7 May 2018

Well, there isn't too much to report on this one. First, the vlog was discontinued immediately as I found out that it would take over 3 hours to upload the videos. And I don't have that much time. Soo... yeah. Anyways, with the week. So not much happened. The biggest thing that did happen was when we had the police called on us. Again. That never happened before Raeford, but now it's increasing in frequency. But we were knocking in some neighborhood and I saw a police car drive by and I mentioned to my companion that they had probably been called on us. A half hour later, two police cars came up to us and the officers got out. They were friendly enough, and asked for our ID. We had a brief chat, and it seems like whenever they check the plates on the car and see that they're registered to the church, they suddenly can relax a lot. I nearly gave them a card, but decided against it. It's just contacting on hard mode, right? Anyways, the only other big news is that I got a haircut. Nothing too crazy, but it was shorter than I had expected. Whoops. But yeah, it's not been too crazy of a week. And we broke a lightbulb. After our inspection. And tomorrow we have Zone Conference, so they'll be pictures next week.

30 April 2018

So, I decided to try to start a Vlog type of deal here. It's pretty weird, and is basically just me talking about my day in a video format. I'll share the Google Drive folder here, but don't expect too much out of it. I just sit there and ramble. If you want greater detail on how my week went and not just what I can remember by Monday, that's the place to go. Anyways, now for the week.

So, Thursday was an interesting day. We had a few appointments to go to in St. Pauls, which is the furthest city away that we actually work in. (Got to love the mile limit.) So we were knocking doors for a little while but then we decided to move on to another area. Well, we took a wrong turn while we were walking, and ended up in downtown St Pauls, about 2-2 1/2 miles from where we parked. Whoops. So, we figured that we could just head back to the car and knock some doors on the way back. As we turned around to head back, a police officer pulled up. He asked us if we had parked our car where we had left it, and we said yes. Apparently we had accidentally parked on somebody's property (it didn't look that way, but oh well) and the owner had called the police. The officer had gone to the car and checked the plate, but then saw that it belonged to the church. So he knew that it was missionaries and just kind of drove around town looking for us. He found us and just asked us to move the car. As soon as possible. So that made knocking on the way back kind of not going to happen. Especially because as he pulled away, another officer pulled in behind him and demanded to know if we were soliciting. We said we weren't, we were missionaries. He gave us a dirty look and then drove away. I liked the first one a lot more. After that, we decided to speed walk all the way to the car and get there before we got towed or something. We had barely started off when someone yelled at us from the stairs leading up to his apartment, "Hey! Are y'all the Jehovah's Witnesses?" We said no, and he said sorry, he just wanted someone to pray for him. We looked at each other and told him, "Well, we are missionaries!" So we walked up and he explained that his life had been pretty rough lately and that he just wanted some comfort. He then stuck out his fists as if he wanted us to fist bump him. We obliged. At which point he looked at us weirdly and said, "Oh, so you don't pray?" We were confused, but reassured him that we did and just weren't always familiar with the different ways that people prayed. So we put our fists together and Elder Turner prayed. During the whole prayer, this person was prayer talking a lot. It's always pretty funny when happens. For those of you unfamiliar with this phenomena, it is when someone begins to "help out" with the prayer by offereing commentary during the prayer, usually in the form of saying things such as, "Yes, Jesus" or "Thank you, Father" commonly repeated throughout the prayer. It was an interesting experience. After that, we kind of booked it back to the car, which thankfully was still there and ticketless. Thanks again, first police officer. 

On Friday? we had a lesson with our only investigator who has a baptismal date. It went pretty well, and he still seems to be interested in learning more and progressing. We got to teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he committed to live it. We committed him to go to church with us as well, but he texted us the morning of and told us that he couldn't make it, so that was pretty sad. 

On Saturday, we used a lot of miles. We had to go to Red Springs for an appointment, which is pretty far away. It went fairly well, and she seems to be open to learning. And then we had to go to Hope Mills to help out one of our members. And then back to Red Springs for more knocking and appointments. Still, it was a pretty good day.

Sunday was pretty cool, mostly because I had to translate. Now, the weird thing about me was that translating from English to Spanish was easy. I could do that no problem. But, going from Spanish to English was nigh impossible. But Elder Clement (who did it before for me) is gone, and this was the first week that our member who normally translates was gone. So it fell to me. I actually wasn't really nervous, which probably helped a lot. The hardest part about translating is that it is a live translation, and so I'm listening to it as it happens and speaking at the same time. The first time I tried this here was three months ago, and I didn't translate much of anything, and passed it off to my comp halfway through the first talk. The branch president's wife afterwards had told me how terrible it was. She's a very straightforward  lady who tells you what's on her mind. But this time I actually had to take over for my comp and translated the entire meeting without a problem. She came up to me afterwards and told me how great I did. So, I'll take that as a sign that I have improved a lot. 

Our district meeting was the only other really interesting thing that happened this week. It was really good, and we had some great role play time. The only issue I have with the role plays is that ever since the role play jar that has everyone's names on slips of paper was introduced, I have been drawn to do it for all but one time. Coincidence? I think not! But we had some really great instructions, and it was just super good overall. And I learned how to use chopsticks, which apparently isn't that hard at all. Also, this might just be the longest email I've sent. 

 

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23 April 2018

This week just absolutely flew by! I have no idea what on earth is going on with the time. Or my memory. I can't remember anything about this week. So, this one is a short one. The craziest thing that we had was on Thursday. We had four appointments at 10-12 and they were in a city nearly an hour away. So we had to spend the morning way far away and did our weekly planning out at a McDonald's. That was kinda odd. I ordered a cone at one of the kiosks and sat down. My comp was still ordering and giving the kitchen a heart attack. You see, at McDonald's they can see your order in the kitchen from the moment you click on a food item and he was trying to find out which sandwich it lets you put the most bacon on. So he went through the entire menu and took a long time doing it. At one point, a worker came up to him and asked if he knew what he was doing and if he needed help. He didn't know that they could see his order and so he said no. While this was happening, my cone was brought to me. The worker who brought it to me said  "Would it be weird if I said you were cute?" To which I responded, "Uhh... No?" I had no idea how to respond to that, and how do you respond to that as a missionary who can't date? She turned red and then walked away. And then had to come back to give my comp his food. She didn't say a word and wouldn't look up. So that was a little weird. Later that week we found some really interesting people who said that we were the Jehovah's Witnesses and that they already had a Book of Mormon that the JW's had already given them. That was kinda strange too. We're still trying to work with our baptismal date, but he canceled our last appointment. We're still trying with him. 

These are just some random pictures that I got this week. A really funny shirt, a very aspiring pad of paper, and we got the car to 30000 miles. Big news for missionaries. 

 

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.
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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.
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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!