May 9, 2016

Well, this week started a little slow but picked up a lot at the end.

Tuesday, we had stake reports. Not much happened other than that. We
tried to contact some people and has a sweet lesson with some young
men in the ward. Their mom is semi active and the dad isn't a member
so their mom asked us to have weekly meetings with them to help them
stay active. We had a little visit about the Priesthood and talked
about the importance of it, overall, a good visit.

Wednesday, MLC day. Those are always a little longer to me. We got to
Independence around 8:20, ate and them mentally prepared ourselves
from what was to come. We got situated and the meeting began.
Trainings were on subjects of, The Book of Mormon and using it more
properly, Charity and other Christlike attributes, and the power of
our calling. After MLC, we ate at Wing Stop, because it's pretty much
Elder Gills favorite place to eat in the entire world. We had a sweet
appointment that night with a Hispanic guy and his family, where we
talked about the Book of Mormon and how they need to read it
in order to find out if it's true.

Thursday, we basically spent the day trying to contact a few people
but mainly just planning out Zone Training for the next day where we
have to take the trainings from MLC and give them in shorter forms, so
we have to plan the agenda and write trainings on the subjects from
the MLC. Every Thursday night at 7 there is an English class to help
Hispanics learn the language better so that's always sweet.

Friday, we had zone training. In Olathe, after Zone trainings,
which we have in Paola, a member prepares lunch for all the
missionaries so she had it waiting for us when the meeting was over.
That night we had an awesome lesson with a lady who the missionaries
had met with in the past but had stopped meeting with. The lesson went
awesome. The team up got to know them a lot and then at the end we
shared the "Because of Him" video in Spanish and discussed the feeling
of the spirit as in Galatians 5:22-23, then read Ephesians 5:9 which
basically tells that the feelings of the Spirit come when things are
true. She said that was something she had never heard before and was
super amazed by it as well.

Saturday, always a good day to be a missionary because everyone is
home haha. We had to do our weekly planning session due to lack of
time earlier in the week. We were also able to set up appointments for
next week with a sweet unbaptized kid for next Saturday and a former
investigator. Money! We also had an amazing lesson with this family of
like 7 that we are working with. The dad is a member but hasn't been
to church since he was 14 but his wife and kids aren't members. We had
to do a quick lesson where we ended up talking about temples and
temple marriages. At the end of the lesson, the mom was literally
saying stuff like, "If God would just tell me to join the Mormon
church, I would just do it tomorrow!" She just has a concern with
Joseph Smith which is what we are going to talk about in the next
visit, the Restoration; we were just running out of time and had to go
to dinner. After dinner we did some work calling people in the area
book and trying to set up appointments.

Sunday, MAMA's DAY. Got to skype the fam. It's crazy to think that I
this was supposed to be my last skype call home but since the MTC
rules changed, I have one more. I think it goes without say that it
was fantastic. I am so grateful for my mom. Whatever accomplishments
or level of success I reach in this life, it can all be accredited to
her loving example of selflessness. Church was fantastic, even through
the thunder and rain storm that was pounding the building. We had
three people show up, two unexpectedly. The lesson in Gospel
Principles was awesome, talking about the Restoration and the focused
turned a lot to the importance of ordinances by proper authority in
the true church of Christ, specifically baptism. Then in priesthood
the lesson was about tithing, which is something the investigator,
D, had questions about! Well, after church, we had to rush to
dinner so we could get back for Elder Gill to skype his family.

We had three sweet visits with three families we are working with.
It's so awesome to work with families. I am so grateful for the chance
to serve here in the Olathe 1st ward. I hope everyone had a great
week! Keep it real!
Elder Hinrichsen