- How was your week, what were your highs &
lows? Well this week I had
another exchange with the zone leaders. We did the exchanges on my
birthday. Again, I got to run the area and some things fell through,
but I made do with what we had and made the best of the situation, like
you always need to do. Another high was that yesterday in sacrament
meeting the talks were awesome. The topic was how members should be
doing the work for their own ancestors in the temple and how important
member missionary work is. One of the F family's daughters spoke and then Sis. T spoke
about the same thing. She based her
talk on the talk by Elder Ballard from this last conference. She related
the story of him talking about a tomato plant and the number of seeds that
one tomato can produce. From one
little seed millions of tomatoes can come about; however, you need to nourish
the first plant in order for it to produce offspring or else the plant
will die and yield nothing. Here is the link: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/this-is-my-work-and-glory?lang=eng She related the story to missionaries
and how each of us can plant a seed and just like the tomato it will grow
and branch into millions as people in a family are baptized. Then the process starts all over again
as their kids serve missions and become faithful members of the church and
the cycle never ends unless someone forgets to nourish the plant. It made me realize that this is my purpose. I
want to help another family receive the blessings of the gospel of Jesus
Christ and help them share it with others and enjoy the blessings of the
temple. Also this morning I was reading that talk by Elder
Ballard and it was talking about the priesthood and how
important it is to us. Lately I
have been doing a lot of studying on the priesthood and it
is amazing how powerful it is and what a blessing it can be in our
lives. In True to the Faith
it gave a great analogy of how the priesthood is not like a cloak,
you can't take it on and off at your convenience. You
always need to be ready and worthy to use it because you
never know when the time will be when you will be called upon to use
it. The primary purpose of this priesthood power is to bless, sanctify,
and purify us so we can live together with our families in the presence of
our heavenly parents, bound by priesthood sealings. There is
a very powerful Mormon message called "Sanctify Yourselves"
by Elder Holland that talks about that very thing. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hew-QARTo00
Back to my highs, we got a church headquarter
referral and found out it is for a guy in jail that wants a BOM. We are going to try and give it to him on
Wednesday. I will let you know how it goes. I also enjoyed getting
Megan’s letter & talk. The video that goes with it is very cool and
powerful. Also on the thought of priesthood and blessings, we were able to
give a blessing to a lady in the sisters’ area. I was the one who gave
the blessing and it is amazing how much the spirit guides and directs you as you become
the mouthpiece for the Lord. Also Elder J and I, along with Bro. T blessed the sacrament on Sunday. Bro. T is the YM president so he does it quite a bit
and a lot of the priests have left for school.
Another high was that we stopped by
quickly to see Franky & Sally the other day
and they had a friend that was over visiting. Franky
said, “she needs God in her life” and she said "I do need God in
my life". We went in and had
the first lesson with her. So we picked her up as a new
investigator.
- What are your 5 positive things for the week?
I am going to start to memorize The Living Christ again. I started to look over it and I actually remember
quite a bit from when we worked on it as a family. We had our best
week of key indicator #'s this week. That shows things are slowly
starting to improve.
- Are you still writing in your journal? I hope so,
these are days that you will never get back but will always want to
remember. Yes, I have
been.
- Tell me more about your area? Well the area is an awesome area to be in.
The ward is great and the people are super nice in the area, so I can't
complain about that. A lot of older people live in the area that we
walk and it’s mostly old 1800's houses in our area. But in the
sisters’ area there are nice new developments and F family & T family live in those newer houses.
- What do people do in Camp Hill, what is there to
see and do? There is Hershey
close by and also Gettysburg is pretty close. A lot of people go to
NJ and Baltimore all of the time because those are all pretty close
to here. Also, DC and NYC are
pretty close as well.
- What did the T family's
boy do for his eagle project? He painted a bunch
of rooms at the YWCA in Harrisburg and refurnished it.
- What did you do for your bday dinner? Not much, unfortunately we didn’t have a
dinner appointment but we made the red velvet birthday cake you sent.
- Who did you eat with this week? We ate with the P family,
we eat with them every other Monday (she is the hair cut lady). Also
we had dinner with some people that moved into the ward a few months ago
from Belgium. He is in the Air Force so they live all over.
They have younger kids (about 6-14 is the age range).
- Any memorable food yet...good or bad? No
- Has school started for
the kids in Camp Hill? Yes, today it did
- How long were you at the old sheep farm? About an hour. Have you been back?
No, but we may go again because I think he has more for us to do. How old is the guy that lives there
and does he have a family? The guy is probably in his 60's and I
know his mom lives right by him. She
has been sick but that is all I know about his family. He is one of
the sisters’ investigators.
- Is it a working sheep farm? No
- Do you get to wear your jeans/t shirt when you do
service stuff? Yes, we can either
wear shorts or pants whatever we want.
- Is the service stuff planned ahead or just spur
of the moment stuff that you offer to do? It depends on the service, there are some that
are pre planned and others are not.
- Are you sick of my questions :)? No, it makes it much easier to email.
- Do you have both SD cards for the camera? I hope
because I don't know where I put it if I have the extra one. Yes, but I just sent one home the other day so
you should have it by now. Let me know if you haven’t got it because
it had a bunch of pictures from my bday and other stuff from previous
things.
- What has been the biggest adjustment to mission
life? Probably being away from you guys and not
having contact whenever I want. Also having a companion to go everywhere
with you, but you eventually get used to it.
- What do you feel like you were most prepared for
in the mission? Being a hard
worker. Even though I thought I was already a hard worker, it is
very hard work to be a missionary and we are exhausted by the end of the
day. So if you did not know what hard work was before you left I
feel like it would be a huge struggle.
- What were you least prepared for? I wished I would have finished the BOM again and been
more familiar with the scriptures.
- What do you like best about Elder J? He is really encouraging when times get hard and
he is super nice.
- What has been the hardest thing to deal with
regarding Elder J? He really likes to sing
and sometimes it can get really really annoying, but I have finally
learned to deal with it and it’s all good. Also, just a random fact
he is obsessed with video games and Netflix. He did a lot of that
before he left.
- When is the next transfer? September 10th, so in 2
weeks.
- Do you want to leave Camp Hill @ transfers or
stay? I kind of want both…I love the ward here
and I don't want to leave. But at the same time I am ready to maybe
get a car and see different areas.
- Do you want to stay with Elder J or get a new
companion or are you undecided? Same
answer as before, I would love to stay with him but also it would be nice
for a change.
- When do you know whether or not you'll be
transferred? Sept 7th (aka the Saturday
before) but I most likely will not be transferred. Elder J most likely will be transferred though;
but you never know until you get the phone call on Saturday.
- Do you need anything? I was thinking of some other music that you could
maybe get and burn a cd off of itunes, the group is called Lower Lights.
They have this really cool version of Ye
Elders of Israel that I have heard and I want to maybe have some of
their other music.
- Are you happy?
Yes!!!
- What do missionaries do for general
conference? We either go to the
church and watch it or sometimes go to a members house to watch it.
- Do you know that we love you and we're proud of
you and what you're doing? Yes, I know you are
proud and I'm proud of what I am doing as well.
Well to answer some of your other questions in the email Franky is a member
but he is less active and Sally, his girlfriend is our investigator.
Also, I think we are going to wait a while before we do the smoking
program with them because they are not really ready for it yet. I will
keep you posted if I end up teaching it to them. Also to answer your question about the M family, yes, they
are the ones we walk forever to get to. But the walk is definitely worth
it because they are super nice. But unfortunately, lately they have been
super busy so we walk all the way up there and they are not home.
Well I love you and miss you.
Love,
Elder Muir
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