Woooow this week was cold! It got a little below zero a few of the days but we trudged through it! This week was pretty good! Sadly, none of our investigators came to church :( not even Javier! We stopped by Saturday evening just to invite him again and he said for sure that him and his wife were going to come, buuuut they didn't. So that was a little frustrating. There were a lot of less active members there, so it was good.
We had a great lesson with the J family! We talked about Christ-like Attributes from Preach My Gospel and we each prepared a little 2 minute thought on each attribute. They all seemed to enjoy it, and it was spiritual, but afterwards, Brother J told us that they didn't really have time for us to be coming over every week so he said we'd have to call him and set something up in a couple weeks. So we're not really seeing any progress yet.
On Tuesday I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Dean and it was fun! It's great serving around him since he's a high school friend of mine. We've definitely gotten closer and I think we'll be good friends after the mission. We taught an Indian guy that Elder Weese and I found and it went so well! His name is J and even though he doesn't have much of a Christian background he is interested in learning. It's definitely different teaching him. We were reading in the intro to the Book of Mormon when it talks about the Holy Ghost, and as I finished reading I asked, "J, what did you understand from that?" he replied, "Oh, so the bad spirit will tell you things to do and we shouldn't listen to it... right?". Haha I had to explain to him that the Holy Ghost was the "good spirit" and it's the one we should listen to. He's so kind and humble. We're excited to see if the other elders can help him progress.
On Wednesday it snowed a ton! So halfway through the day we had to ground all the cars because the streets were so bad. When it got to be night time, we didn't have much to do without the cars (since we're not allowed to tract when it's dark) so we went with the other four elders in Goshen and just walked around shoveling snow for members and investigators. The English Elders in Goshen were the ones who had an investigator with that HUGE dog.
On Thursday we tracted a ton! We had a lot of success. We tracted for about 3 hours, and literally every lesson we taught was to a 18-22 year old Hispanic girl which was strange... but one of them was really interested! Her name is L. She told us her parents are Catholic, but she doesn't really like it because she thinks that we shouldn't pray to saints and stuff but we should only pray to God. We told her she was right and we taught her about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. She was kind of a funny girl haha! After the lesson I asked, "L, how do you think you could know for yourself if this is all true?" And her response cracked us up. She said, "Hmm.. I don't know I'd probably just have to die and then come to life or something like that." Haha we couldn't tell if she was joking or being serious, but it was way funny! I told her there was a much easier, risk-free way to find out, through prayer. She said she doesn't really want us to come over while her parents are home because apparently her dad has bashed a lot with the missionaries in the past. So we haven't been able to meet with her again yet but we'll see what happens.
Friday morning we drove an hour south to a city called Warsaw to do exchanges with the Elders down there. I went with Elder Hensley from Taylor, Arizona and we had a lot of fun! There are actually a ton of Hispanics in Warsaw! So since it's in our area, we decided we're going to go down there once a week to proselyte as long as we have enough miles. While we were there, we found a lot of people that are willing and interested in learning more! It was kind hard to teach all the Spanish lessons myself since Elder Hensley is an English missionary, but I'm excited about the people we found there.
Sunday was good. I was asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting, and I'd say it went pretty well. But if you ask the members they might say something different ;) haha who knows. I based my talk on the talk Pres. Uchtdorf gave called "Are You Sleeping Through the Restoration?" and I related it to sharing the Gospel and missionary work.
After church, we had to go up to Mishawaka to the stake center for a stake meeting with the Stake Presidency and Pres. Cleveland. It was such a good meeting! We talked about the upcoming baptisms in the stake and any concerns that need to be taken care of. Pres. Jones, the stake president, had some powerful closing remarks in regards to missionaries spending time with and fellow shipping members. He said, "When you cross the threshold of a home, as ministers of Jesus Christ, they will feel it." and also, "Spend time with them, shake their hands, look them in their eyes, and watch as pure virtue flows from you." He talks a lot about the authority and mantle of our calling and he's a very spiritual and powerful speaker. After the meeting, Elder Weese and I had our interviews with President Cleveland, in which he told me that all departure dates will be pushed back so I'm scheduled to go home a week later than planned. I told him about school and he said I'd have to go home a week early then. Sooo.. I guess I'll be going home the same time haha.
Yesterday we didn't have a p-day because President and Sister Cleveland came up for interviews in our zone. As Zone Leaders, we had the opportunity to help with interviews and we were there from 1:30 to 7! It was a loooong day. But most of the day we were waiting for things to do, so we just spent a lot of time with Sister Cleveland in the hallway. She is such a sweet lady! Interviews were great! We have a really good zone!
That's it for the week. I love you Mom! Have a wonderful week and keep sharing your testimony!
Love,
Elder Thayne
 |
| This was the biggest dog I had ever seen. A bullmastiff mixed with a great dane. The picture doesn't even do it justice. |
No comments:
Post a Comment