We talked to Austin
today. He said his clothes have had it. His socks all have holes. His suit
pants are worn through in the bottom and his black shoes are good, but the pair
he bought for $8 at GoodWill are pretty bad. He told us the brown shoes we sent
him with got stolen 4 months into his mission! He said he will tell us the
story when he gets home. He never mentioned that before. He said he is
physically exhausted and he knows his body is ready for a rest. This got momma
crying. He is happy and loves it and says he can’t imagine life without being a
missionary.
Hey family,
This letter will be shorter since I will be talking to you
anyway on Christmas and we can talk more. I am excited to talk, but it will be
weird because I will then see you like 2 weeks later. Thanks for all of
the Christmas and Birthday packages and letters. I really enjoyed the package
from Tom and Kathy!! I loved the hat. I have been wearing it the whole time
since I got it. My companion and I took some crazy Christmas pictures; we were
going to make Christmas cards but we forgot to get them. I will send you one of
the pictures we took.
Monday: We taught a lesson to two of our investigators about
the book of Mormon. That was really interesting. One of them Natalie, started
the lesson by saying, "I read in the Book of Mormon and I don't like it. It contradicts
what the Bible says." We then went from there. It went well we just went
back and held our ground on the principle that they need to read and pray for
themselves to know if its true or not. We then had family home evening at Matthews
house which was a lot of fun. It got crazy though so we headed out.
Tuesday: We had a lot of things to finish on the stake
report this morning. We were having a lot of trouble with the computers not
cooperating with us. We finally finished it and sent it to the stake
presidency. That afternoon we taught Kahlio one of our investigators that isn't
progressing too much. It was a good lesson because we brought out Ben a recent
convert in the ward and he gave such a powerful testimony of stopping from
smoking pot.
We also that afternoon found a new investigator that had been
taught for a long time named Joel. On the teaching record it says that he "has a hard time" and can't understand anything and so when we visited him we
were looking for that but he seemed great. He believes and understands
everything that the missionaries had taught him. We invited him to be baptized
on the 11th of January but he said that he wants more of a sign. We did what we
could in resolving his concerns and set another appointment to help him.
That night
we had stake correlation meeting. It went really well. It was my last one so
that was sad but I enjoyed it. President was telling the stake president, President Westover that I was a good zone leader and what not. I didn't
even know that they don't do these meetings in Utah because one set of
missionaries could cover more than one stake! I am glad that I have had these
opportunities. We then taught Joey our investigator with a date. The member we
brought out was being really strong with him and she hit him at the end when he
said he didn't want to come to church. YSA is so different. The member and the
investigator were friends in high school.
Wednesday: We had district meeting and it was on the Book of
Mormon. It was really inspiring and gave me some good ideas for my homecoming
talk. That night we went to have dinner at bishops house and we had tried to
call and confirm but no one ever answered. We showed up and he didn't know why
we were there. It was a really awkward moment and he told us that we needed to
call and remind them. We told him we did and he just said sorry so we went and
grabbed Wendy's fast before we headed out. I bought myself a nice sandwich with
the birthday money from Sister Shaw. Thanks sister Shaw you were inspired! That
night we found a new investigator. We taught him in the laundry room of the
apartment complex. It went well just haven't seen him since. We are having a
really hard time having second appointments.
Thursday: I was on exchanges today with Elder Brown in
Pittsburg 1 ward. We had a great exchange. There apartment was pretty dirty and
so we took some time during lunch and cleaned it. It was a good teaching
experience because he said that he grew up in a not so clean house and never
was really taught how to clean. I was blessed to have a mom that made us and
taught us to clean (Thanks mom) and so I showed him how to clean the kitchen
and the bathroom using elbow grease :) It was a good experience and now the
spirit is more in that apartment. We talked to a lot of people that day because
all of the appointments fell through. They are really struggling. I tried to
show them by example how to talk to people and things so I hope that helped.
Friday: today we had again more appointments cancel on us
sadly. We are doing everything we can to confirm but people keep canceling a
lot due to the holidays but its not an excuse for us not to be teaching still.
We taught Joey again and taught him the plan of Salvation. He was getting bored
in the lesson so we tied it to playing video games and he actual was getting
it. Sometimes you just got to teach it in a way that they will understand it.
We then started an exchange with the elder that had the bike accident.
Saturday: I had the Elder that had the accident in my area
for the day. We also started it in the morning so it wasn't overnight or too
long. It went really well. We talked to a lot of people also. All of our
appointments again fell through which was sad so we didn't have any teaching
opportunities. The Elder actually will be flying home tomorrow morning so
we have to take him to the mission home and also be in a threesome with his
companion. The Elder that wrecked that is going home just can't remember
anything and is emotionally tired and stressed and can't sleep. It is sad but
it is good he is going home to get better. We did have some interesting
experiences trying to teach our investigators. Three of them live in a foster
home and when we showed up two of them hid from us and the other was smoking
weed out back and so we didn't want to teach him because they are always really
high.
Sunday: Church was awesome! We did everything we could to
help people come to church but a lot fell through also. But we did have cariey
the Chinese girl there and Kahlio and his weed friend Taz. It was awesome to
see them there. We also had 2 of our less actives show up which was great! It
was the Christmas program and so the singing was not too bad. That night again
all of our 4 appointments weren't there. We have been receiving a lot of wrong
phone numbers or people canceling because of who knows what. We are going to do
some work though this next week. It will be a bit harder too due to Christmas,
so far no one can meet until Thursday. We did eat with a member that night and
ate Hawaiian haystacks which was so good. We gave the husband a blessing before
we left.
Everything is going well! I will talk to you all on
Wednesday at 3 using probably facetime. I will call you right before to set it
up like we did last time. Excited to talk to you all!
See you soon!
love, Elder hill
No comments:
Post a Comment