Winter Storm Lock Down

We haven't heard from Elder Compton thus far this week.  We did learn through "Missionary Moms" that the mission president had the missionaries stay home on Monday due to the severe weather in North Carolina.  We assume they were on "lock down" and unable to leave their apartments on Tuesday as well.  As a result they were unable to go to a library on their "P-day" to send e-mail.  Will update as soon as we hear something.  Forecast for Fayetteville, NC for Wednesday is 38 degrees and partly cloudy.  Sounds a little better than what they apparently had been experiencing.

Some Pictures From Elder Compton

We received some pictures in the mail today from Jeff.  Following is a sampling.

End of a loooonnng day!

Making tortillas

Ward Christmas Party

Christmas Dinner (they had shrimp!)

Christmas Presents -- Jeff loves penguins!

Guess they get snow in NC too!

Cockpit of Elder Compton's bike complete with GPS

A missionary bedroom

 

New Years and Jeff's Birthday

What did you do for New Years?

 

• Not too much, We taught a lesson to somebody in the evening, and then we came back to the appartment (we had to be inside the appartment by 8 if we werent teaching a lesson, but we were teaching a lesson, so we got back at 8 30)  and then we planned, but our nightly planning was a little longer than usual, and we finished at 9 30 anyway.

Brother Young and brother Callison both said they got letters from you this past week.  What did brother Young send to you for Christmas?

 

• He sent me and my comp a package of a bunch of snacks and a pix of Christ and a book mark with a pix of Joseph Smith.

Did you get to do anything special for your birthday?

 

• Well, Yesterday was probably one of the busiest days I've had recently.  So we started out personal study at 7 45 until 8 45 then we went over to the church for correlation and pec, then we had sacrament meeting (and we had one...two new investigators come I'll explain later), then after church we ran around trying to talk to all the people that we needed to talk to for about a half an hour.  Then one of the members always brings us food on Sunday, so we ate the food really quick and then went out to visit a referral from the English elders (if I have time I'll tell you about him.)  so we ended up teaching him, then we had to book it back to the car so that we could get over to Saint Pauls and teach [Investigator man].  We taught him and then taught a guy named [Another investigator man], and by the time that lesson was over we hurried back home so we could get back on time, we planned wrote in the area book, ate the Birthday cake (thank you very much!!) and went to bed.  Oh, yea, I opened my packages in the morning, thank you very Much for the presents!!!

How are your investigators coming?

 

• Pretty good. 

 

• We found a new investigator this week (the one I previously mentioned that came to church for the first time)  He is from Guatemala (which was kind of cool, I haven't talked to many people recently from anywhere but puerta rico or mexico)  But he previously had known the church and welcomed us in his house the first time we knocked his door.  We gave him a copy of the book of mormon and the next time when we came back he had read the chapter that we had left with him!  Unfortunantly the lesson was cut short because his sister showed up and needed his help, but he told us that he would come to church.  However it was quite the ordeal getting things lined up to get him to church.  Saturday night I spent about an hour on the phone calling people to get him a ride set up, by finally we got someone to pick him up,  and it was such a relief when I finally saw him walking in the doors.

 

• The other new investigator that came to church...well she's not really and investigator yet, we haven't really taught her, in fact the first time we met her face to face was on sunday.  But she was a referral from on of our [other] investigators.  So we had only talked with her over the phone, but it looks like she has a lot of interst, in fact she was telling us in sunday school that she is only here on vacation ( she is from colombia) but that she is going back in Febuary and that she would like to be baptized here and then have her records sent over to colombia.  we have plans to teach her this coming weds, so we'll see how it goes.

 

• Another person that we have been teaching recently is [investigator man].  We taught him last night and he said he wanted to be baptized.  The only problem is that he needs to get married, so we talked to him about that and he said he's up for it, so were going to call the court house to get some more info on it.  The awesome thing also is that he and his wife have ID!!

 

So are you going to have a baptism on Saturday the 8th of January. 

 

• We visited with [Investigator man] yesterday, and from what he said, he still doesn't know for sure if the book of mormon is true or not, he hasn't quite prayed about it yet, and we stil ahve a few things to teach him, so we decided that it would be best to change the date for the 22 of Jan.

 

This is getting pretty long and I'm running out of time so I'll end it here.

Holidays in the Mission

So I guess yesterday was a holday for some reason (the day after the day after christmas, or something like that) so I'm writing you today.

 

So do they normally eat corn tortillas with each meal.  I thought it was flour tortillas you eat with each meal.  Anyway it was fun and delicious.

