Trip to Raleigh Temple

So today was the day that we went to the temple.  It was kind of crazy because today is our Preparation day and in order to go to the temple we had to leave at 8 45 this morning and got back at 3.  So I we don't have much time today to do too much (in fact our personal study was cut short and we don't even get a companion or language study today.)  But just let the boys know (I'm not sure which one I had plans to write this week), but I'll try and get both of them next week.

But, wow, going to a new area is different.  It's a little new having left raleigh where I knew my area like the back of my hand and then coming here to where I pretty much have no idea where I'm at half the time.  I think I may have said this last week, but our area is HUGE,  if you look of the map, we cover all of comberland county.  I thought two hours a day on a bike was a lot, just try two hours in the car every day.  But with our area being so large we are mostly in the car, in fact we only got to pull out our bikes once this last week.

As far as investigators go, I only know of one so far and a few potentials (meaning they've been taught once or twice).  ..it looks like he's been taught just about everything.  The only thing right now holding him back from baptism is that he's on probation, which could take him up to 3 months at least to get off that.  And in order to be baptized you cant be on probation.  So I guess we'll just see how things go with him.

Raleigh Temple with Elder Loe

Sandwiches we made didn't quite cut it

District in Raleigh

FHE with Members

Nightly Trek Up the Stairs

Transfer to Fayettville

Hey, how are you all doing?

So sorry I haven't been able to write you until today, but mon. was a holiday, tuesday was transfers and we finally had time today to write.

So I've got some news, I know that I had been telling you all along that I would probably be staying in Raleigh for at least another transfer?... well, I'm in Fayetville right now with Elder Loe. I figured that I would have to stay in raleigh for another transfer because elder larsen finished his mission, and I figured that I had to teach my area to someone else for atleast another transfer.  But instead they closed the area.  There were three sets of missionaries in raleigh and now there are two, so The zone leaders in raleigh have taken over all of our investigators.

One really cool thing that happened with our area being closed, is that in every area there is an area book.  We always write down what are called "potentials"  of people we contact.  We write down their name and whatever info we have about them (phone #, address, and info about the contact.) We use this for several reasons, but all basically so that we can get in contact with these people in the future.  I had noticed about two transfers ago that the area book was slightly disorganized (all of the potentials were just listed all in one spot, not really organized into areas.)  With our area being so big it would be very infective to go down the list and passing by the houses of all these people.  So I began, two transfers ago to organize them into specific areas where we often work.  Finally about a week and a half ago, I made the final push to get this done, and then now the area has been handed over to the zone leaders.  So I was glad to have gotten that all finished up just in time so that all the work we spent finding those people won't be in vain.

As far as Fayetville goes, I don't really now much about it yet.  But I do know that it's  huge area, in fact I'm kind of dissapointed, because I might not be able to ride my bike as much.  But that's alright, I didn't come out here to bike.  But we have an appointment today at five where we'll have to drive for about an hour to get there!

But anyway, things went really well this week.  Our last visit with [investigators] , which was on sunday, we commited them to be married.  So The zone leaders will be working with them on that.  [He] still has some doubts about some of our doctrine, but he said that he would be willing to get married so that [she] could be baptized.  So I hope to hear about them soon.

Also we met somebody [new].  He was an old investigator, but we talked to him, and he was interested.  We met with him twice this week, and on Saturday, the second visit, we set a baptismal date for October 9.  So I hope I get to hear more about that soon.

So the hurricane that you mentioned...was a failure...I pretty much felt about 2 drops of rain and the wind blew at about 2 mph.  Hurricane Erl got scared and backed out so we didn't actually get hit by it.  Kind of disappointing, I was hoping that we'd get to see a hurricane, but I guess not this time around.

So, next week I believe we have a temple trip, so I won't be emailing until probably weds. again.  Just thought I'd give you a heads up.

Carne Asada BBQ

This last week we've taught [investigators] several times.  We were actually in exchanges on Tuesday when we had and appointment with them last and so I didn't get to go visit with them, but it sounded like it went really well.  

