Investigators at Church

This week was awesome.  Recently we have found a ton of investigators, and we have been really busy.  For a couple of weeks there, the work had slowed down a bit, but now it has picked up again, and we have been running all over the place recently.

Yesterday was an amazing day on sunday.  We had 8 of our investigators that came to church, and including all the children of the investigators, we had 19 nonmembers in sacrament meeting.  It was crazy.  It was also pretty insane trying to get everything set up so that they could all come.  We had two of our investigatos who are sisters, and they both have three kids, so in total there were 8 people that we had to get from st. pauls to Hope mills for church, which is like trying to get someone from Salem to Orem.  I started calling people on Friday, and we just barely got something set up on Saturday in the evening just before our nightly planning.  I was stressing out like crazy, because it would be the worst thing in the world to find someone that would commit to come to church as long as they could get a ride, and then us not get a ride for them.

So I've got some good news, you now that mouse that was in the apartment.  Well, it's dead now.

Also, on saturday we had the baptism of [former investigator], which wen't really well.  And Right afterwords, our investigator,  made papusa for us.  I don't know if you've ever eaten papusa before, but it's really good.  It's made of the Maseca flour (corn flour for tortillas), and you stuff cheese and beens inside the maseca flour and flatten it down and cook it on a skillet.  Then she made some sort of salad and salsa that you put on top of it.  But we'll just say it was good.

This was pretty much everything that I can think of to write to you about, we were pretty much just running from apointment to apointment this week.

A Mouse!

This week was actually pretty crazy. On Thurs. we had interviews with Pres. Cotteral, and then on Fri/sat I went on exchanges with our zone leader. The exchanges were pretty fun, we did a lot and also ate a lot. One of their investigators cooked carne asada for us in the morning for lunch, and then in the evening we ate some food with one of their members. They're members is from Honduras, so I hadn't ever seen the food that we ate before, but it was something like a hamburger patty with something mixed in with it, and a salad made with just boiled eggs and potatoes (no, it wasn't potato salad). But it was kind of funny, because [zone leader] was sick and the doctor said that for now he can only eat rice, applesauce, toast, etc. So he had to watch me as I ate the food and he ate his bowl of rice. But we also taught four lessons that day, which is a lot. But it was fun being able to speak to him in Spanish the whole day (He doesn't speak much English), that always helps me out a lot with my Spanish.

On Saturday we found a little surprise in our kitchen cupboards. I got back from the exchange and looked in my cupboard and saw a pile of shredded up bread. I saw that and asked my companion what happened, he said he didn't know, he just thought I had done something crazy with my bread. So I pulled my loaf of bread out of the cupboard to se what had happened and saw a little head popping out of the loaf of bread. So as you could imagine I through it back in the cupboard. My companion then grabbed the loaf of bread and put it in the trash. But there was something alive in that, we couldn't just throw it in the kitchen trash. So I pulled it out and brought it out side and through it on the ground, and a little mouse came running out of the loaf of bread. We went back inside and pulled out the microwave and there was a lot of droppings from that mouse, it looked like it had been hanging out there for quite some time. So, now we have some poison out and all of my food is in the fridge.

Other than that there hasn't been too much of anything exciting this week....O wait, Actually, [investigator] … is going to bet baptized on the 2nd of April (which means if everything goes as planned, he'll get baptized before I leave!)

Also the daughter of on of our members is going to get baptized soon. The mom is a recent convert, she was baptized about 8 months ago, so we have been teaching the daughter. … But she'll be getting baptized this Saturday.

Good, Great, Yeah

What is your p-day schedule like?

STudy like normal until 10 30, write home, do shopping, come back home, hang around the apt.. It's not too exciting. When I was in Raleigh we would go and play basketball for a couple hours, or some other activity. But here, we live out in the country and there's not too much out here to do. One time we wen't to play basketball, but we had a bunch of dogs come chase us off. It got to the point where one of us would shoot the ball while the other made sure that that dogs stayed back, so we left and we havn't tried doing that again. So at the apartment, often times we clean the apartment, write letters, cook/eat food (sometimes I'll spend a little more time and make a better meal), etc. And Preparation day ends at 6 oclock, and we go at and work after that.

How long do you have for e-mail?

I don't think there is really a set time to be honest. I thought there was before, but I looked in the missionary handbook and I couldn't find where it said how much time, but it does say that we shouldn't preocupy ourselves too much with communicating with friends or family.

