Week 17

Hey everyone!

   This week was very interesting, but not in a bad way!

Tuesday, We had a list of people to visit, less actives, and an active family whom we had never met. I thought we wouldn't really have any success, but we really did, which was very encouraging! We met a less active man who we have been trying to visit for some time but have never gotten in contact with him, he was very nice and said we could come back whenever we wanted. Another man set an appointment with us for later in the week; and the active family was there, an older couple, very nice. They showed us there garden, man gardening is a HUGE thing out here, probably because anything can grow in this climate! Finally, after dinner, we were able to meet with a young man, who is an active member, just another one of those youth teaching assignments, and we taught him the restoration.

 

Wednesday, We had quite a good day. We were able to meet with a part member family, the dad isn't a member but he really loves meeting with us, we met with a young man who we are working with, he has been praying and reading the scriptures occasionally and his grandpa, who he is living with and is a member of our ward, said that his attitude, grades, and his whole life have improved since he has started meeting with us, and of course we know that we aren't making the difference, but the gospel is. Finally we were able to meet with the grandmother of a family who is very active in our ward, she visits 4 months every year from south America, and we just happened to be serving in this English ward, two Spanish speaking missionaries and she only speaks Spanish, so we are trying to work with her, she is very hesitant but she keeps commitments so we will see how that goes. And our investigator who was getting baptized Saturday canceled an appointment with us.

 

Thursday, We weekly planned, tried to visit a few people, did our Mormon.org time then visited one of our favorite families although they are less active they really love us, then had correlation meeting and S., set for baptism last Saturday had the baptism interview and we got the green light from our Zone Leaders!

 

Friday, we spent the day basically setting up the baptism, we had to make the programs, get everything in the church set up, chairs and such, we had to get the tv working so we could play videos, and that took most of the time. then we had dinner with the Laubaughs, the mom is out of town so it was just the dad and the only son at home, so the dad grilled up a ton of food, after dinner we went and helped clean up the church, it was set to be done on Saturday morning, and we were going to go to that but we found out it was going to be done that night so we just went and helped out.

 

Saturday, was interesting... That morning the man scheduled for baptism text us that we were going to have to postpone it because his uncle in southern Missouri died, and he will be working for the next 4 Saturdays so we don't know when or if the baptism is going to happen, we were a little skeptical as if he was really interested in the church, so I think we got our answer lol... anyways we had a ton of service to do that day because our ward had a few activities going on that day. There was a service project at a womans shelter to build some planting boxes so we went and helped out there, then we had to leave a little early to help out with an eagle project for a young man in the ward, where we set up a butterfly waste station, basically we just planted a bunch of plants that attract a certain type of butterfly and provide food for it, it was pretty fun. After the project, we got a call from Brother P., he was back at the women's shelter working by himself with another man in the ward, so we went back and helped them finish up, shoveling a bunch of mulch into wheel barrows and putting it in. Then we went home showered real fast and went to dinner. We were so tired that night lol

 

Sunday, Well it was fast sunday, the slowest sunday of the week lol. But it was a fairly normal meeting, nobody got up there and told anything crazy lol the rest of church was good. Sunday school was about the living church of Christ today, Priesthood was about the talk from President Eyring this past conference about fasting, it was also brief because the Elders Quorum had to go set up for the break the fast, our ward gets together and people bring food to break their fasts together, usually there isn't enough food and it runs out fast, but this time there was plenty! Then we had a lesson with a young man in our ward, and we visited with the P. family who are going to do baptisms in the temple THIS FRIDAY!! We will be going with them so we are super excited!

 

So this week was pretty normal. We did have the little step back with our investigator canceling the baptism, which Elder Valdez has never had happen on his mission, but it wasn't a big deal, we were very skeptical about if he was being real with us or not when we were teaching him and the fact that this happens right before his baptism might be a sign that he wasn't. But it wasn't something really depressing. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

  Elder Hinrichsen