Week 8

This week has been a rollercoaster; I haven't been emotionally up and down, just with success and stuff! Tuesday we had two different appointments... one canceled and the other just didn't answer so we spent the rest of the day walking around and knocking on doors of less actives.~Then after dinner we went and did Lost~Sheep, the church has a 9 step process for~checking if people live~where the~record says they do, so we go and knock on their door, then~knock on the neighbors and ask if they know anything about them.  These are less actives. The~funniest thing I have realized~is that I never want to leave the church LOL, because you would never get left alone ha ha!! Anyways when we do lost sheep we go with Brother Devite, and we didn't even have to get out of the car because the addresses we had were bad! So we just drove around and then he took us for ice cream.  He always does, and he always says, "Elders, man cannot live by bread alone, you've got to have some ice cream too" it’s pretty funny every time. Wednesday, Elder Valdez had a leadership meeting and so I went with two other Elders to clean out an old missionary apartment, it was gross... the fridge had stopped working for a while... and there was chicken in the freezer so it smelled terrible, it was really bad!! Then the Elder in charge of housing, Elder Seaman, who we helped move everything took us out to eat. After the meeting for leaders, which lasted for like 4 hours, we went to the library, for Mormon.org time.  Each week we go the library for one hour to learn more about Mormon.org, President’s orders. Later that night we met up with a part member family and talked to the husband, Larry, who isn't a member. We really just got to know him and watched him to some magic.  He’s pretty good at magic. Thursday, we had district meeting and then went to lunch together, our district is really cool!! I will send pictures next week! Then we went and talked to a returning member, Jerome, and had to rush out because we lost track of time, and taught Jared K., a youth, a lesson because we teach the youth the lesson, the stake president asked us to. Then we had dinner but they had to just give it to us, because their daughter was sick, so we went and relaxed at home and ate.  Then we had to go to Independence because Elder Valdez had to do a baptismal interview. Friday we had an appointment which canceled and so we planned for the week for like an hour and a half then we went to the library because I had to learn how to use family history in my teaching for the 12 week program, a program that you have to do for the first 12 weeks of your mission (I already know everything we do, my comp says I am the most prepared kid he has ever met). After that we went to a house of a less active, she didn't~answer, go figure, so we went and tried a few other... nothing haha. Saturday was team up day.  All day we had a member with us, which was cool, we started with Jared, the kid we taught earlier in the week, then we met up with Brother Farnsworth, HE IS SO COOL!!!  We just got rejected by like 5 people.  I mean they didn't even open the door, then he took us to lunch and we just talked about his mission.  He served in Brazil, and he told us cool stories. Then we went to Brother Moore's wedding reception, he is an older gentleman whose wife passed away a few years ago and he got remarried.  He’s super cool, he is a convert, and he was called as a Bishop like a~year and a half after joining the church in like the 70s!! Then we went with Brother Seone. After Brother Seone we met up with the Bishop, and we visited some people, who surprise, surprise, didn't answer-ha ha. Then we met with Brother Wood.  We were running late so he just took us to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse.  he works with beef for a living so he just gave us, and the waitress, a bunch of lessons on beef cuts, it was funny, we gave the waitress a Mormon.org card. Then we met up with Brother Morris who is a convert and had to overcome addictions and we went and taught a family that is going to get baptized on the 21 and the Dad has some addictions, Brother Morris was AWESOME!! We gave the Dad a blessing to overcome his addictions! That was awesome!! Sunday was pretty normal; a missionary in our ward got home from Brazil, and hearing his stories... missionary work is SO DIFFERENT THERE!!! He could commit people to baptism on the streets!!! They only had to attend church once!!! And with a simple street contact he could commit them to baptism!! That’s insane! I think, serving in the states, I have to learn to do missionary work that I can do for the rest of my life, just by making friends, then talking about our church! I am so glad I am in my mission; I wouldn't choose another place to be!! Have a good week I love you all!

~ Elder Hinrichsen