stake planted trees on the
side of the freeway... we were a distance away from the road and there were no
kids there.... just thought I would specify haha After the service project we
went with the P. family’s to watch Meet the Mormons at the Jail, they loved it!
Then we had a quick lesson about the commandments. A member from Elder Valdez’s
old area picked us up and took us to eat at Cheddars after that we
knocked on a few potentials doors and then had dinner at the Antezanas, they
are a really cool family, the wife is from Liberty but the husband is from
Bolivia so we talked to him in Spanish a little bit. After dinner we got a call
from the P. family who is set for baptism this week... and let me tell you, all
week I was thinking, there is nothing that satan could do to weaken this
family, they are rock solid... boy was I wrong... we called him back, because
we had missed the call.. his dad has had cancer for 4 years and hasn't told
anyone about it, he was dying in the hospital... that really opened my eyes to
the way that Satan plays the game of life, he goes for the knees, he
plays dirty, he didn't just throw alcohol and cigarettes at the family he threw
a situation that would cause them to crawl back into the bottle and light a
cigarette.. he wanted THEM to CHOOSE to leave the gospel teachings... but that
family IS ROCK SOLID. The dad called us because he said he feels we are always
there for him, he asked us to say a prayer for him right there over the phone,
so we did, and then I shared Mosiah 16:7-9 and talked about the resurrection
and life after this, he told us yesterday that really helped him out a lot.
Sunday, we had ward
conference, and here, ward conference consists of a 2 hour sacrament then 1
hour of priesthood, relief society, etc.... it was a good conference about
sharing the gospel with people... and we got a new ward mission leader which was
sad because we LOVED the old one, anyways, that is my week. Hope everyone is
doing good, love you and pray for you all
Con Amor,
Elder Hinrichsen
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