• Yea, for the most part they eat corn tortillas with each meal (were in the US though, so they've kind of americanized).  I've only eaten flour tortillas a few times, I think it takes more effort to make.  But if you go to the store in the hispanic food section they should have some flour tortilla mix.  I'm not sure how to make it, but you can give it a try.

So to finish off the rest of the day on Saturday we went over to the Martinez house and had a Christmas dinner.  It was a pretty normal americanized dinner, nor tortillas, beans, rice or anything.  But it tasted really good, and we got stuffed, even to the point of it hurting, but it was all worth it.

o on saturday night we got some snow as well as most of sunday (in total about 6 in.)  And everything her shutdown.  Church was cancelled and everything.  In fact Pres. cotterall sent us a message and told us that we couldn't take the bikes or cars out that day.  So we were stuck in the apartment the ENTIRE DAY...  It was kind of relaxing at first, we ate lunch then I read the Liahona and studied some spanish, but then as the day went on it kind of got looong.  Sometimes it's difficult freezing outside knocking doors for hours on end but I am realizing now that it beats staying inside all day.  

The Family Talks to Elder Jeff on Christmas Morning

We were able to talk toJeff on the phone for about 40 minutes on Christmas morning!

Elder Compton is on YouTube!

Jeff's Mission President posted a video of missionaries singing at Zone Conference.  Click here to see!

Christmas Zone Conference

How did the Christmas party go and did you play the guitar and sing? 

 

• Well, it turned out that the person that was going to bring a guitar forgot to bring the guitar.  So I didn't get to play.  However, it was kind of a good thing because I never actually would have had a chance to practice witha guitar untill about a half an hour before.  Not to mention the fact that I've only touched a guitar probably 5 times so far on my mission, so it's been a while since I've actually had some practice.

 

Have you been through an ice storm?

 

• so far no, our mission president left a message with us saying that there might be one coming, but it never came.

 

Did you get your packages yet?  I sent your Birthday presents on Friday so you should get it in a week or two.

 

• Yep, We've got the tree set up and the presents under the tree ready to be opened.

 

hmmmm...what happened this week...I feel like I just wrote home yesterday.

 

This last saturday we had the ward party for christmas, we had some really good food there.  We ate ham, turkey, rice, tomales, and this sort of pasta (it had macaroni noodles with ham and some sort of sauce, I think it was mayonaise).  And unfortunantly they forgot to put the tortillas out untill the end, so I didn't get to eat turkey with tortillas again.   There were a few people that played some musical numbers and then santa clause came (I got a pix with santa clause also).

 

Oh, yea, we also had our Chrismas Zone conference (There should be a few videos on U-tube)  That was a pretty long, however exciting day.  We had to wake up at 4 am so that we could get there in time because it was a three hour drive out there. For the first half of the conference we talked about the ward mission process as well as our investigators church attendance.  I learned a lot from that which will be usefull and that I'm hoping that we will be able to apply.  We just got a new ward mission leader, so learning about the ward mission process should be able to help us/him as we get missionary work going in the branch.   Actually, kind of a cool story witht that.  After Zone conference I was thinking about how I could talk to the president of the branch to get the ward mission process going in the branch, without impeding on his authority.  We didn't have a copy of it in Spanish so I translated it all into spanish onto a different piece of paper and then on sunday I made copies of it and gave it to him.  Aparently he had talked to one of the missionaries in the past about the ward missionary plan and they were thinking about geting things going with that, but they needed it in spanish, and the missionary had plans to translate it, but he must have been transferred or something when that happened.  So when I brought the ward mission plan translated into Spanish, our Branch president willingly accepted it, and it looks like we should be putting it in place pretty soon.

 

I think I have told you about the less active/part member family that we found a while back.  They seem to be doing awesome right now, it's been kind of hard to get up with them very often, but we did get to teach them this week, and they have been coming to church for the last three weeks and they came to the ward activity on saturday.  The last lesson we had with them, we taught them about the book of mormon and the importance of it.  However we did find out some frustrating news at the end of the lesson, they arent married.  Aghhh...!  This seems to be the unending problem, I sometimes feel like a marrage counselor rather than a missionary.  But anyway, they talked with pres. martinez and it sounds like they're fine with getting married, they just need to find paperwork.

 

We also Taught [investigator] this last week, and the lesson went really well.  We taught him about keeping the sabbath day holy, and the word of wisdom.  We just flew through those two commandmants, because he already knew what they were and he was already living them both.  By the time we had finished teaching all of that we realized that only 20-30 min. had passed, so we decided we might as well go on to something else, so we taught him about the baptismal covenant, which didn't know what that was at first, but he learned quickly.   So from the looks of things he should be ontrack still to be baptized on the 8th of January!