16 April 2018

So this week we had a really cool experience. Bishop Dean Davies of the presiding bishopric came and visited all of the Spanish members. We had the meeting in Raleigh, and so I got to see some of the old members from the Raleigh 3rd ward. One of my old investigators recently got married and baptized, and another is about to! It was so great to see all of them, it was probably my favorite ward. Bishop Davies was really funny too, and had a really great talk on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Then we got to drive home with really terrible weather and a tornado touching down not too far from us. That was pretty interesting. But of course, like all crazy weather and natural disasters, I slept through it all. That makes my total of things slept through 2 earthquakes and a tornado, with only one hurricane that I was awake for. That we tried to fly through. Yay! It made me realize that maybe I don't want to be awake for these things. Aside from that, we had transfers this week and I have my new companion, Elder Turner. He seems to be pretty interesting. I also had to say bye to one of my favorite missionaries, Elder Coesens. His two years are finally over, but some of my other really good friends are still out here. Not too much else, so it's time for pictures. 
Me and some of the Raleigh 3 members


The things you see in the South are still the best.


This really nice dog that still follows us around whenever we go to this one trailer park.


And if this is too hard to read, it says, "Rabbit's Place. Gone but not forgotten." It has clearly been forgotten, and is still present...


Elder Coesens on his last day.


Because those fools who only works 24 hour days are missing out on so much opportunity. Again, things that you see in the South.
​

9 April 2018

Well, this week we had Zone Conference. It was in Wilmington, which is a two hour drive away. It was actually really awesome. One of our members drove us down and took us to the beach before, which was super cool and made me realize that I really love the beach even when I can't go into the water and it's 40 degrees with a high wind and I only have a suit jacket to protect me. It was really great, even though it was cold. Even with all the weather it still made me think about moving to Wilmington post-mission. Who knows, though. After ZC we went to this garden place (see title) and we just spent a few hours wandering around and taking pictures. Also a lot of fun because I got to see some of my friends out here that I haven't been able to see for a while. Also, I got a haircut and decided to actually try doing something with my hair. For the first time. Unless you count senior prom, but that kind of failed hair-wise.

In terms of the work, it's been rough. Almost no one will go to church ever, partly because we have to try to get them to go somewhere they've never been before that's 45 minutes away. It's pretty hard even just knocking doors, because we have to really search out the Hispanics over an area that's huge. Most of the areas where there are any are super far away, too, and we have limited miles. The branch itself is slowly improving, and more people who haven't been in a long time are showing up after we've visited them a few times. The coolest experience we had this week was being able to go to the baptism of someone that we found a few weeks ago. We were knocking doors and at one of them a teenage girl named Sam answered. It turns out that she is very religious and loved what we shared and wanted to hear more. So we talked with her for a little while and then set up a time when other missionaries could come by. We definitely would have come back and taught her more ourselves, but in our area we aren't allowed to teach anyone who doesn't speak Spanish any more than the first lesson. So the English missionaries took over and she got baptized two weeks later, the fastest that you can be out here because you have to go to church at least twice. She already has a whole bunch of friends in the Young Women and is doing super well. The only sad part is how we couldn't teach her ourselves, but it's always great to see people improve and develop a deeper relationship with God.

 

  

This was one of the weirdest things I've seen while tracting. We thought it was actual people inside at first, but nope. Just some mannequins. 

 

Some of my favorite pictures of the beach that I took.

 

Seriously though, the signs in the South are just the best.
​

2 April 2018

So as I'm sure that many of you know, it was General Conference this weekend. For those of you who don't, that's when we get to watch broadcasts of our leaders giving us divine guidance and direction, and happens every six months. And wow, what a crazy one this has been! A temple in Russia, reorganized Elders Quorum and ministering rather than home teaching? This is big stuff! We had rumors circulating around the mission that there would be some big announcement this time around, and that it would happen during the Sunday morning session. Well, that came and went with no big news, and so I assumed it would be over and the rumors were nothing more than just rumors. And then Sunday afternoon session came around and I heard that President Nelson was going to "address us briefly." And that was when I knew that it was going to go down. I feel like Ministering is going to be much more effective and Christlike than the previous Home and Visiting Teaching, (especially for the priesthood) and that it is going to help the members a lot. Personally, I can't wait to go home and have a chance to do it for myself. It'll be great!