On thing that was really cool is that [our investigators] invited us over for dinner yesterday to eat Carne de asada (pretty much steak, but a lot better.)  It was a lot of fun, and it was really nice of them to do for them, especially considering how nice of a meal they cooked for us.

Also the members are helping us out like crazy with this family.  We talked to the Mia family a few days ago to arrange to have a lesson at their house this sunday which had and it went quite well.  Also we got out of sacrament meeting and the Romero family came up to us and said that they invited the family over for family home evening tonight (monday night) and that we were invited if we wanted to come.  It's really nice to be able to teach them and then just be the "flies on the wall" as the members do the rest of the work, because really, we can be there to teach them and invite them to keep the commandments, but it's when we have the support of the members that they actually have a friend to help support them.

That's pretty much all the excitment that went on this week.  Other than this, we just did a lot of knocking doors.

Bike Flats and Golf

Bike Crash! Jeff Is Okay

NOTE:  See the picture from the training at the end of this post.

How are things going for you all this week?  sounds like the trip to colorado was a lot of fun and salem days sounds like fun (as normal).

We had a three day training this week during tues-thurs from about 9 am - 4 pm every day.  Their changing what they teach at the MTC starting next may, and so they are beginning training us out in the field right now so that we can be ready for the new missionaries that will start coming in around may.  It's still using preach my gospel, it's just focused more on teaching by the spirit more, and "teaching people, not lessons".  We learned a lot about how to introduce and start a lesson, and then how to ask questions to find out what needs people have.  It was all really good what we learned and I think it will really help to make me a better missionary if I can apply what we've learned, it's just a lot harder said than done, but I guess I'll just stick with it and give it some time.  We were pretty much told that at first when we begin to try and teach in this way we will "crash and burn" which indeed has happened, but we just need to stick with it, because it is far better then the way we were teaching before.

This last week we taught [two investigators] a couple of times.  We're trying to encourage them to read in the book of mormon and to pray about it.  [She] has been doing this and is progressing quite well, however [he] seems to be apposed to the book of mormon and we just cant seem to get him to read it.  He'll read all the footnotes from the book of mormon in the bible, but he won't actually read the book of mormon.  So we need to talk to him and try and figure out why he doesn't want to read.  We would really like to move on with them, because [hse] is progressing, but it's kind of hard when [he] isn't.  

So I had a pretty awesome crash on my bike this week.  It was a pretty cool crash, however I'm still puzzled about how it happened.  I was just riding out of the parking lot from our apartment and I saw a car in front of me, so I decided to begin slowing down.  I grabbed the front break, which isn't abnormal, but I guess I just wasn't ready for it, but next thing I knew I was flying over the handle bars.  So somehow (I'm not sure how I actually landed because it all happened so quick) but I tucked and rolled and ended up on my back as my bike gently landed on top of me.  My companion told me that as I was upside down, because he was behind me, so I had to be upside down for him to see that my eyes were as "wide as saucers" as he told me.  However, don't worry mom, I stood right up and didn't get hurt at all.  but nonetheless, I'm still confused about how it all happened.

So last week I told you that we were going to learn how to make papusa for our pday activity.  It was a lot of fun, and they taste really good.  However, Sis hernandez, who taught us how to make them made it look a lot easier then it actually is.  She could make about three in the time it took us to make one, and they looked a whole lot better than ours.  It took some pix from that, and I'll probably be making a cd from a bunch of the pix that I have, but you'll probably have to wait about a week and a half, because I'll have to drop it off today and pick it up next week.

Elder Compton Put on Weight?

