May 20, 2014
Sunset overlooking the cemetery which is across the street from our apartment
Panoramic of our Pday hike near the apartment
Elder Muir on the Pday hike
Well plans falling through and rain all week = No Bueno and wanting to curl up
in a little ball and cry. All I can say
is Holy Cow this has been one long hard week. There was a few times where
I wanted to just give up and cry, but each day that we wanted to do that
we somehow ended up laughing ourselves out of it. Also, I was just
emailing Elder J and he is getting transferred so he is not the AP anymore.
He will be training again. I am not surprised that Elder Bramwell is now
AP.
- How did things go with transfers? Are you
and Elder G both staying? How did things shake out with the rest
of your district? Elder G and I are both
staying. Only one sister is leaving from our district.
- How was your week? What were the
highs/lows? Holy cow this week was
kind of a low week. There were a few highs but not many. One
high is that Pres. W (branch pres.) is AWESOME. Also, I have
learned never to give up on anyone. So that leads me into quite a
story that plain old makes me sad. We had branch council yesterday
and towards the end it was time to give our report. We have some less actives that really
need some fellowship from the ward. Our goal is to hand them off to the
branch and have friends for them and boy did that open a can of
worms. So these people have a track record of getting evicted from their
apartments because they cannot keep them clean and things like that.
They also have a track record of being sort of lazy, however in the 6
weeks that I have been here I have never seen the apartment messy or seen
them being really lazy. They truly have a desire to be sealed in the
temple and become active again. But in branch council yesterday most
of the people (besides Sis. B and Pres. W and us) don’t have good
things to say about them because of their past. The council was
basically saying how they are useless slugs and are beyond rescuing.
At this point Elder G and I really felt sad. We tried to express how much progress
they have made and that is not how the Savior would act. I thought
to myself this is the time the Savior would embrace the downtrodden and
help them bear their burdens. So after branch council we were
invited to stay in President W’s office and he agreed with us and was on our side. He can see the changes they are
making. So my point is this…never give up on someone even if they
seem hopeless. Pres. W and we were almost in tears in his office after
everyone left. So I learned a lot yesterday. Also
another low is we literally spent all week trying to get the car situation
figured out. That was an absolute nightmare. On Saturday it was
just awful. All our plans were
falling through and even our backup plans were not working. On top
of that it was pretty much pouring rain all day long. We’ve had
about 3 inches of rain this past week. At the end of the day I literally wanted
to just cry and ask why this was happening to us. But fortunately,
by the end of the day Elder G and I were making the best of it and
laughing. Well there is kind of sucky week for you, but new transfers
are here and it’s a new week…YAY!
- How are things coming along with your car?
Have you resolved any of the issues (emissions/tires/dent)? The tires should be getting fixed today.
The dent is getting fixed on June 2nd and we are hoping to
get the emissions taken care of when we go to the meeting with Elder
Holland on Thursday.
- What are your plans for this Thursday with Elder Holland? R u going the night before? We may stay the night in DuBois, but if not we are leaving at 7 am so we can be there by 1:30 and have time to get our car inspected and all that jazz.
- The sleepovers in DuBois for the exchanges sound
like fun? Who were the Elders that you stayed with? Are they
in your district? Yes, the sleepover was
fun. Elder H and M is who we stayed with. I know them, they
are the other elders in the district
- What are 5 positive things from the week? 1) My studies have been good. 2) I am happy to be staying in St. Marys with Elder G and 3) I learned a lot of good lessons this week to apply to life.
- How are the members? Have you met any new
people? What members have you connected with? No, haven’t really met new members. My goal
for this transfer is to really get to know members better.
- Did you go to Kane this week? How was
it? No, we didn’t go because
we ended up going down to try and get our tired fixed, but that didn't
happen. Now we may not have the miles to get up there this month so
we will see what happens.
- How was the weather? Did you get a lot of rain? Any flooding? We got tons of rain but no flooding that I saw.
- How are things with your investigators/LA?
- J? We
straight up lost her. She has been discharged from the place she
was at and she never answers at her apartment. Her phone is
disconnected.
- T & R? They have been super busy and so we have not really met with them. Hopefully we will get back with them.
- S? She flaked on her lesson. We had one
scheduled for Thursday but she was not there.
- Less active daughter in law of the active lady? We were going to teach her yesterday but she had to cancel. However, on the upside, she has been at church the past 3 weeks.
- Any new prospects?
Yes, we have a lot of less active lost names
that we need to track down and see if they are still there and interested
in visits. Hopefully we can see good results from that.
- Any good dinner appointment stories? No, not really. We didn’t have any dinner appointments this week.
- What kind of
plans do you have for this week? Obviously we are traveling to meet with Elder Holland on Thursday. We are also
going to help the S family on Wednesday with their yard and their
garden.
- Are you happy & healthy? Yes
- What's your favorite
scripture/story right now? I just
got into Alma again where it talks Alma and Amulek. That story is
awesome and I found it very applicable to my week. I’m always
impressed how Alma waded through all of his rejection and tribulation. Alma and Amulek listened to the
angel. They responded to the call of missionary service, and they preached
repentance. They stood tall in the face of adversity and imprisonment.
They are heroes whose lives are worthy of emulation. Also the very next chapter (Alma 9) talks
about how if the Nephites don't get their act together the Lamanites will
destroy them and sure enough it happened. The sad part is that in
the beginning of the BOM the Lord laid it out to the Nephites saying
"if ye keep my commandments ye will prosper in the land" he told
that to them multiple times. But stupid pride got in the way and
really destroyed them, literally. That is exactly what is happening
today in the world. I love the BOM and the things that I’ve been
learning.
- Is Elder J still the
AP? No, as you saw above he’s
training again.
- Is there anything you need? I would love for you to send me your yummy CHEX mix in the next package.
- Can we
pray for anything? Please pray
that the branch will give us support and not give up on the people we are
working with.
There you have it,
another report in the books on a kind of crappy, hard week in the mission.
However, on the bright side, the sun is shining and we are finally getting the
tires done today on the car.
Love you tons,
Elder Muir
No comments:
Post a Comment