Week 19---Good lessons, good food, the importance of member involvement

Monday:

Started the morning by cleaning, eating, then went to get groceries and some new blinds, because ours were quite trashy. Also, we went over to the church with our fingers crossed, hoping computers would work, and they did. After a bunch of e-mailing, we went to eat at Bandana's, a barbecue place, and that was really good. Elder Czirr and I then went to the Family Home Evening at the church and I won another awesome round of SkipBo!

Tuesday:

We went to L-Life in the morning earlier instead of late like usual. It was pretty laid-back this time around, with not as many people there. We later went to help these members who gave us our love-seat, to bring their couch to the free store. Then we went to the apartment for some lunch and then headed to the jail and we had a discussion about the plan of salvation. Afterwards we visited one of our investigators who has a date for baptism. We taught the rest of the Gospel Of Jesus Christ lesson and answered some of her questions about her Book Of Mormon reading. It was a pretty good lesson. We then had pizza, which a member brought for us. After dinner we visited a few members to discuss some things about missionary work, then went and had a lesson with another investigator which went pretty well.

Wednesday:

First thing in the morning we went to the apartment of our district leader to get a ride to district meeting. We drove to where we were going to have our district meeting, but the church's carpets were being redone. We ended up having our district meeting in their apartment instead. We had a discussion of how we have power and authority in teaching. Later we ate at Dairy Queen and then went home. We tightened the lug nuts on the car and sent in our receipts for car maintenance and so on. Then we went to a lesson with an investigator and answered her questions, and after visiting with her we went tracting. We ran into a man and after a while we asked him what he knows about Mormons and he took time to think about it, then he said, "Have a good day." I don't know why, maybe he was embarrassed because he didn't know how to answer that. We then went to a barbecue place with a nice family in the ward, and that was really good. There was even free ice cream included.

Thursday:

Today was weekly planning, but first we met with lady in the ward to help her in her pursuit of getting to the temple. We discussed the scriptures in Matthew, when Jesus was being tempted. We explained that in temptations we too can use scriptures to push them away. We then visited a ward council member to go over some more stake business. Then after a lot of planning, we took our bikes and rode to our investigator's house for a lesson about the restoration and prophets. That was a great lesson. After that, we drove to the Bishop's home for a lovely dinner. We got to talk to them about our missionary efforts. We later met with a recent convert and discussed prayer. Biking most of the day was interesting, but it does take up a lot of the time.

Friday:

We left after our studies to meet with a member at the nursing home, but he turned out to be asleep. We instead biked to someone home nearby and tried the house, she was gone. Afterwards we had some lunch at home, then went and visited another investigator and finished the message of the restoration. It was a nice lesson and it helped him. After him we went down to the jail and had a visit. We talked about judgement and the spirit world, about those who are going to preach to the people who have not yet received the gospel. We had a dinner and then visited a newer investigator and discussed the restoration with him and he committed to read and to pray about the Book Of Mormon. Today was a pretty good day for lessons, but we need to do better at getting members to those lessons.

Saturday:

After studies, Elder Czirr and I went to visit a member again this morning, this time he was awake. We talked to him and then had some lunch. After lunch we drove down to help a member to place heavy rocks down in front of her home, around the area where she plans to have gravel laid down. There are two sets of assistants in this mission. There are the ones with the mission president, and then there are the traveling assistants. They came to our area to help us improve our missionary work. They go around to different areas and don't truly have an area of their own. One went with me and the other with Elder Czirr and then we went and did some work. Elder Murdock and I went to the jail to visit one of the other guys there, a member.  About mid-afternoon, we left from there to visit a less-active member, but she was gone, so we talked with her boyfriend. We asked him who he knew that could benefit from our message, and he named a neighbour down the street, and a moment later, the son, saw him driving and said, "that's him." The guy we were talking to waved the guy in his truck down, and then that guy reversed til he was with us and he seemed to be trying to impress the girl who was in his vehicle, but he said he wasn't interested in us coming over. After that we went to visit a family in the ward and then set a time to come back in the evening for some scripture study. We then knocked on the doors of several people and met people who could potentially be interested in hearing what we have to say. We then went back home for some dinner. Later we tried to visit an investigator, but I think she ignored us, so she may not be interested anymore. We also came back to visit with the family from before, and only one of them was available to study with us. He got a lot out of the lesson, so that was good. We then talked to someone from tracting who'd be interested in having us come back.

Sunday:

Today we still had the assistants with us so church was interesting with four missionaries. We had sacrament and we looked around and saw none of the people we wanted and expected to be at church today. What was a great surprise though, was that a family had brought a friend to church, and it was now his second time here. We had a gospel principles class which consisted of that family, four missionaries, and then him. He may have felt singled out. The talks were about the ancient church, and the organization of the church, and that was really cool because that's the lesson we prepared for our class. Afterwards we had a baptism for a young child in the ward, and it was pretty sweet. We were asked to fill up the font before and to get an intermediate video. Luckily all went well. We later had dinner with a family. Quite tasty. They're a great family and we talked for a while, then we left to meet with someone who may begin taking the lessons. We went by and he didn't answer so we talked to his neighbours who were outside. After a while of talking to them, the guy we tried to meet went outside, so we are glad those neighbours were there or we wouldn't have known he was home. Anyways, it turns out he was asleep, so we then had a lesson with him, and are doing our best to help him understand who Christ is, and what he has done. We later made some calls and then we went home at the end of a great day.