enchiladas and bugs (chiggers)

Enchiladas and Chiggers.
Those two words basically sum up this week. I got mauled by chiggers and we were fed enchiladas 4 times... Out of 7. It was just funny when we would turn the corner into people's kitchen and see enchiladas again and again, I wonder if they planned it; I bet they did, well, other than that this week was slow.

Tuesday, we began entering the entire area book full of investigators who are being taught and who used to be taught, for the last 5 years into the IPads. The church has a system so it will all be input online now which I believe will help the work, but for now we have had to take 2 hours every day of this week to enter the info in and we are still not done. So we did that, then we went and helped an older lady move some furniture around in her house and then listened to her for a little before going to dinner. After dinner we visited with the investigators we have on date.

Wednesday, we did a bit of studies with the old woman we helped move furniture around the day before, she showed us a really great talk by Cleone Skouson about the Atonement and we discussed it, it really put it into a deep perspective, but Cleone Skouson always talks about deeper stuff. Then we once again, worked on entering the information into the area book for a few hours. Then we tried to contact a few people before we had dinner with a really cool family that just moved in a few weeks ago; and the enchilada fest began... Then we went and visited with a Chinese man we began teaching, he's from China and struggles to believe in God so he's a little more difficult to get to.

Thursday, we worked on the area book planner again, then we tried to visit a few less active members we were suggested to visit. We didn't have much success. So we went to our dinner appointment’s house.  Well, both being new and only having the ward roster and a GPS, we went to the listed address, nobody was there, so we called the best member ever, Sister Young -who feeds us if we don't have food, she said come over then we got a text from the family who was going to feed us telling us that the husband needed to leave so they could just make us some to go... Turns out they moved and didn't change their address in the roster, but like everybody knew that they moved, everybody, that it is, except the two new missionaries in town. Haha, so we grabbed the food to go from them and went and ate at Sister Young's house because the food was ready there. After that we once again visited our oriental friend and had a very powerful lesson in which he refused to accept what we were saying.

Friday, we had a district meeting and interviews with the President. The trainings in District Meeting were on talking with everyone and the need for/overcoming the fear of: failure. I gave the one on failure. The interviews were good but took forever (President and Sister Vest both mentioned the confidence they have in me which I appreciated and President Vest said that he saw in me a great amount of power and love; that's good, that's exactly what I want people to feel around me.) Then after all those we went and had dinner with our 3 investigators on date, she made Enchiladas but she is Hispanic so they were AMAZING, seriously the best I've ever had!!! Then they made us Tres Leches, which is a cake that soaks in 3 types of milk: evaporated, sweetened condensed, and some Spanish one dulce something, but OH MY.... needless to say, it was an amazing meal. Then we went and visited with a less active man who talked our ears off, that's where the chiggers came into play I believe.

Saturday, we worked on the area book again for a while to catchup from Friday, then we had a lesson with the Chinese investigator, Mr. Li, no I'm not racist, that's his ACTUAL last name. In this lesson we solely talked about the Hope of the Gospel.  We realized that's what it will have to be for him, he needs hope and happiness in his life, and we need to show him how the gospel brings hope and happiness. Then we went to dinner, where we ate Enchiladas... surprise, surprise #3peat. Finished by working on updating the ward roster with who's active and not.

Sunday, our three investigators who are set for baptism this Saturday, the 29th, came a little late, but came. For Sunday School we helped teach the 16-17 year olds how to really teach others about eternal marriage, but we ended up just telling them why we need to stand up for marriage and protect its sanctity; I realized that this year will, without a doubt, be the hardest for members of the church in school to defend marriage, the youth need to respect others’ opinions but never falter in theirs, people have the right to believe what they want, don't let it offend you, just focus on never falling away yourself. Priesthood was on the talk "Truly Good and without Guile", one of my favorite talks from Conference. After church, the members will usually feed us lunch, guess what we had?!?! Tacos, nope, enchiladas #4peat; surprisingly enough though, no enchiladas this week were gross, I was super impressed. After dinner we worked more on updating the ward roster for a while. After that we had dinner with the family who fed us on Saturday night as well, that family, the Rae's, have taken great care of us, they always seem to feed us twice in a row; plus, a fun fact, their two sons are going up to BYU on Thursday. After that we did some weekly planning.

Well, this week is going to be STRESSFUL!!! We have to set up a baptism for Mary, Marcee, and Stephanie Saturday that we have nothing for, but on P-Day, we shall ball, then we can be distressed for the upcoming schedule. I hope everyone is doing well, I love you guys all, have a great week!

 Seth

P.S. Something cool about Sedalia is that... ITS THE HOME OF SCOTT JOPLIN