Hey, how are things going for you guys?
This week, once again we did a lot of contacting. We were only able to teach 5 lessons. I'm not sure why were not able to find anyone to teach, I keep thinking the work is going to pick up but it just doesn't seem like it's picking up too quickly.
However we were able to teach a lesson to [Sister N], one of the people we taught a couple of weeks ago. We stopped by her house because it had been a couple of weeks since we had had contact with her. She was there and invited us in to teach her. She apologized for not calling us or visiting with us for a while. She committed to try and follow better the "word of God" as she explained it to us. The only problem is that her husband (I forgot how to phrase this in English, but el no esta en acuerdo con lo que estamos ensenando a su esposa) [he is not in agreement with what we are teaching his wife]. So we're going to visit with her and her husband this coming Tuesday and we'll hope that we can get something figured out. She really wanted to come to church this Sunday but for some reason didn't, so we'll have to visit with her and figure out why she didn't come.
So here's a funny story. We were biking out to the area where we were going to knock doors and we saw this Hispanic on a bike in front of us, so we went to catch up to him so that we could talk to him. He was on the sidewalk so I was on the side of the rode, so I pulled up on the side of him and tried to wave him down and get him to stop, but I'm not sure if he realized I was there. So I passed him and there was a little pull out on the side of the rode where I stopped and waved at him and yelled "hey hermano" but he still didn't stop. So [elder L] pulled ahead and rode along side him trying to get his attention, but he still didn't stop. We ended up following him for about a mile or two but he never stopped. It was kind of funny though because me and [elder L] were sitting down on our bikes keeping our normal pace, but he was standing up on his bike peddling as hard as he could but yet kept the same pace. I think we kind of intimidated him. I'm not sure why....
Recently we've found that all the places that we know of that are highly populated with [Spanish speaking people] have all been knocked out pretty well. So we decided to look for some new places...e. We rode out to a spot out by nightdale which was about and 45 min-1 hr bike ride out there. we had never been there before but we saw a trailer park out there that we thought we might go check out. We had planned to spend the entire afternoon out there. But it turned out that there were only about 15 trailers in the trailer park and all the hispanics were out working, but we talked to 3 other english people. It was kinda funny, we talked to this [guy] who was rolling up this cigarette right in front of us. So we finished knocking this trailer park and had an extra 1 1/2 extra of time and we were in an area that we don't know very well and about a half hour bike ride to the closest area in our area to knock. so, that kinda made our day hard, because an hour and a half to work in our area isn't enough time because we half to ride for a half hour to get to anywhere so we only had about a half hour to work. So yea, that's our story about how we didn't plan very well, I've learned several times (the hard way) what happens when I don't plan very well.
This week I got to go on exchanges again with [elder ]. It was a lot of fun and I got to go to there area where I didn't have to be the person in charge/or the only one who really knows the area. Also that day we got to ride in the car and the temperature got up to 105 F that day. The elder that took my spot was quite grateful that they have a full time car after that exchange.
So yea, that's about my week. It's going great out here, and even though the work is going slow, I'm enjoying it, and I've learned a lot out here. I'm pretty sure there's nothing I'd rather be doing right now other than out her serving a mission!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Questions Answered
- How are your 3 investigators coming? We pray for you and the people you are teaching every night as a family.
- Did you get your derailer adjusted? Is the bike holding up well? I expect you have put a number of miles on it already.
- Do you read your Spanish scriptures mostly or your English? Are you getting where you understand the language of the scriptures pretty good?
- Did we tell you that they are building a temple in Payson? I am sure that we did but I kind of forgot if I ever mentioned it. Right now it is a field of winter wheat. Not really sure when they will start.
- Are you still getting a lot of Mexican food?
- I think you were my big milk drinker. Do you get to drink it much there.
So this week I got to go on exchanges with an elder [Elder V] he's a little verdicito ( I still am too, but he's only 3 weeks out). And don't be decieved by his name, he is hispanic but doesn't speak spanish. So it was a lot of fun being the "senor companion" for the day. I think he also became a little more grateful for the car that he has in his area...we did a little more biking than what he is used to.
