May 2, 2016

This week things went a little slow, but we were able to get some work
done still.

Tuesday, we had stake reports, that took a while. We had lunch in the
middle but were able to try some people in between. We basically went
from there straight to dinner. That night we were able to have a
lesson with a recent convert here, W.W.

Wednesday, we had District Meeting. It was alright, a sister gave a
sweet training about our purpose as missionaries, and then there was
another training on extending invitations. After district meeting we
had district lunch where the district eats lunch together, shocker. We
had a visit with the ward mission leader who got back from vacation,
where we told him about all the stuff that is going on with missionary
work. After trying a few people we had dinner then a lesson with
another recent convert, I.P. . Well, later we tried to have a
lesson with a few more recent converts bites weren't home.

Thursday, we had our stake report meeting. We spent most of the day
trying to contact people. We ended up calling a lot of potentials
because we didn't want to waste miles. We had more success that way
anyways. We had a sweet lesson with an investigator about the
importance of scripture study every day. Then we tried to contact some
more people.

Friday, we helped a man move in another ward. Apparently some
missionaries offered service and he asked for help moving so there
were a bunch of missionaries helping him move. It took a while to help
him move because apparently he had nobody else that was going to help
him. It was pretty sweet though because he isn't a member but said he
was excited for the Elders to drop by and visit him. After the move we
went to lunch with some other elders followed by trying some more
people most of the afternoon. After dinner we had to get the baptismal
records for a few baptisms the Elders had this month signed by their
parents and try to visit a few other people.

Saturday, we tried contacting a few people. Then the family who signed
up for dinner asked if we could come earlier... Like at 12:30, so we
had our "dinner" at 12:30 haha. We had to do some weekly planning to
set up stuff for this week coming week, which unfortunately is going
to be super hectic with meetings. Weekly planning is not one of my
favorite parts of the mission... We gave a lady in the ward a blessing
to help her through some difficult times. We took our dinner, or
lunch, after that and then we helped the Elders Quorum President visit
some people for home teaching. Oh man, funniest thing ever happened.
We were contacting a less active guy we knocked on
the door, and a small Asian lady answered. She beckoned us in and
instantly started talking in Chinese, so we didn't understand anything
haha. She pointed upstairs
and went to talk to someone so we went and sat on the couch awkwardly
for like 15 minutes before we thought, "Is this even Y's house?!"
Finally our team up decided to use google translate to try and talk to
the people and ask if Y was even upstairs... But they people didn't
understand what it's was saying... Just at the right moment, Y came
downstairs and we were able to talk to him but man, that was the most
awkward moment of my whole life. I was laughing so hard but trying to
hide it at the same time to not make anyone else feel uncomfortable.

Sunday, we had our correlation meeting. The correlation meetings here
are insanely productive, Brother Wofford, the ward mission leader, is
awesome at getting stuff done. We had a good testimony meeting,
unfortunately people used it as a weekly summary to the ward of the
hard things they went through, not to share testimonies. Sunday school
was about Christ's church, the outline of it, and how the church has
the same outline today. Priesthood was about the work of the temples
and why they are so important. I love the temple, there is no place on
this earth that offers such solace, peace, comfort, and rejuvenation
as does the temple. Something I realized during the lesson as people
were talking about how it can be a sacrifice to go to the temple is,
it shouldn't be a "sacrifice" at all to go to the temple, it should be
a sacrifice not to. We shouldn't skip out on the temple, we need to go
as often as possible because there's nowhere we need to be as bad as
we need to be there. Well, church starts at 2 so we went straight to
dinner from there and then we set up some appointments with people and
had a lesson with a lady from Honduras. It was the first full Spanish
lesson I've had since being here and I actually felt pretty good
during it! I felt I talked with way more fluidity then I thought I
would so I was pumped!

Well, this coming week we have a LOT going on! We won't have a ton of
time to proselyte but I'm sure that as we work, the Lord will provide.
I hope everyone is doing great! Have a good week!

Elder Hinrichsen