Lorena's Baptism
At the LA Temple with Lorena and her family
Fourth of July
Finger getting stitched at the Urgent Care after the fight with the avocado
Zone Conference
It has been a whopper. A lot of really good stuff happened and a lot of
not so good stuff happened. It was kind of all over the place. It was a really
good reminder of how when we are at a loss as to what to do the Lord provides a
way, we just need to rely on him. Here are the major events from the last two
weeks:
Baptism! Last Thursday night there was a baptism for an amazing woman named Lorena. From what I have heard about her she has changed so much. She is super sweet and was so happy to be baptized. She asked me to do her hair afterward and it was so cool to have just a few moments with her to ask her how she felt and what she was thinking. She has basically turned her whole life around and is loving the gospel.
Temple trip! Then on Saturday we were able to go to the Visitors Center at the temple with Lorena, her daughter, her niece and her dad, as well as our ward mission leader and his son. It was a super good trip. Lorena loved seeing pictures of the rooms inside the temple and has now made it a very firm goal to be able to go inside in a year. And it was also nice to just be there on the grounds and feel the spirit there.
4th of July. We celebrated the 4th at an FHE with our branch president and his family, Lorena's family and another less active family. We had huge burgers that had bacon, half a hot dog, ham and grilled pineapple on them. As most of you probably know I'm not the biggest burger fan, but I loved them. It was a great bonding experience for everyone, and really made Lorena and her family feel included.
My fight with an avocado. I'm sad to say I lost. Tuesday night we were eating with one of our ward missionaries, and she asked me to cut an avocado. Normally I'm quite good at it but this time as I was taking the pit out the knife slipped and ended up cutting through the avocado into my hand. My first thought was to just stick a band-aid and some Neosporin on it and moving on with our day, but after looking at it and letting my companion (who wants to be a nurse) examine it, we decided that it was probably a good idea for me to get stitches. Then we were faced with the problem of finding someone to give us a ride to Urgent Care (the member we were with didn't have her car). Fortunately the first member we called could make it, and also knew where all the closest Urgent cares were. So now I have 3 stitches in my hand which hopefully will be taken out tomorrow. A major shout out goes to my companion for being super patient and loving this and also making sure I didn't do anything that would rip out my stitches.
Service! We had some awesome opportunities to do service this week. We have started an English class, and a lot of people are really excited about it. Part of the problem is that we don't really know what we are doing, but people seem to be learning so we'll see how it goes. It usually takes a while for an English class to get up and running, but it can be very successful we just have to stick it out through this hard part, and then it will be super cool. Also one of our ward missionaries (the same one mentioned above) gave us a call this week and asked if we could help her clean up her house. The woman who had been renting a room from them had moved out and left a huge mess. It was perfect though because our plans for the night had just fallen through and we had two hours left before correlation, and just at the moment when we were trying to figure out what to do she called. Also
we love doing service and never really get to opportunity to do it.
Zone meeting. We had our first zone meeting, and it was one of the best I have ever been to. This is a fun zone because 4 of the 7 languages spoken in the mission are represented. We have English, Spanish, Chinese and Samoan missionaries, so it's really diverse, and everyone has crazy experiences to share. The main focus was what truly defines a successful missionary. It was a really good reminder because this week was so crazy, and we basically had dropped everyone, and we're really starting to feel low, but it was the perfect pick me up.
New investigator! In the midst of all the crazy, we found an amazing new investigator named Elena. She is super excited to learn, and has a lot of good questions. She also came to church and absolutely loved it. She is definitely a miracle.
Sunday. I've realized that it doesn't sound too crazy thus far, but that was because Sunday was the craziest day of all. Just imagine other days like this for the rest of the week. We started out by forgetting our phone at home when we left for ward council. Then when we went back for it we couldn't remember where we had put the keys to the font so we just had to pray that they were in our bags in the car and not in the apartment. Then everyone and their dog wanted to talk to us at church, or needed help with something, like leading singing time in primary, or making a program for the baptism that afternoon (for an 8 year old) or teaching gospel principles because the teacher wasn't there (we actually made the elders do that). We finally got to take a breath during sacrament meeting which was lovely before the crazy started again. We finished up making the program and then battled with the copy machine for about 30 minutes trying to make copies. By this point we were starving, but when we got to the kitchen we discovered that the food we had left there to eat after church had been thrown away. Fortunately our branch president had invited the elders over for dinner so we hitched a ride with them. Then we got another breath before plunging back in. When we got to the church for the baptism (Hna Shmutz was playing the piano, I was speaking and we were the musical number) we found out that it hadn't really been set up for, only the font had been filled, so we set up real quick, as people were coming in. Then the baptism was wonderful. The little girl who was getting baptized was so excited, and is helping her family come back to church. Then we called it a night and went home and collapsed.