We've had a hard time recently trying to find investigators to teach. It seems like right now it's the middle of the summer and so there's a lot of work to do and so it's really hard to catch peoples attention because their so busy. But my mission president referred me to a page in Preach my gospel that says that our success is measured by our desire to fulfill our purpose, or invite others to come unto christ. So I guess I'll just keep pushing forward and I'm sure we'll find somebody soon.
Just one tip as your buying clothes for sharee. I remember with me, you guys refused to go cheap on the stuff we bought which was a good idea. The mission is rough on your clothes/equipment. Some of the missionaries that go cheap end up probably spending more money because they have to continually replace their clothes. But as far as me, all my stuff has held up quite well.
One more question. Maybe you could see if their are by chance any mt biking trails within Raleigh. preferably withing my area which if you look at my area, we work below the road "buffaloe" to the east of "Raleigh Blvd/skycrest (both names are the same rode just at different parts of the rode)" and over in the towns zebulon, and nightdale. I'm just looking for something else to do on preparation day besides basketball.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
New Investigators
Letter 1
How's it going?
To answer your questions for the fourth of july, I'm not sure exactly what we'll do. My companion said that last year they had to be back by 6 o clock. So I'm guessing that's what we'll do also...probably just hang around the apartment, I'm not exactly sure on that.
So one thing that i would like to clear up, I'm sure that dad understands this, but I've recieved a couple of letters from a few people asking me if I'm fluent in spanish yet. So this question is very relative question, I'm not exactly sure what fluent means, because although I may become more and more sufficient in the language throughout my mission, it's still a foreign language. But just to clear up any concerns, the spanish is coming just fine, I understand what's going on about 90% of the time during lessons, and it's still a little difficult during normal conversation, but it's coming good and I have no idea what fluent means.
So I'm not sure is any of you knew this, but the world cup has been going on these last couple weeks, which means about every other day there's about 2-3 hours of the day that are really hard to talk to people or to get into houses. It's been pretty fun though because you can start a conversation with just about anyone just by talking about the world cup. Sharee might be excited to know that argentina won a pretty big game yesterday against mexico. although we had two people that wanted to come to church yesterday but wouldn't because they wanted to watch the game.
This week has been really nice, because like I said last week we got a new meal cordinator who is really magnifying her calling. We've had meals just about every night this week. this has worked out really good, because we normally just have to eat a big lunch from 10 30-11 30 and the take sandwiches with us, or else we would have to spend half hour-45 min to get back to the apartment to eat. But since the members live in our area, dinner is a lot closer with them.
One of the people that we ate with this week was the quinteros and they are from argentina. I told them that sharee got called to serve her mission there, and told them which mission it was. They were excited to hear that, you could tell that they are quite proud to be from argentina.
So it looks like we might have a few people added to our teaching pool now, we taught 3 people this week that showed a lot of interest.
We knocked [invesigator 1] door and she said that she has a sister in Honduras that is a member, we talked to her about a few things and then set a time to come back. When we had come back the second time she had read the pamphlet we gave her, and had looked at a bunch of stuff on mormon.org. We were dissapointed though, because her husband wasn't home when we came by, and we can't teach girls unless there is a man in the house, but she showed a lot of interest so we left a book of mormon with her and set up another appointement with her and brought a member with us the second time. The lesson we had with the member went really good, she had a lot of questions, but the questions she had were only because she wanted to know if what we had to share was true.
[Investigator 2] we taught last night (it was the third time we taught her, but it seemed like things just clicked with her this time.) She had some doubts about the book of mormon, but we resolved those and taught her how she could pray to know if it is true. She also had some doubts about baptism, be cause she had already been baptized in the catholic church, we explained the authority to her and then told her that we would let her pray about the book of mormon and our church to see if she needed to be baptized again only this time by proper authority. She said the closing prayer and we could tell by the way she prayed that she had a sincere desire to find out if our church was true.
[Investigator 3], was someone also that we just recently met. He's been pretty much begging us to teach him how to pray, which is usually the opposite. One day we stopped by his house, because we were in the area and on of our appointments fell through and we wanted to set up another. We were kind of short on time because it was about 8 oclock and we were about 45 min away from our apartment. But he was asking us and wanted so badly for us to come help him pray. So we did, we taught a really short lesson, and we got home just on time (with about 30 sec. to spare), but it all turned out well.
So, yea, that's our investigators, there all pretty new, but were hoping that they'll start to progress.
