May 5, 2014
Holy cow…today marks 11 months in
the mission!!! Just 4 more weeks and I’ll
be “half way there, livin’ on a prayer” (pretend that Bon Jovi just sang that
for you). Also, I’m quite impressed that
you wrote this letter from the voice activator on your phone. I never thought I would hear my mother utter
those words from her mouth. Technology
is amazing and I’m even more amazed that you can and are using it J. Now, on to answering your questions.
- How did your interview with the President go? Anything new with him or anything that you talked about that you'd like to discuss. Interviews were good. We were the last district to be interviewed. It’s crazy to think that we were the last district he will ever interview. Just a random FYI…the next round of interviews will be in July with the new mission president. During the interviews President gave us the assignment of reading our patriarchal blessing and writing 3 paragraphs in our journal about things that stood out to us. The 3 paragraphs were supposed to start with “I am…”, “I will…”, and “I won't…”. It was a great exercise and I learned a lot as I studied my patriarchal blessing. I realized while I was reading and thinking about the part that talks about my mission that some of the blessings are taking place now as I’m serving. I have thought a lot lately about the part where it is talks about being able to see people “Come to Christ” and accept the gospel and see many gathered in the temple. For the longest time I was focusing on and hoping that it would be investigators and people I would baptize, but obviously I have not had a baptism yet. However, I have done an enormous amount of work with less actives and I thought maybe that section could be in reference to the less actives. Whether we are baptizing converts or recommitting less actives to become better disciples of Christ…it is all the same. We are bringing people back to Christ and that’s all that matters. So that’s my cool little thought for the week.
- What were your highs/lows this week? It was a good week even though our
numbers did not really show it. We did not have a lot of lessons but we
did a lot of preparation to get things set up for this week. We have
3 or 4 lessons set up for this week. Things have been kind of slow
on the lesson side of things but we have been faithful in trying to get
things moving along. A super good thing was meeting with our new
Branch President. We had dinner with them this week and it was
awesome, they fed us steak J After dinner we talked with the BP and brought him up to speed
with what we have been doing in the area.
Then we discussed what direction he wants us to go. I really
liked his philosophy of how we can help the people in the Ridgway
area. I think is important for
everyone to hear and it confirms how missionaries and members can work
together. He said no matter what we
should never give up on people. We
need to always stop by and check on people, even the less actives.
It doesn’t matter if they don't want lessons or a message, we should still
stop by to see how they’re doing and if they need anything. He said
if they are still willing to talk and not slamming the door in your face
or telling you to go away then they still deserve a visit. He gave countless examples of where he
has seen people that have wanted nothing to do with the church come back
and serve in bishoprics and other church callings. So my point is,
don't give up on people until they tell you to go away or slam the door.
The biggest low was pretty crappy weather all week long. Another high was
that we were able to teach mission prep this week. We have not really
had it since I’ve been in the area, but last night we were finally able to
teach it. We actually travel around and teach at different people’s
houses. It is kind of fun helping the YM of the ward prepare for a
mission. Another cool thing is that we have 2 less actives that have
reached out to us on their own and they want to take the lessons over
again. One of the cool stories is that we had a girl that has been
keeping in contact with Sis. S and now she wants to start getting back to
church. So we have been visiting with her a few times. Initially
we could never figure out where she lived.
We had a general idea but PA has crazy addresses so it makes places
hard to find. So we went to find her and ironically we had planned
to go earlier in the day. However, we
got hung up trying to make a lesson plan and the hang up was actually a
blessing. We went to the place where we thought she lived and she
just happened to be out getting the mail. So we were able to talk to her
and now we have an appointment with her for Saturday.
- How were your dinner appointments this
week? Who did you eat with? Dinner appointments were actually good this week. We had appointments
on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. I think that is the most we have had
in a week since I’ve been here. We were supposed to have dinner with
the B family on Wednesday but they had the stomach flu so we are going
tonight instead. Thursday we ate at the BP’s
home. On Friday we ate with a recently reactivated family, the H
family. Last night we ate with the S family, he is
now in the Branch Presidency but used to be EQ Pres. We had mission
prep at their house too.
- Any service opportunities this week? No
- Any dead animals lying around the side of
the road this week J. Yes, lots of them, but we haven't picked up any new furry friends.
I will write a letter with all the details of the skinning process and
have it there later this week (to answer all of your questions from your
letter). Elder G thought your letter was quite funny. Every response that he has received
about the raccoon has been similar to yours. Evidently we left a lot of people
hanging with quite a few unanswered questions. BTW, we have not used the raccoon pelt
as a Frisbee, but yes…it is stiff as a board and could be used as a Frisbee
because obviously we didn’t tan it we just skinned it and dried it
out.
- How's your weather? Well this week has been cold, rainy and sort of windy. Not very good. But this week is supposed to be pretty good and by Friday it should be 80. This morning when we walked to the library it was so nice, it was about 55 with blue sky and no wind J
- Do you meet in a ward building? New or old bldg? Yes, but it is a tiny building. It is sort of new and old because they just keep adding on to it as the branch grows. It used to be kind of one room that was the chapel. Now that is the primary room and they’ve added on a little chapel that holds about 100 people. Now there is a gym also added on. It’s kind of weird.
- How are your investigators?
- J? We’re not quite sure where she is right at the moment. After we met with her the first time she checked into a mental facility to try and get some things figured out. She told she was going to be there for about 10 days. So we went back this weekend to check on her and see if she is back at her apartment, but no answer. We tried to find the place she went to but no such luck. So she is currently MIA.
- T&R? They’re good, I think. We had another lesson scheduled for Friday but they flaked out. So really no progress with them.
- Librarian? She is doing well. She loves to see us when we are at the library.
- S family? They are doing good.
- What about the BOM referral from last week? Well we called him and he said they never ordered a BOM so I’m not sure what the deal was with that.
- Any new leads/people? The less actives people I mentioned above. We’re praying that things continue to progress with them.
- What is the plan for Mother's Day? Can't
wait for my special gift :)
Yes, we talked to a guy in the ward last week. It should be Skype. It probably won’t to be until about 6 pm our time. So you will just be getting out of church. That is the time that works best with our schedule and lets us do some work during the day. It is hard with the way our church schedule is because before church it is still like 6 am for you and then you guys are off at church. So that time will probably work best and that’s what we determined with the guy. So I hope that is good for you. So basically plan on between 4 and 5 pm your time. - Anything else that you would like to tell me? Just random trivia…We were doing some measuring of our area on google the other day and we determined that the Ogden mission is the same size as our area. So just a random side note that we discovered recently. Also I noticed that we now have sister missionaries in our area. Have you met them yet?
Well there is my week. The countdown is on for our Mother’s Day chat,
I can’t wait to hear your voices and see your faces.
Love,
Elder Muir
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