Do you do all of your wash on p-day?

yea, most of the appartments in the mission have washing and drying machines.

All of your shopping too?

yea.

How is the weather?

Good, it's getting a little warmer, I'm hoping...I honestly don't know how to spell this anymore, but la temporada de los trajes, ends soon.

How are you doing?

Good

On saturday, we translated for the womens conference for the stake. This time around went a little better than last time, but I have found out that most women's vocabs are different then mens (you know how I might say that something is orange and sharee might say that it's peachy). So I kind of just had to try and figure out what they were saying and put it in my own words, because I don't know how to translate peachy...duraznoso...?? But then they fed us lunch (it was a very light lunch, so I ate about 3 plates of food, and then they started taking away the extra plates around us...They had about 30 extra plates a food that nobody was going to eat!) but it was really weird, because the theme of the conference was about the temple, so during lunch they had a "fashion show, where some of the young women modeled their mom's wedding dresses. And as a missionary that is REALLY awkward, so we just ate our food as quick as we could and got out of there.

Yesterday the presidency in the branch got got changed. Pres. Martinez is recovering well, but it's going to be a while until he'll be back in full swing. So the new branch president is now Pres. Urias.

So, kind of a funny story. On Thursday we had exchanges with elder chupin and Elder Raleigh. I wen't over with elder Raleigh, but when we went to exchange back we both drove half way (because it's about 60 mi one way to get from our apartment to their apartment) and we switched back over, and started driving away and my companion told me that he didn't have our phone and that elder chupin still had it. So that's when we started going crazy, because you cant do a whole lot without a phone. so we pulled in to a gas station and got some change to call the other elders and tell them to come back, but when we called them they didn't answer. So we left a message and told them that we would call them back in a few minutes (because we have a rule that we can't use the phone while were in the car, even if your the passanger.) and so we thought that maybe they just needed to pull over. so we wen't in side, and I needed to use the bathroom, and when we left there was an old lady that needed help putting her walker in her car, so we offered to help. But then she started telling us the whole life story of her and her family (I know as missionaries, we should take time and listen which we did do, but our phone was driving down the rode!). So finally when she was done talking (half an hour later, we wen't back over to the pay phone and called them, and got them to stop, but we had to drive an extra 15 miles to get it.

There wasn't too much more that was exciting this week, and this letter is getting long.

Translating At Stake Conference

So I'm sending my letter a little bit later than normal today.  One the members asked us if we could come translate for her.  Her son needed to go to the doctors, so we helped her translate while she was filling out paperwork, and that actually took a lot of time.
 
Yesterday was stake conference.  It's kind of crazy that I've been in this area long enough to be here for two stake conferences.  They asked us to translate again, and this time it was just me and my companion that translated.  It was pretty difficult to do.  There were some talks that were fairly easy, but I translated a talk by the temple pres., and he taught about the doctrine behind how the sealing power was restored, and he was ready scriptures from D and C (without referencing the scriptures, and if you've ever tried to translate scripture, just know that it's not easy.)  We asked one of the members how it was at the end of the conference and he said "mas o menos, pero estuvo bien" [more or Less, but it was good].
 
So I told you a little bit about [investigator], and he has been passed on to the english elders, but he's having a hard time switching missionaries... From the sounds of things when we talked to him at stake conference it looks like things are going well for him.  He has a testimony of the book of mormon.
 
We Taught [investigator couple] this week and they are doing awesome.  We taught the word of wisdom and took the coffe out of the house with us!! (not to mention that, he hasn't drank coffe since we talked to him last. 
 
That's about all that happened this week, I'm never sure what too write about in my letters.  I feel like I'm always just giving you an update on my investigators, but I'm not sure what else to write, so if you want to here anything let me know.

Bicycle Maintenance

This week was a fairly busy week, recently we've been really busy teaching people, in fact this week we taught in total 14 lessons, It's getting to the point where it's adnormal when we have to go tracting at night.

 

We were teaching someone named [Investigator] (I think I told you a little about him before.)  He's really starting to progress, he wants to know if our message is true really bad, and so he's been praying about that, so let's hope he receives an answer soon!  Also he was smoking and we talked to him about that and we got him on this program that church has set up to help people quit smoking, and he's doing quite well, he's gone about 3 days without smoking!  However, unfortunantly he is english and so we had to pass him on to the english elders, so on sunday when he came to church, we let the english elders take over (but I expect to go to the baptism if I'm still around)

 

Transfers are tomorrow, and I'm staying.  This is going to be a long area, it looks like I'll be in this area for about 7.5 months by the end of next transfer.  But there's a lot of work here, and I was getting kind of sad that I was going to have to leave some of our investigators.

