Last week pday was a great start to the week. We went on
another two-week shopping trip, so we don't have to get more rides, and someone
paid for entire cart!. Then on the way out, someone gave us two trays of raspberries.
So it was a good Costco trip.
So first thing off is Frank. He is ok. He found a house and
has started two solid jobs. He still isn't smoking or doing anything wrong, but
his new house is half a block outside our area. So we called Elder Senn and
sent him a baptism! They were pretty happy when we passed off that referral. We
talked to Frank a couple times and will still go to his baptism and everything.
Last Saturday, we went with the youth and helped them clean
the whole chapel. It's tough to motivate youth to come clean the chapel, so we
told them they couldn't play soccer after unless they helped. We got a good
turn out and got it done in thirty minutes. It had been raining all that day
which made soccer even more fun but a LOT more humid.
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| My improved lesson for primary and the class we always teach because the teacher stopped coming to church. |
Ana and Angel have been ok this week. They are definitely
progressing, just not too fast. Angel still reads The Book of Mormon and
doesn't really pray, and Ana does pray but doesn’t read. We taught the word of
wisdom, and he immediately agreed to try to quit drinking in order to
strengthen his testimony of a prophet since he still is unsure. We went by Sunday
morning before church and woke him up, and he said they were going to start
getting ready, then they didn't show up. Right after the sacrament, we drove to
their house and asked why they didn’t come. Their son, Jose, had started to
throw up, so they had a good excuse. That day we had been having a zone fast
for our investigators to finish off the transfer strong. So that night we went
by and invited them to go to Diana's uncles baptism in North Ogden. They packed
up their still sick kids and came out to it. Luckily, they had Brother Rubio
share his testimony. He came and talked to Ana afterwards, but I think it was
just more stressful, because Jose was still really sick the whole time. I felt
bad. We asked how he liked it, and he didn't seem to excited, but I couldn't
blame him. It was a very, very casual baptism. The MT Lewis bishop still can't
resist yelling out his ridiculous jokes the entire time including as soon as
everyone said amen after the baptism.
But we went by there last night…just Elder Pyne and I with a
newly wed couple in the ward with a baby on the way. The man of this couple is
a returned missionary and really likes to take over lessons and teach what he
wants, but we wanted to see if they would connect. (He is white, but he served
in Spanish, and his wife is Peruvian.)...so Ana and Angel started by saying
they didn’t know what to do, because their marriage was horrible, and they didn’t
even want to be around each other anymore. SO, the guy member goes and tells them
how he and his wife are perfect and have never had one fight, because they live
the gospel. Then his wife cut him off and started talking about a huge fight
they had and how everyone has problems and Christ needs to help us to get
through them. So we are glad the wife came and were kind of bugged by him, but
still Ana and Angel didn't seem to listen to her. They never really respond to
other members. I am not sure why.
We had talked about boldness earlier that day and usually I
don't have a problem being "honest" with people, but I just kind of
went for it and said that I loved them both, but they were prideful. I said
that I asked them to pray as a family in the past, but they were too prideful
and refused to do it. They had tried to fix their problems without the Lord,
and they failed....and if they actually did have faith and actually loved their
kids (we had just talked about how they were sure they did have faith in Christ),
then they would humble themselves and pray as a family at night time. That got
to them pretty well and thanks to the Spirit, they didn't get offended and kick
me out. We said over and over that we loved them, and we wanted them to be
happy, but they were going to keep failing unless they involved the Lord. Elder
Pyne reiterated what I said, then Angel said a prayer, and it was AWESOME. The
best prayer he has ever said by a huuuuge amount. In the prayer, he asked for
help and said he wanted to stay with his wife and his kids. Then we left, and
on the way out, we said we loved them, and Angel said we love you, too. He was
tearing up, and he is very much not an emotional person. So that was a good
lesson. (We had taught the law of chastity and saying positive/constructive
things).