I do have to admit that on Saturday I made a bit of a mistake... I locked us out of the car. Oops. Fortunately, our branch president was able to pick us up so that we could watch conference at his house and our Fleet Coordinator drove all the way from Raleigh to get us the spare. I felt pretty bad about that, but it was kind of funny at the same time. The only frustrating thing about this was that if we had had the other kind of mission car, it wouldn't have been a problem at all. Out here, 95% of the cars are Chevy Malibus or Toyota Corollas. We have a Corolla, which doesn't even have a button on the trunk to open it. (Which is where I got the keys locked in.) The only ways to open the trunk are with the key fob or from the driver's seat. Neither were accessible, as both are inside the car. However, with the Malibus, it's a different story. Not only do they have a button on the trunk that would have sensed the proximity of the keys and unlocked so I could open it, but it also would have sensed that the keys are still in the car and it would have unlocked one of the doors. So yeah... I we had the different car I would have been fine. But nope, my forgetfulness is in full force. 

The only other other weird experiences we had this week were when we were tracting in this trailer park, and there was just a cow hanging out in the field next to it. Just one cow. Tied up to a mid size tree branch that was somehow keeping it in place. Maybe by the power of suggestion. And the other was when we went to this one store and found some super crazy T-shirts. This picture isn't the craziest shirt, but one that I was considering getting. I decided against it, sadly. Picture time! 

 

 

This is my missionary family history, and I am the proud continuation of the first-born line. I'll probably train, so I'll be able to pass it on even further. 

 

This was one day of pollen build up. Yup, welcome to North Carolina. Shockingly, I haven't had any issues with allergies from that. 

 

Here's that random cow

 

And that shirt

 

How I wanted to spend Conference. The Young Women left a random tent set up. 

 

One of my Zone Leaders took more pictures than I thought he would 

​And here's our district. Yes, I am holding a bag of Golden Puffs. It's important. Don't ask why. 

26 March 2018

No, the title has nothing to do with this email. But, today was an interesting week. I went on two exchanges (for those of you who are unfamiliar with what those are, it's where one of the missionaries leaves his comp for 24 hours and works with one of his leaders instead so that the leader can tell how they're doing.) and both were fairly interesting, though the first one was much more so. I stayed in my area with my Zone Leader coming out to mine. We spent a pretty good amount of time knocking doors and found some... interesting people. One of them we now refer to as "Salt Demon Lady." Basically, she told us that she had put salt all around her house and in the windows in order to keep out the demons, as well as typing out some scriptures and putting those over all of the thresholds in her house. She said that if someone had a demon, they wouldn't even cross the salt, even though they wouldn't know that it was there. We were already in their house talking to her and her husband, so clearly we were demon-free. She then asked us if we were comfortable, and we said yes. She then said that if a demon had made it over the salt and past the scriptures, they would feel incredibly uncomfortable inside, and so if we felt comfortable, we were went of God. For whatever reason, that didn't make her want to listen to our message. Go figure. Also, she left multiple open Bibles around her house and said that she might have a demon still because they kept on closing over and over again. It just made me wonder why she would go to all that effort if it doesn't work if she actually has one in there... Another contact that we made was also pretty interesting. Basically, he accused Elder Hall (my zone leader) of not being enthusiastic enough and asking questions. Elder Hall is probably the most enthusiastic person I know, so I don't know what was going on there. And the reason that asking questions was bad to him was because the "Bible is all answers and no questions" and that "Paul didn't ask any questions." This kind of irked Elder Hall, and when we got back to the apartment he started looking in the Bible to find where Paul asked questions. He does, plenty of times. Fun fact: the first thing that Saul says after he is first called Paul is a question. (Acts 13:9-10) Then, the next day, I went on exchanges again with my district leader. We walked a lot that day, and visited a whole bunch of people. It was pretty good. The rest of the week wasn't too exciting, mostly just knocking doors still. I don't know why, but it is just super hard to find people in this area who actually want to listen to us. It's pretty crazy, and I half am hoping that I get transferred. We'll see, maybe we'll find someone really great and then I'll really want to stay!

