A Rough Week

Well this week has definitely been some experiences that I won't ever forget. Last week we started off with a zone study. It went pretty well. We taught the zone about some things that President brought to the zone leaders in the mission. It is mainly about how enduring to the end needs to be the goal of all of our lessons and teaching. It also had a lot to do about what he called "not one or the other." People in the mission always are asking are we supposed to have lots of baptisms or really good quality ones, or are we supposed to work with less actives or nonmembers? Elder Plowman and I came up with some other similar questions to illustrate president's point like: is Superman fast or strong? In football, should you have a good offense or a good defense?...things like that that just prove that you can't have one without the other. Our job is to do both, and both less active work and baptisms fulfill our purpose especially in Utah. We also presented the standards of excellence to the mission which everyone responded well to. A couple of people said that they are happy "we are finally a real mission!"

So other than that, I can't remember much about the week except our two investigators, Ana and Angel. Well, there is no happy ending with them. Last week on Friday, we had a lesson with them. They were interviewed for baptism and both very easily passed-no problems. Ana still wasn't sure about it, but Angel was, so we had him kneel down right there and pray for the Lord to touch her heart, and he did. She felt the Spirit and said she knew it was from God. She still was being stubborn and wouldn't give us a straight yes, even after saying yes in the interview, but she said if it's God's will, she would get baptized.

Rollercoasters

So this week has been up and down, all over the place with our four solid investigators. Ok, so first with Liz and Vanessa: Liz and Vanessa did come to church this Sunday; that is the good news. They showed up 30 minutes late, but whatever, they got there. Last week, we had sat them both down and talked to them about no more cussing, fighting, watching bad tv shows, and just some other basic stuff they need to do to keep the spirit in their home. We taught them both the law of chastity. Vanessa didn't like talking about that in front of her mom, but we did it. Liz also has a boyfriend that she needs to get rid of. He is mean to her kids, doesn't like God, and breaks the commandments with her, so for Liz it was a pretty easy decision to say that she needed to break up with him, but I kind of doubt that she did. Whenever we talk about her sinning, she starts to smile and kind of laugh to kind of soften or start to justify it, but we just keep a straight face and don't laugh about it, but she still doesn’t quite seem to take things seriously especially when she is admitting to us that she broke some commitment. So they also have committed to stop drinking coffee, alcohol, and tea. So they were on track to get baptized this coming Sunday. Then, we went by yesterday, and the day before Liz had gone out dancing and had coffee that morning. She just kind of laughed and said sorry, so she clearly felt it was an obligation to us and not to God. So we had a long talk with her about why she keeps commandments. Then she decided to drop the other bomb and say she is being blessed and got a job! And that they want her to work everyday from 11 to 2 (church is from 11 to 2). So we went into keeping the Sabbath Day holy and told her yesterday to pray about talking to her brand new boss which would probably mean she wouldn't get the job that she is trialing for. She has bills she needs to pay right now, so we just told her Jesus Christ knows about her bills, and he will take care of things if she can just get to church on Sunday and keep the Sabbath Day holy and not work at all. She is thinking about it, but it isn't looking good. Now that she is happier with her son out of jail, she is starting to seem to care less and have less real intent which is pretty frustrating. This is what she has done with this missionaries for years except she has never gotten to church before so she is improving.

Vanessa is awesome. She tried to get her cousins to come to church with her. She doesn't want to give up coffee, but she agreed to try it. She was scared we would get mad at her when she told us she had a boyfriend. We found out her depression is a lot worse than we thought, so we need to get her happier. She is still cool, but she is just 13 so of course she flakes out on lessons to hang out with her friends. We always get frustrated, but then we go to talk to her, and you just can't get mad at vanessa.

Another transfer has gone by already!

