April 20, 2015
Picture from last week @ Venango College with Elizabeth Smart
Boy it sounds
like you had an exciting weather week. Quite frankly, I have no sympathy for
you after the winter I endured…ha ha. I
figured winter would come sooner or later for you. Remember, you did not
get the cold we had here and you had a car and a house you could hunker down in
when needed. Glad you got some moisture
finally. I heard that wind storm caused lots of problems. That’s
too bad about all the big accidents and the fatality. I would have loved to be on the hospital
staff at IMC or one of the EMS crews. I am sure it will happen one day.
That makes me think of the day you smashed your hand in the back of the
Expedition on the day of the tornado years ago.
1.
How was your week,
what were the highs/lows? This week has been
an awesome week. It has been difficult trying to get to know people and
try and figure things out. But slowly I am starting to get the hang of
things and figure out who is willing to listen and wants to learn more. A
big highlight of the week was the high council talk in church yesterday.
His talk was about the restoration. He
gave a great talk about how Christ established his way and teaching. He led the way and taught everyone how to
return to Him. He also talked about the apostasy and the dark ages. During this time things just stopped. Nothing could really progress, hence I guess
you could just say times were "dark". Then he began to go into
the Joseph Smith account and how his faith and desire to figure things out led
him to the restoration. The emptiness Joseph
felt really hit me. I guess as I have studied and taught it for the past
few years it just hit me with the magnitude that really came with it. Joseph knew he was lacking something in his
life and it left an empty void only to be filled by the gospel of Jesus
Christ. It really made grateful for the
blessings of the restoration. It also made me excited to be able to visit
there soon. We’ll be where it all
started and be able to go to the Sacred Grove and the Hill Cumorah pageant and
be able to reflect on it all. Another high was being able to have a
lesson with RR at our WML’s
house. The hardest part has just been trying to figure out who the people
are and who is willing to listen and be taught. As I said above, I am starting
to get the hang of things and just trying to visit as many people as possible.
2.
What about
transfers…are you staying or going? I am staying here in Meadville. So that means I’ll die here and Meadville
will be my final resting place.
3.
What about Elder T…what’s the scoop
on him? Well, he’s been
fun to be with. He came home about 6
months ago. He was serving in Guatemala. He still has
to pretty much follow white handbook. So
really, he is an unofficial missionary. The rules about him seeing his
family are pretty lax, but his dad works all day and we have no need to go over
unless they feed us. He sees them if we
have dinner or at church. He is going back
home tomorrow. I only had him for the 10
days. Things have been great with
him. We’ve had fun together and I have enjoyed having him as a companion. It’s been great to see his teaching skills
grow and witness how awesome of a missionary/ teacher he is. He was in
the mission field about 2 months (including the MTC) before he came home. His dad is a plant manager at pet food plant.
4.
Are you getting a
new companion? Will it be a trio? Yes, I get a new companion tomorrow.
No trio, because Elder T is done with his mini mission tomorrow.
We drive to Pitt tomorrow to get my new companion.
5.
What about the
Franklin elders, are they staying or going? They are both staying too. One of
them will go home with me at the end of the transfer.
6.
How’s the weather?
This week was pretty good. It was in the 70's most of the week so it was
very nice. It rained a little, but not much. But this week it is
supposed to be cold again. The weather has been nice enough that
sometimes I get jealous of the people running around in shorts and a t shirt
and being able to veg in the sun… but whatever, it will happen soon enough.
7.
How are things
with your investigators?
a. A? Does she still have a baptismal date?
Things are going well with her and she’s
progressing. She still has a date but we are going to need
to move it back a bit. We didn't see her for a few weeks so we are kind of
behind on the lessons. She fed us dinner the other day so that was pretty
good. She was happy she could feed us.
b. RR? She is doing awesome. Like I said we had an awesome lesson with her
at our WML’s house. It was cool because I felt like Elder T and I did a great
job at teaching the lesson, especially Elder T. The spirit during the lesson was awesome and she is
making a lot of progress. She is almost
finished reading the BOM. She is definitely taking a step in the right
direction.
c.
Less actives that
you’ve been working with? I have been trying
hard to just meet all of them so we can see how receptive they are.
d.
Any new leads?
We picked up a lady who used to be meeting with the
missionaries a few months ago, but it was not really going anywhere. She called
one of the members that would come and visit her with the missionaries. I’m
not exactly sure why she called, maybe she was lonely. She’s has been reading the BOM and so we are
going to see where it goes.
e.
Service? We have been helping one of the members cut down some
of his trees and cut them up. We haul them over to his pile to burn.
8.
Meal appointments?
They’ve been decent. We have 2 or 3 this week
which is more than normal so that is good.
9.
Any mission
news/events coming up? No, transfers tomorrow
are the only thing. A few weeks before I
go home we get iPads, but won’t really affect me because I’ll only have it for
2 weeks.
10. Have you met any interesting people? I would say everyone I meet is interesting. Meadville
is plain old interesting J.
11. Any stories info about people that you’ve connected
with? It has been fun finally being
able to go around trying to meet all of the members. I’ve really enjoyed
getting to know Elder T’s family. I think
it’s partly because I am companions with their son, but still they are a cool
family. The MM family is fun to be with. Also, there is
another older couple that has lived here for about 20 years or so. He is
super smart, he was a chemical engineer for a steel mill here in Meadville.
12. Any other stories? Well Elder T’s family does foster parenting stuff and they just got
a couple of new kids recently. One of them is a newborn baby that reminds
me tons of Derek when he was born. The baby was born in January and just
got out of the hospital about a month ago. The mom was on drugs and all
that stuff. So that is the only
difference from Derek. She was about the same size as Derek, low 2 lbs.
I think she still only weighs a few pounds.
She is so small still that her lungs are not fully functioning yet. They have a breathing monitor on her that
goes off if she stops breathing. Looking at her and thinking back to Derek
being that size is pretty scary and it reminds me how lucky we are that he is alive.
I hope that is something I never have to go through as a parent. I’m sure
it was quite a scary 6 months for you and dad seeing him in the incubator and
hooked up to all the cords. Not
something a parent should have to go through. But here he is 18 years
later and getting ready to go on a mission…miracles do happen. You would never look at him now and think that
he was 12 weeks early and weighed only 2 lbs. 5 oz. Maybe him still
having no butt might be the only thing that would give it away…ha ha J
13. Is there anything that we can help you with this
transfer? No, not really. I think
the biggest thing is shipping a few things home. I think in a couple of weeks I am going to
send a few boxes full of stuff that I don't need any more to try and start
saving room in my luggage. Other than that, I think just pray that I will
be able to stay focused on my calling as a missionary and that I can continue
to work hard. I don't see it being a problem though; however, I’m not
down to the last 2 weeks yet. It’s all
good. It’s been an adventure of a
lifetime.
So let the final countdown begin…6 more emails to go
and just a few more weeks until our Mother’s Day skype session.
Love you,
Elder Muir
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