These aren't just regular post it notes... these are EXTREME post it notes!

19 March 2018

This week we had a few special meetings. The best one was on Saturday when we got to meet with Elder Rasband. We had to go to Apex by 9 in the morning, an hour and a half drive. We had to get up even earlier in order to make it. I don't know where to find the picture that we got to take with him, but I'm sure it'll eventually make it up on the North Carolina Raleigh Mission Share Facebook page. He gave a really great talk, and a lot of it was about how we should be more sure of what we're doing and rely more on the Spirit to guide us, and how we can never know the result of our work sometimes until way later. Also, he talked about the "whiners" that there are in each mission sometimes about where we get assigned to for our mission or transfer to transfer. He emphasized how all of it is done by revelation and how if we complain about where we end up going, or have a "dream mission" in the back of our minds, we are mocking God. It was super awesome, and we got the opportunity to shake his hand on the way in. Elder Costa also gave a really great talk on how we need to ask God to find out if these things are true or not, and how a testimony from God is super important. We also got to hear from him (Elder Costa) again on Sunday twice. We had a choir practice (we got roped into being part of the branch choir that was organized 5 days before stake conference because we had almost no warning) and he came in and talked to the branch in Spanish. It turns out that the Spanish of a Brazilian is way easier to understand than that of someone who grew up learning Spanish. He put a lot of emphasis on Family Home Evening, praying as a family, and studying the scriptures together. Another really great talk. It was really funny because our mission president was sitting in on it and he doesn't speak any Spanish at all.

Aside from all that craziness, there wasn't too much that went on this week. We got stood up at just about all of our lessons, but we had a cool one where we got invited in and taught a really awesome Restoration and they were really excited. Aside from that, it's not been exciting. Sorry. Picture time! 

 

Elder Woolums (someone I served around) and I before the meeting with Elder Rasband. We had the entire mission there.


Throwing it back to the day that I got out here with my trainer.


After our talk with Elder Costa. (This is the majority of our branch, not just the choir. The choir is about 10 people.) Elder Costa is in the first row, furthest to the right.

12 March 2018

I must say, the thing I miss most about living in Arizona is being able to wake up on one of the Daylight Savings days... At the same time as the day before. I didn't have to worry about changing all of the clocks in the house, sleeping in or waking up way too early because I forgot to change my alarm clock, or having my sleep schedule thrown off for the next week. But, out here it still is an unfortunate reality. So on Sunday we woke up and got to experience the wonders all over again. Anyways, on to how my week actually went. (By the way, if I say anythings that need clarification, shoot me an email and I'll be glad to clear it up for y'all.)

On Monday after PDay was officially over (6 o'clock) one of the members canceled the Family Home Evening that we had. So, we decided to go out knocking. Well, in the three hours we had left, we found 5 NI's! It was awesome! It really helped me realize the importance of working hard, even when you might not have very much time to do so. This has probably been the best week we've had out in Raeford. Funny story about tracting, though. We have the one apartment complex that is just absolutely MASSIVE (I'm talking 87 buildings with a minimum of 6 apartments per building, most of them with 8) that we've been tracting out because it's close and we can find a decent amount of HIspanics there. Got to save those miles! Anyways, we're knocking it at night when it was really dark and we meet this one person from Puerto Rico. He was really nice, and the step-dad of someone we'd found last week. So we start talking to him, and all of a sudden his entire life story comes out. I don't know why, but people seem to think that these random 19 year olds are the people who are okay to tell your darkest secrets. Well, this man in particular has more than your average person, due to him having been one of the largest drug dealers in Puerto Rico. Apparently he had to flee here when the threats to his life got too severe, which is why he's living in just some apartments. This was about 15 or so years ago as best as we can tell, but he left behind a huge house with "4 cars and 2 motorcycles." His brother and dad are keeping it safe until he plans to return, but he's still too worried about it. Fun times. Then about ten minutes later, somebody refused to open the door and said that she was going to call the police. We found out why a few minutes later when someone told us to be safe because of how this was a really dangerous area. Now, my companion had said that it was a really ghetto area, but it certainly wasn't the worst place I'd knocked. Then, in another few doors, we had someone tell us to be safe and either leave or carry on us because of the many shootings and drug deals that went down in the area. Naturally, we thanked him and kept on knocking. (Sorry, Mom! You thought you finally had a missionary staying safe!) Nothing else happened that night, except for a two-minute swinging break. My companion has this thing about needing to swing at every park that we knock around. So we did that for a minute, then headed home because it was time to go. 
​