This one has been the fastest so far, I think. Elder Plowman and I will both be staying together. Elder Pyne will be going north to Temple Boulevard with Elder Saldaña. He will be living in the same house as Elder Ward and Elder Ward's new son (he will be training). Elder Pyne will only be there for like three weeks and then get transferred back down to Argentina since his visa is here. The reason for the wait is they want to send them down at the beginning of Argentina's transfer. Yesterday, we were at the office for some meetings and heard that Elder Pyne was going up north and talked to the assistants about it. They need Elder Pyne to go save Elder Saldaña's mission since Elder Pyne is such a stud. Once he leaves, Elder Ward will take over with him and try to help him out. Elder Saldaña is only just over halfway through his mission. This transfer is when the entire Idaho zone will be taken into the Pocatello mission. So we are losing some good missionaries including Elder Burke from our zone. It will be pretty different without having Idaho and Star in our mission. Sad day. I will have to go back and visit after the end of my mission.

So this week was a good one. I forgot my list of everything that happened this week so we will see how this goes. This Sunday we went to the baptism of a girl named Danny. We found Danny knocking doors about four weeks ago. She was batting for the other team at the time and gave us some attitude about how unaccepting we were. We had a frank, doorstep conversation with her and invited her to get baptized for three weeks later, and yesterday she got baptized (by the English missionaries). It’s always cool to see the fruits of our labors even in other people's areas.

Francisco also got baptized this Sunday! He switched to his new ward. It turns out his x-wife is the first counselor's new wife, so after some commotion there, he got baptized. We didn't make it to that, but he was baptized by Elder Senn. Side note, Elder Senn will be co-training! So I will have a half-grandson!

What a beginning to the week!

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.

We would appreciate the extra prayers for....

Ward Service Project

So I got to talk to my family on Sunday! I pretty much told them all the interesting details from the week so this may end up being a shorter email today.

This morning has been a very adventurous one. We had been ready to go help some missionaries move since last week. We helped our housing coordinator get the trailer all ready for about an hour this morning and went to go help the elder move. He texted us and decided he didn't want to waste his time moving and said, “Don't touch my stuff; I'm not moving.” So after talking to President, he got his way, and we had to push it off to another week when someone can convince him. SO, that was frustrating…learning patience one day at a time! Ha-ha

So this week we went to do service on Saturday. We got to this big park and were spreading these huge piles of bark across a dog park. (And there was a tractor right there across the street! I wanted to tell someone to go get the keys.) We were there for a couple hours before leaving. Then right after that, we had a soccer activity in 90 degree whether. We were very sunburned and very exhausted. That morning we had played ultimate Frisbee with the zone for exercise on top of that. We all have some very lovely farmers tans now.

So close

It's always fun to hear about Taylor from people living in Ogden. This is from one of our Mesa Missionaries-Tara (Morton) Hart:

So my husband and I fed the missionaries yesterday here in Ogden and I asked them if they knew Elder Bassett and they said yes. Apparently he is serving just down the street from my house! I'm going to be on the lookout for him. Also the missionaries said the kindest things about Taylor and they love serving with him.

Just watched them put up Moroni this morning!

This week has been awesome! It started with a lot of people dropping off the face of the earth, and then finding a ton of new people at the end of the week. The first thing to report on is that we did a special musical number in sacrament meeting. There are seven elders in the ward. The bishop had asked us to sing, and then he told the other elders, too, which is kind of where the problem was. It so happens that two of the elders in our ward are the most tone-deaf people I have ever met, ha-ha. So we sang, and it was pretty awful. I may have said this story last week, but I couldn’t remember so I threw it in because it was funny. It was hard for the three of us not to laugh...it was really, really bad. So they probably won't ever ask the missionaries to sing again, ha.

So we had exchanges this week. I went to my greeny area with Elder Norton. Elder Norton used to be my zone leader in North Ogden. He is an awesome planner and a very smart worker. It was good to show him around to some of the people I used to teach, so that he could have some where to start since they are in the processing of white-washing still. It was weird to see all the familiar faces and roads. I realize more and more, though, how much I dislike exchanges. Something about not sleeping in my own bed just drives me crazy and being away from "home". Maybe it’s just because I have such good companions and don't want to get away from my area, but I always get so stressed the whole day before exchanges. But it ended up being ok; so that’s good. While I was on exchanges though was the really stressful thing.