27 August 2018

By way of explanation, my companion this week was freaking out a little bit about how fast his time goes because he just hit his 10 month mark. I'm about to hit 13, and it feels like 10 was yesterday. Time really is flying by ridiculously fast. (Yes, Mom, I'm aware that you don't feel the same way.)

But back to the stuff that matters. We got to visit with some really cool people this week, including with J and with William again. J said that he wants to be baptized, and so we set a date with him on the 15th of September. He's been going to church regularly, we just need to go and teach him everything! He's so ready to be baptized, we just can only meet with him 1-2 times a week. On the plus side, he's just absolutely plowing through the Book of Mormon! He's almost finished with 1 Nephi, and we gave it to him about 2 weeks ago! William is a little more hesitant about baptism, but he's also going through and reading in the Book of Mormon. He says he wants to read the whole thing before he gets baptized. He does have some good questions, though, and he went to church for the first time yesterday! He lives with a less active family who works a lot and so can't come to church much, but they've been trying to get going again. 

Last night, we got to visit with some cool people to. We knocked on one woman's door, and she invited us in after a bit of talking. Her name is Rosa, and is super religious. We gave her a Book of Mormon and showed her Moroni 10:3-5. She loved it a lot. In fact, she loved it so much that she read half of the chapter while we were there. She just wouldn't stop. She said that you could really feel the love in it. We're going to be able to meet with her again on Friday and hopefully teach all of her family. Later that night, we knocked on someone else's door and they invited us right in as well! They were also really receptive, and we're going back to visit with them next Sunday. There's big things happening in Wallace!

In more fun, random news, we had a branch activity called the Shrimp-a-Roo! Basically, we just had food and games for a few hours. We had to show up at 7 in the morning to help set up and to paint the soccer field. That was pretty cool, but ended up with us being outside for a total of about 10 hours that day. More on that later, but check this out! 

 

Missionaries getting artsy. By the way, that says SUD LDS. SUD is the abbreviation of Santos de los Ultimos Dias, or Latter Day Saints in English. And yes, that is Moroni up top. This picture was taken by my comp up on my shoulders. This was the center of the field. We had a few mini soccer games, but they were interrupted by the arrival of a huge inflatable waterslide. My comp had to go down due to losing a bet with someone for who could make the longest shot into the net. J and William went to that, too. It was a ton of fun. About an hour after this, (it ended at one and we had to help clean up) we went and helped William do some yardwork. It was pretty hard stuff for another few hours, and so by the end of it my neck looked like this: 

 

 

 

It's only a little bit painful. But overall, it was a really great day. We had a lesson with William then, too, and talked more about the BoM and why we are baptized. He's such a great guy. Also, while we were helping him, we found this little guy! You can't see his bright blue tail. 

 

We also had our first full Zone Conference with President Holland this week. It was super great! We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how important it is, not only for our people we're teaching, but also for us. He's a really awesome mission president. He knows how and when to be serious, but he can also have a lot of fun and make jokes. I can tell that it's going to be a fun last year with him. 

The only other thing that really happened this week was a "Family Home Evening" that we have with all of the Hispanics in the branch. We played Human Battleship with sponges, but in order to  be able to throw a sponge you had to be able to answer a gospel question right. That was a ton of fun, too. Here's me giving a sponge to one of the kids to throw. 

 

 

Well, I think that's all for this week. Bye!