The only other big thing that happened this week was an awesome lesson. We stopped by a less active's house and not only was she there, but so was her boyfriend who isn't a member! Even better, it turns out that they were talking about coming to church the very same day we came by! He said that he was interested in learning more about what we believe, and so we got to teach him the Restoration. It was awesome, and he had a lot of really great questions. He couldn't make it to church on Sunday, but he said that he would read in and pray about the Book of Mormon. We're super pumped to see how well it goes! 

That's all for this week, time for some random pictures! 

Just a throwback to my first day, yesterday was my six month mark of being in field!

 
We have to walk quite a bit around here.


And then just another picture of my first day in field, my first trainer pre-destroyed collarbone.
​

5 March 2018

So that title was the coolest thing that I heard all of this week. We were knocking doors and we shared part of the Restoration with her, and when I was talking she cut me off and just looked at me and said, "De donde eres?" (Where are you from?) "De que pais?" (From which country?) When I told her that I was from the US, she looked impressed and asked where I had learned my Spanish. When I told her that I had learned it in North Carolina, and in only seven months (yeah Mom, I've been out that long! It's flying!) she was impressed but confused. I was confused as to why she was confused, but that's not important. That's one of the weird things about Spanish work, you pick up things about different countries that they say. For example, I've been told that I have a Venezuelan accent, I use Mexican sayings/phrases, and that I'm so white that I have to be from Puerto Rico, Spain, or the Dominican Republic. So I'm a bit of an strange person to meet for Hispanics. But getting that reaction for the first time was pretty awesome. At least I know that my whole 7 months of Spanish is starting to really click. For a while I forced myself to have every conscious thought in Spanish, and that helped. I still have some random times when I think in Spanish. It's pretty great, but sometimes I'll be thinking and then I have to stop because I can't think of the word in either language. It gets rough.
On Wednesday we got a call from our branch president's wife to ask us to set up the headsets for translation for the Young Women's New Beginning thing, but we wouldn't have to translate, because the same member who was feeding us that night was going to translate. Well, the member called and canceled on both. So we went dinnerless and got to translate for that. It wasn't too bad, but I'm the one who does translations from English to Spanish. I can do that just fine, but if you want me to go the other way around, I suddenly can't understand Spanish. It's weird. So that goes to my companion. But I was in the middle of translating and they said the word "colors." Not a problem, right? Basic word, something you learn in your first week of Spanish. Somehow I forgot it, and just said the first word that came to mind. The English one would have worked, because most understand at least a fair amount of English, but my brain decided that if it couldn't use the right foreign language, it would at least use one. So I used the German word. Probably went right over the heads of everyone there. Whoops. But other than that I did just fine. There wasn't a whole lot else that went down that was unusual this week. Well, we did bring the sacrament to a member yesterday who had back surgery and when we were leaving, his wife gave us a "house warming gift." We have absolutely no idea why, but now I am the proud owner of a brand new towel set. I'm not going to turn that down. For whatever reason, missionaries get offered the weirdest things. Also this week, I was offered a free puppy. Again. Actually, this time I was offered 8. People just love giving us stuff. Unfortunately, having a pet is against mission rules, so I had to turn them down. But they were great, and super tiny. Probably not even ready to give away yet. 




And then just a random fire truck parked in the Walmart parking lot across a whole bunch of spaces. The one in the cab was making faces at me when I took this, but you can't see him.
​