So anyways that night (last night), Elder Plowman and Elder
Ward were together, because the travelling trainers (Elder Ward is one of them)
are going around to each of the companionships in our zone this week. The four
of us went to Ogden Pizzaria that night. It was my birthday dinner "on Dad"
but then someone paid for us.
We also taught Vanessa and Liz together last night...so
progress on them. Vanessa is officially our favorite person in the whole world.
She is so cool, she is just soo stressed and sad about how much she has to do
that her mom (Liz) won't do as a mom. So we taught Liz last week and showed her
a Mormon message and said she needed to be better about talking to her daughter
and being better with her kids. This week we have been working on following up
on commitments the day after which has been good for us. Vanessa agreed to be
more positive and help her mom even if it’s hard. Then they both came to
church. Their fellowshipper is Hermana Bluvan. Hermana Bluvan is the best. She
is like six feet and has hands bigger than I have and always wears business
suits to church. Her 25-year-old daughter and grandson live with her. Her first
lesson with Vanessa last week she offered her home anytime to come and take a
break and promised her she would help with anything she needed. We went over
for our lesson last night, and Vanessa opened the door and said that Liz was
asleep so she needed to make her little siblings dinner, and we needed to come
back in 20 minutes. SO we called Hermana Bluvan (who was on her way to the
lesson) and said we had to wait 20 minutes. Hermana Bluvan came anyways and
helped clean their apartment and made the kids dinner while Liz slept. Then her
(Hermana Bluvan’s) daughter came and played with the little kids while we had a
lesson and Vanessa and Liz (she woke up for the lesson). They agreed to get
baptized on the second of June. We showed them another Mormon message (we love
using those in lessons now. I have never done it before) and taught lesson 3.
Vanessa was so exhausted that she kept dozing off. I feel really bad; she is always
so, so exhausted and never stops.
Then we found another couple people tracting. Elder Plowman and Ward taught two other lessons
including a guy who tried to bash, but Elder Plowman shut him down with The
Book of Mormon and his testimony (atta boy).
So yesterday, Elder Ward showed up at our apartment with
Elder Graham, the other travelling trainer, and they said that the sisters were
having a training on Thursday, and they wanted someone to train on boldness. So
they asked Elder Ward and Elder Graham didn't want to so Elder Ward asked Elder
Plowman and I to go train on boldness with him, and we were so pumped. Then the
sisters found out we were going, and I guess they talked to president and
didn't want us to come. Would’ve been fun but, oh, well.
Yesterday, we had mission leadership conference. It was
pretty aggravating. I guess there have been a lot of zone leaders complaining
to President how they want it to be more of a counsel, so President kind of
gave us what they all wanted and had two missionaries go up and present an idea
they had. The idea wasn't that bad, but they opened it up for feedback and
ended up spending an hour and a half of people just saying pointless comments.
We got literally no where. President just sat there and watched, and he didn't
say it out loud, but I could just tell he was thinking, "See? You can't do
this without me." After they got those two missionaries to sit down after
an hour of venting and complaining about the mission, the assistants got up and
brought up a few issues. They talked about poaching and of course there were
like four people that had to bring up those ridiculous hypotheticals, "Well
what if....?...then can I teach them?" So they wasted time a little with
that...there were a lot of people really annoyed at that point. Then President
stood up and randomly said we would take the last hour to go bowling together.
Nobody believed him at first, but sure enough, we went.
Last week Elder Plowman and I taught district leader training
on The Book of Mormon. We talked about how the purpose of missionaries and The
Book of Mormon is essentially the same, and we won't be there all the time with
our investigators, but The Book of Mormon will.
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| District leader training |
Anyways, I think that's it for this week. I think it’s for
sure now that I will be staying here one more transfer. I think all the other Spanish
missionaries would hate staying in j2 for that long since it’s so small, but I
am just happy to finally stay put for a little bit. Until next week.
Ciao,
Elder Bassett
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