Letter 2
One more thing, I finish my email a little bit early. But last p-day we went golfing. One of the members in the english ward let us go golfing for free. it was pretty, cool though, because the course we went on was really nice. However, I'd have to say (this was my first time golfing) I just don't understand this sport...it was a lot of sitting around and not doing much of anything. Also we had to wear a button up polo shirt, so we all went to a tjmax and bought a shirt...I just don't understand this whole idea, you wear gym shorts/bike shorts/etc so that you can perform better...But why do you wear a button up shirt for golfing?
But yea, I've got pix from that, I'll have to send those home sometime. It was kindof a change from the normal p-day (basketball) but as you can see from my earlier letter, I'll probably be fixing my bike today, I think my compainion has several things to fix on his also.
que tenga una buena dia
How's it going?
To answer your questions for the fourth of july, I'm not sure exactly what we'll do. My companion said that last year they had to be back by 6 o clock. So I'm guessing that's what we'll do also...probably just hang around the apartment, I'm not exactly sure on that.
So one thing that i would like to clear up, I'm sure that dad understands this, but I've recieved a couple of letters from a few people asking me if I'm fluent in spanish yet. So this question is very relative question, I'm not exactly sure what fluent means, because although I may become more and more sufficient in the language throughout my mission, it's still a foreign language. But just to clear up any concerns, the spanish is coming just fine, I understand what's going on about 90% of the time during lessons, and it's still a little difficult during normal conversation, but it's coming good and I have no idea what fluent means.
So I'm not sure is any of you knew this, but the world cup has been going on these last couple weeks, which means about every other day there's about 2-3 hours of the day that are really hard to talk to people or to get into houses. It's been pretty fun though because you can start a conversation with just about anyone just by talking about the world cup. Sharee might be excited to know that argentina won a pretty big game yesterday against mexico. although we had two people that wanted to come to church yesterday but wouldn't because they wanted to watch the game.
This week has been really nice, because like I said last week we got a new meal cordinator who is really magnifying her calling. We've had meals just about every night this week. this has worked out really good, because we normally just have to eat a big lunch from 10 30-11 30 and the take sandwiches with us, or else we would have to spend half hour-45 min to get back to the apartment to eat. But since the members live in our area, dinner is a lot closer with them.
One of the people that we ate with this week was the quinteros and they are from argentina. I told them that sharee got called to serve her mission there, and told them which mission it was. They were excited to hear that, you could tell that they are quite proud to be from argentina.
So it looks like we might have a few people added to our teaching pool now, we taught 3 people this week that showed a lot of interest.
We knocked [invesigator 1] door and she said that she has a sister in Honduras that is a member, we talked to her about a few things and then set a time to come back. When we had come back the second time she had read the pamphlet we gave her, and had looked at a bunch of stuff on mormon.org. We were dissapointed though, because her husband wasn't home when we came by, and we can't teach girls unless there is a man in the house, but she showed a lot of interest so we left a book of mormon with her and set up another appointement with her and brought a member with us the second time. The lesson we had with the member went really good, she had a lot of questions, but the questions she had were only because she wanted to know if what we had to share was true.
[Investigator 2] we taught last night (it was the third time we taught her, but it seemed like things just clicked with her this time.) She had some doubts about the book of mormon, but we resolved those and taught her how she could pray to know if it is true. She also had some doubts about baptism, be cause she had already been baptized in the catholic church, we explained the authority to her and then told her that we would let her pray about the book of mormon and our church to see if she needed to be baptized again only this time by proper authority. She said the closing prayer and we could tell by the way she prayed that she had a sincere desire to find out if our church was true.
[Investigator 3], was someone also that we just recently met. He's been pretty much begging us to teach him how to pray, which is usually the opposite. One day we stopped by his house, because we were in the area and on of our appointments fell through and we wanted to set up another. We were kind of short on time because it was about 8 oclock and we were about 45 min away from our apartment. But he was asking us and wanted so badly for us to come help him pray. So we did, we taught a really short lesson, and we got home just on time (with about 30 sec. to spare), but it all turned out well.
So, yea, that's our investigators, there all pretty new, but were hoping that they'll start to progress.