 

Last week I told you about the brake pads that I needed to replace.  Last monday I worked on my bike a little bit.  I tried adjusting the gears, but they just didn't want to get adjusted right.  So on wednsday during lunch after district meeting (district meeting is in fayetville, and we never go to fayetville because there's no hispanics in fayetville and the closest bike shop is in fayetville) I took my bike in to the shop to get brake pads (I bought them and just installed them myself)  but I asked them to try to adjust the gears on my bike, and while they looked at it, they found out that my chain had worn out and that the rear cassett needed to be replaced.  They said that it was just because of normal wear and tear, because I have probably put 2,000-3,000 Mi on my bike by now.  but anyway, that kind of burned a hole in my pocket, because in total it turned out to be $90.  But the good thing is that my gears shift really great now.

 

We're still teaching [investigator couple] ...  [They're] still progressing quite well, and they have been coming to church consistently for the last 3-4 months.

Dusting Off The Bikes

This week was quite a busy week, but not too much out of the ordinary.

 

On thursday we had a training meeting with our zone.  Their still working on teaching us the new stuff that they are teaching the new missionaries at the mtc. 

 

This week we pulled out the bikes for the first time in a while.  Our area is so big that at times it is difficult to use the bikes, and it's better to use the car.  But I didn't have such good luck on the bikes.  On Friday We started out riding our bikes and I got a nail in my tire, so we stopped and patched it and then tried to refill it with air, but we realized that the nail had gone all the way through the tube and popped the hole in both spotts.  I only had one patch on my, and so we had to walk back to the appartment to put a new tube in the tire.  Then on Saturday we had an appoinment with the [investigator] family, and we biked about 2.5 miles, when I got another flat.  So we had to walk about another 2.5 miles to get to their house, which was another 2.5 mi (we barely got there on time ) but it turned out that they weren't there, and so we started walking back home and there house is about 5 mi from our apartment, so we spent a lot of time walking (oh, I didn't mention it, but I had forgotten the bike patches, so we couldn't patch the tire, and we were in the middle of the country so there was no store to stop at.)

 

We taught [investigator couple] this week who are doing great. 

 

We visited the [Investigator] family this week, which was kind of depressing.  The havn't been to church for nearly 3 months now, and when we passed by to visit them they had a completely different attitude.  They were telling us that they felt that they could still do good things, like reading the scriptures, praying, etc, while they are at home and that they don't need to go to church.  But I know that they know differently but they still are set on not coming to church.  It's kind of hard to watch their family do so well, and then fall like that.

 

It was kind of interesting/fun this week, because there is a pastor that lives in Raeford that a lot of the missionaries in the past have known.  Elder Chupin (he's our district leader and he also served in raeford before, so he knows the pastor), when he came on exchanges with us introduced us to the pastor and he got a dinner with the pastor set up.  The fed us a lot of food and it was really good.  They are a really great family and were really nice to us.  They've had a deal with the previous elders and the told us this also that that we'd not try to teach them anything and they won't try to convert us either, so their great people and it was fun to get to know them, but I don't know how often we'll go back.

 

I think that pretty much sums up my week

Biking In The Rain

 So we talked to [investigator] this week and he came to church!!  However he's still a little bit hesitant about baptism.  I think he's worried about band, because he plays the saxaphone in the school band and he will have to play in competions on sunday during band season, and he knows that if he gets baptized that he wont be able to do that.  We have an appointment with him tonight, so were going to talk to him about that, so we'll hope all goes well, and if not we might have to drop him.

This last saturday we stopped by a potential investigators house.  we were going to teach them on sunday, so we were confirming the appointment with them.  They were getting ready for a birthday party for one of their children, so we asked them if they need help, and they had several things they needed done, so we helped them out and then right before we left we got to eat some Mole.  I don't know if you ever eaten it, but it's some really good chicken cooked in a sort of chocolate sauce (chocolate with chiles and other seasonings).

District

Caught in the Rain!

Companion

A Missionary's Best Friend!  Food!