Hey, how are things going for you guys?  Sounds/looks like your having a lot of fun in colorado.  How long are you going to be there for?  Did you take the raft/bikes?

this last week we got to teach [investigator family].  Things are going quite well with them.  We taught them the word of wisdom on friday (because if you remember, they couldn't come to church last sunday because of a hangover...) but they committed to live the word of wisdom and even let us take all the coffee out of the house.  Which by the way nothing feels better than being able to throw away a container of coffee, just by understanding what kind of commitment their making by allowing us to do that.  We also taught them yesterday and talked to them about a baptismal date, however they were a little unsure about that, so we're going to allow them to study and pray about that a little bit, and hopefully they can have a baptismal date by the time I write home next week.  also this last friday we brought some ties over to let them wear to church and taught them how to tie a tie.  However it was kind of interesting trying to teach them how to tie a tie in spanish (it's not exactly the everyday vocab.)

We also had zone conference this week where we talked a lot about using the spirit as we teach lessons.  We learned a lot about asking questions through the promptings of the spirit.  One thing I've found is that people don't learn if you just teach them the information, they learn better through the scriptures and asking them questions to make them figure things out for themselves.

So, I've got some good news!  In these last 3-4 months I've put on about 7-10 lbs! I'm pretty sure that's record breaking for me, however I'm not sure exactly were it's going, but I think it's all in my legs from the average of 1 1/2 hours on the bike everyday.

I'm excited for today, because we talked to one of the members who is probably going to teach us how to cook paposa today, so I'll have to tell you how that goes next week.

Fun Activity

Note:  We were on vacation for the past two letters without internet access so didn't get things posted.  Here they are a little late.

This last week we had an activity with the branch that was centered around the plan of salvation.  We just recently (as in 3 months ago) got a new ward mission leader.  ...he just returned home from his mission about four months ago, but he made this activity to try to spark missionary work in the branch.  For the activity we started in the room in the church that is between the gym and the chapel.  We played it out like we were on an airplane.  One of the members acted as the pilot and talked into the microphone in the chapel which went into the gym, and he welcomed us onto the plane.  The after a minute or two he told us that there were a few problems with the plane and that we were going to crash.  So we turned of the lights and made some noises like we were crashing and then we came into the "spirit world".  Me and another elder, explained the spirit world, resurection, and judgment.  then we had three other rooms in the church that were decorated to look like the three kingdoms of glory.  The Telestial kingdom was in the basement and we put glow in the dark stars up.  The Terrestrial kingdom had was in the primary room and we had a cut out moon to show that this kingdom had the glory of the moon.  And then for the celestial kingdom we put white sheets all over the chairs, and covered the walls with white paper and put a picture of the temple up and also blew up a bunch of white balloons and put them on the floor.  It was a pretty fun activity, one of the other elders took pixs of the activity, so I am planning on sending a few pictures home from this (See pictures below).

A few people have asked me if I'm going to be transferred soon.  And to answer that, I have no Idea, but I'll tell you what I do know.  Transfers were last Tuesday, so I will for sure be staying in the area for at least until the end of august.  However, that is when elder Larsen finishes his mission, so he will have to leave the area.  So the only options out there would be for me to stay for at least another transfer to show somebody the area.  Or the whitewash the area, meaning that there would be two new people to the area that don't know the area.  So in other words I could be here for another month, or another 2 and a half months.  But either way, I'm loving it out here.  Because there is so much member support, and so many people to talk to out here.

Recently we found two new investigators.  They actually came to church last sunday which was really exciting.  We've taught them twice now, they have a lot of questions (which is a good thing) however if were not careful the lessons with them can turn out really long.  But I'm excited for them and I think they have some potential. 

This last week we talked with the [member] family.  They are members that are from Argentina.  I asked them what kind of food they eat there, or what kind of food sharee will be fed out there.  However there's not too much of a trend of the kind of food they eat out there, at least from what I saw.  It's kind of different from what most hispanic food is like however she will still eat a lot of rice and probably beans.  However one thing that I found interesting is that they don't use tortillas in argentina.  In fact the first time that HNO Quintero saw a tortilla he used it as a coaster for his cup.

One thing I've found out on the mission, is that the members are extremely important in missionary work.  Looking back at all the investigators we've had, the ones that have started to progress either were referrals from the members or we brought members to visit them from the very beginning.  So...now the big question, what have you guys been doing to help the missionary program back at home/what do you plan to do?