Letter 2
One more thing, I finish my email a little bit early. But last p-day we went golfing. One of the members in the english ward let us go golfing for free. it was pretty, cool though, because the course we went on was really nice. However, I'd have to say (this was my first time golfing) I just don't understand this sport...it was a lot of sitting around and not doing much of anything. Also we had to wear a button up polo shirt, so we all went to a tjmax and bought a shirt...I just don't understand this whole idea, you wear gym shorts/bike shorts/etc so that you can perform better...But why do you wear a button up shirt for golfing?
But yea, I've got pix from that, I'll have to send those home sometime. It was kindof a change from the normal p-day (basketball) but as you can see from my earlier letter, I'll probably be fixing my bike today, I think my compainion has several things to fix on his also.
que tenga una buena dia
Monday, June 21, 2010
Answers to Questions
- How was your week?
- Any more progress with [investigator] or are his grandparents still opposed to his being baptized?
- How did transfers go?
Also It's been kinda crazy because we have 3 missionaries (including my companion) that have been transfered into the branch. So as far as things are looking right now this is a good thing, because all the members are excited that a bunch of new missionaries are here and their excited to meet all of them. In fact we've got a dinner appt with a member just about every night this week. Which is good for two reasons 1. it's food....kinda obvious 2. We can get referals.
- How is it being the guy that knows the area?
- Is it getting pretty hot?
So, yea, that pretty much explains our week, we've been doing a lot of finding recently. But I'm pretty excited for this next transfer because I've got a new companion that works hard and the members are feeding us (wich will give us an oportunidad (sorry I don't know how to spell that in english...) to talk to the members and get them excited about missionary work, and then hopefully get some referrals.
So I'm going to have to get some more details on this river trip. Sounds like it was pretty crazy! and of course pix.
Also I'm excited to hear about Timberline for [biker boy] and [the student's] trip to Connecticut.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Transfer for Elder Compton's Companion and Pictures
Hey, how are things going for you guys? So that's awesome that sharee got her mission call! My companion always makes fun of me when I talk spanish with an Argentina accent, so I'll have an excuse to do it now!...
Tomorrow are transfers and my companion is going to be transferred...He's been a good companion and he's really good at teaching, I'm just excited to have things changed up again.
I went on an exchange this week with one of the zone leaders. It was really enjoyable and I learned a lot from him. He's a really hard worker and really good at teaching. We were on the bikes for about an hour and a half that day overall and he probably kept a pace of about 18 mph the whole time...I was able to keep up, but I was worn out at the end of the day. Also he was really good at contacting people and never fell into the trap of teaching the same thing without really catering to the investigators needs. I learned that to be able to do that I have a lot more studying I'll have to do.
So other than that not too much really happened this week, we've done a lot knocking doors, and I've got to get ready to take over the area...I'm a little nervous about that, but I'm sure it will work out fine.
Elder Compton
Tomorrow are transfers and my companion is going to be transferred...He's been a good companion and he's really good at teaching, I'm just excited to have things changed up again.
I went on an exchange this week with one of the zone leaders. It was really enjoyable and I learned a lot from him. He's a really hard worker and really good at teaching. We were on the bikes for about an hour and a half that day overall and he probably kept a pace of about 18 mph the whole time...I was able to keep up, but I was worn out at the end of the day. Also he was really good at contacting people and never fell into the trap of teaching the same thing without really catering to the investigators needs. I learned that to be able to do that I have a lot more studying I'll have to do.
So other than that not too much really happened this week, we've done a lot knocking doors, and I've got to get ready to take over the area...I'm a little nervous about that, but I'm sure it will work out fine.
Elder Compton
Bicycle path on the way to their apartment
Jeff's companion riding (did Jeff take this while riding his bike? Look like)
Desks in their apartment. Jeff's is on the left.