This week I am so thankful for the Lord and all he people who helped us this week. Every time something crazy or stressful happened the next minute a solution would come, even if it wasn't what we expected or wanted. I think the biggest lesson I learned this week is to just trust in the Lord and everything will work out.
Baptism! Last Thursday night there was a baptism for an amazing woman named Lorena. From what I have heard about her she has changed so much. She is super sweet and was so happy to be baptized. She asked me to do her hair afterward and it was so cool to have just a few moments with her to ask her how she felt and what she was thinking. She has basically turned her whole life around and is loving the gospel.
Temple trip! Then on Saturday we were able to go to the Visitors Center at the temple with Lorena, her daughter, her niece and her dad, as well as our ward mission leader and his son. It was a super good trip. Lorena loved seeing pictures of the rooms inside the temple and has now made it a very firm goal to be able to go inside in a year. And it was also nice to just be there on the grounds and feel the spirit there.
4th of July. We celebrated the 4th at an FHE with our branch president and his family, Lorena's family and another less active family. We had huge burgers that had bacon, half a hot dog, ham and grilled pineapple on them. As most of you probably know I'm not the biggest burger fan, but I loved them. It was a great bonding experience for everyone, and really made Lorena and her family feel included.
My fight with an avocado. I'm sad to say I lost. Tuesday night we were eating with one of our ward missionaries, and she asked me to cut an avocado. Normally I'm quite good at it but this time as I was taking the pit out the knife slipped and ended up cutting through the avocado into my hand. My first thought was to just stick a band-aid and some Neosporin on it and moving on with our day, but after looking at it and letting my companion (who wants to be a nurse) examine it, we decided that it was probably a good idea for me to get stitches. Then we were faced with the problem of finding someone to give us a ride to Urgent Care (the member we were with didn't have her car). Fortunately the first member we called could make it, and also knew where all the closest Urgent cares were. So now I have 3 stitches in my hand which hopefully will be taken out tomorrow. A major shout out goes to my companion for being super patient and loving this and also making sure I didn't do anything that would rip out my stitches.
Service! We had some awesome opportunities to do service this week. We have started an English class, and a lot of people are really excited about it. Part of the problem is that we don't really know what we are doing, but people seem to be learning so we'll see how it goes. It usually takes a while for an English class to get up and running, but it can be very successful we just have to stick it out through this hard part, and then it will be super cool. Also one of our ward missionaries (the same one mentioned above) gave us a call this week and asked if we could help her clean up her house. The woman who had been renting a room from them had moved out and left a huge mess. It was perfect though because our plans for the night had just fallen through and we had two hours left before correlation, and just at the moment when we were trying to figure out what to do she called. Also
we love doing service and never really get to opportunity to do it.
Zone meeting. We had our first zone meeting, and it was one of the best I have ever been to. This is a fun zone because 4 of the 7 languages spoken in the mission are represented. We have English, Spanish, Chinese and Samoan missionaries, so it's really diverse, and everyone has crazy experiences to share. The main focus was what truly defines a successful missionary. It was a really good reminder because this week was so crazy, and we basically had dropped everyone, and we're really starting to feel low, but it was the perfect pick me up.
New investigator! In the midst of all the crazy, we found an amazing new investigator named Elena. She is super excited to learn, and has a lot of good questions. She also came to church and absolutely loved it. She is definitely a miracle.
Sunday. I've realized that it doesn't sound too crazy thus far, but that was because Sunday was the craziest day of all. Just imagine other days like this for the rest of the week. We started out by forgetting our phone at home when we left for ward council. Then when we went back for it we couldn't remember where we had put the keys to the font so we just had to pray that they were in our bags in the car and not in the apartment. Then everyone and their dog wanted to talk to us at church, or needed help with something, like leading singing time in primary, or making a program for the baptism that afternoon (for an 8 year old) or teaching gospel principles because the teacher wasn't there (we actually made the elders do that). We finally got to take a breath during sacrament meeting which was lovely before the crazy started again. We finished up making the program and then battled with the copy machine for about 30 minutes trying to make copies. By this point we were starving, but when we got to the kitchen we discovered that the food we had left there to eat after church had been thrown away. Fortunately our branch president had invited the elders over for dinner so we hitched a ride with them. Then we got another breath before plunging back in. When we got to the church for the baptism (Hna Shmutz was playing the piano, I was speaking and we were the musical number) we found out that it hadn't really been set up for, only the font had been filled, so we set up real quick, as people were coming in. Then the baptism was wonderful. The little girl who was getting baptized was so excited, and is helping her family come back to church. Then we called it a night and went home and collapsed.
This week I am so thankful for the Lord and all he people who helped us this week. Every time something crazy or stressful happened the next minute a solution would come, even if it wasn't what we expected or wanted. I think the biggest lesson I learned this week is to just trust in the Lord and everything will work out.
I
hope you all have a wonderful week!
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