Member family
Monday, June 7, 2010
2010-06-07 Letter and Pictures
This last saturday we had a really awesome experience. Elder David A Bednar came and talked to our mission for about 3 hours saturday afternoon. There's only about 150 missionaries in our mission, so we were easily able to fit everyone in the chapel (on the soft seats). It was probably one of the most amazing things that have happened on my mission so far and I wish that I could describe what it was like, but you would have had to of been there to really be able to understand what it was like. He basically was teaching us how we can seek learning by faith. Which to summarize the entire meeting into one sentence would mean that we have to act or do something to demonstrate our faith in order to recieve results...an example of this that he gave us is that in our prayers we shouldn't ask for the missionaries to be able to find people to teach, but rather we should ask for the courage to talk to people about the gospel so that we can find people to teach, and then we should act on that request. So, yea, that's a summary of what happened, but I can't excactly tell you what I learned from the spirit and an apostle for three hours, but just know that it was awesome. He asked us a bunch of questions for the first half to help us learn helped us learn some concepts about learning by faith, and then in the last half he let us ask him questions. One really cool thing that I learned (I'm not sure how it got brought up but anyway...) is that he told us that if we don't think something will happen to us then it will happen to us, but if we think it could happen to us then we will work hard enough to prevent it from happening to us.
One other think that I learned is that he told us that it's only when you loose everything that you realize that none of it really matters. I've realized this a lot bn my mission. Because I got over missing my guitar and friends a couple of weeks into the mission, the only thing I really miss now is you guys...my family (don't worry though, not enough to get distracted)
One other think that I learned is that he told us that it's only when you loose everything that you realize that none of it really matters. I've realized this a lot bn my mission. Because I got over missing my guitar and friends a couple of weeks into the mission, the only thing I really miss now is you guys...my family (don't worry though, not enough to get distracted)
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Letter from 2010-06-01
Hey how are things going for you guys, it sounds like you had a pretty fun trip this last weekend.
So our teaching pool is still pretty small, but we have a pretty solid investigator right now that has a baptismal date for june 12. I think I may have said a little bit about him last week, but he's 14 yrs old and he's friends with a couple people in the ward (which is how we found him.) He doesn't really do much so we can teach him several times a week. He's pretty fun to teach and he is really excited about his baptism. It's really cool, because he almost always follows through with the commitments we give him. He will read a chapter in a day if we give it to him...which is really amazing because a lot of people "cant find time" to read over an entire week. It was kinda funny this last weekend because we had an activity where some of the youth in the ward came on splits with all the missionaries to knock doors. [He] found out about this and wanted to come. He's only 14 and not a member yet, so he couldn't come on his own, but [his friend] is old enough that he could come with us. so he came with us to visit a person. It was really cool because he shared his experience about how he gained his testimony of the book of Mormon and tried to commit the person to come to church. I thought it was awesome, and funny that he was doing this when he wasn't even a member of the church yet.
I was pretty excited because my companion got his bike fixed this week. He pretty much had to replace the rear gear casset, his chain, a couple sprockets, and had his gears readjusted. He had a lot done on it, but that's good because now we can pick up the pace a little bit on the bikes now.
yesterday we didn't get to email because it was memorial day and the libraries were all closed.
Other than that there wasn't too much of anything exciting that happened. We are excited because the fireside with Elder Bednar is this weekend.
so How's dallin doing out in japan?
So our teaching pool is still pretty small, but we have a pretty solid investigator right now that has a baptismal date for june 12. I think I may have said a little bit about him last week, but he's 14 yrs old and he's friends with a couple people in the ward (which is how we found him.) He doesn't really do much so we can teach him several times a week. He's pretty fun to teach and he is really excited about his baptism. It's really cool, because he almost always follows through with the commitments we give him. He will read a chapter in a day if we give it to him...which is really amazing because a lot of people "cant find time" to read over an entire week. It was kinda funny this last weekend because we had an activity where some of the youth in the ward came on splits with all the missionaries to knock doors. [He] found out about this and wanted to come. He's only 14 and not a member yet, so he couldn't come on his own, but [his friend] is old enough that he could come with us. so he came with us to visit a person. It was really cool because he shared his experience about how he gained his testimony of the book of Mormon and tried to commit the person to come to church. I thought it was awesome, and funny that he was doing this when he wasn't even a member of the church yet.
I was pretty excited because my companion got his bike fixed this week. He pretty much had to replace the rear gear casset, his chain, a couple sprockets, and had his gears readjusted. He had a lot done on it, but that's good because now we can pick up the pace a little bit on the bikes now.
yesterday we didn't get to email because it was memorial day and the libraries were all closed.
Other than that there wasn't too much of anything exciting that happened. We are excited because the fireside with Elder Bednar is this weekend.
so How's dallin doing out in japan?
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