Dear Family,
This week had a bit of everything. Everything from snow to 60 degree weather. Everything from walking around trying to find people to teaching solid first lessons. I even got to go on exchange with Elder Williams, one of my old comps!
-> Large Plates <-
-Monday-
We did all the normal P-Day things. Washing clothes. Cleaning the apartment. Etc.
I'd say the highlight of Monday was teaching Mr Ad, the LA who actually came to church last week. We read out of the BoM and had a discussion on the house of Israel because one of the chapters we read was an Isaiah chapter on that. That's a subject we normally don't teach because it's difficult to explain. I barely understand it myself.
-Tuesday-
We watched the broadcast from a couple weeks ago. The one that changed the schedule and key indicators. There were several things I learned from watching it a second time. There's a way Elder Bednar explained the gospel that blew most missionaries minds because it was so simple and yet so profound. I'll be sure to put it word for word in the small plates.
To continue the Tuesday tradition we called bingo again! Woo! I enjoy spending time with people who have lived most of their life. By that age, people seem to learn what's most important in life and so they act kinder. Not all of them :). But most of them.
The evening died. We tried several peeps in Austin. Few answered. One of our potentials told us he didn't want to read the BoM but he'd still like to talk to us. Yeah... We usually don't work with people who refuse to read the BoM. That's kinda (extremely) important in the conversion process. We'll see. We'll give him another chance or two.
As we were leaving Austin we saw a fight break out between 5-7 guys or so... Yeah... We stayed away from that.
-Wednesday-
Do you ever have those moments when you're fighting to stay awake? That's what happened to us as we struggled through another weekly planning session. We lost the fight...
After (time omitted) we took a trip down to Lexington and tried just about everyone we knew there. I think 2 peeps answered. One of them was a LA member. Yeah...
After Lexington we finished the night by walking around Scottsburg. When we started our walk there was a light hail. About 15 minutes in, that turned into thick snow. About 30 minutes after that everything was covered in a half-inch of snow. The weather here is ridiculous.
-Thursday-
Guess what we did! We did more service at the Clearinghouse. They actually had a lot to do for us this time. We couldn't finish. There were so many things to sort.
Later on, the Diels took us to Sis Terrell's for dinner. Her son is allergic to everything so the dinner was basically all fruits and veggies. It was good! SisTerrell has a country home in the middle of nowhere. It's very quiet.
We finished the night with Bro L. We read with him and listened to him rant about life. He let us borrow his carpet cleaner that shampoos carpets. That night we went home and cleaned the carpets. They needed to be cleaned. 7 years of missionaries is not good for an apartment. The next project will be to spackle the 1000+ little holes in the walls. Fun!
-Friday-
We had a multi-zone conference. It was our zone and the Crestwood zone. That's about 60 missionaries. There were some good trainings given. President Brough had some good things to say. Most of the meeting was about bearing testimony. The broadcast from a couple weeks ago was also discussed.
After the meeting I went on exchange with Elder Williams in Scottsburg. Surprisingly, a lot happened in the last 3 hours of the day. As we drove back to Scottsburg I was craving Wendy's for dinner. So I went to Wendy's. About 2 bites into my sammich, a couple sitting next to us started talking to us. They asked us for pamphlets. We gave them some pamphlets and started talking to them. The lady was named Wendy. I think it's funny we met her at Wendy's. I forgot the guy's name. They're in the process of moving to Scottsburg. Wendy's sister is a member of the church. As we talked the guy told us "I've been wanting to get back into church. Something's been missing from my life."
I was floored!
Here we are in Wendy's, a nice couple came to us and started talking about church, they're moving to our area, they said something's been missing in their lives and they want to come to church. That experience was probably the most picture-perfect contact I've every had. I should obey my food cravings more often. :)
Williams and I finished the night by watching Prophet of the Restoration with the Hy family. A few non-members were there. We got to answer a lot of Q's. :D
-Saturday-
A lot happened on Saturday too. We exchanged back in Blocher, Indiana. There's just a gas station there.
We wound up spending most of the day in Austin. *sigh* We had plans to try this former member. He was taught a couple years ago. We happened to him outside his house. We talked for a minute and got him to open up to future visits. We'll see if he goes anywhere this time.
We had a good first visit with a LA named Bro P. He's a nice old guy who's LA because of health reasons. He talked to us for a bit and asked us to read out of the BoM for him. I almost feel guilty for never visiting this guy before.
We had another visit with Sis S. This time we read Alma 34 with her. She seems to be more peaceful now that we're meeting with her more often. It shouldn't be too much longer before she starts coming back to church.
We had a great first lesson with some potentials we picked up a couple weeks ago. Their names are H & P. They're a younger couple. They have 2 young boys. They're all basically "dry Mormons" with how family-oriented they already are. They spend as lot of time together and they teach each other the gospel as often as they can. Our first lesson with them was on eternal families. H liked that because she lost her dad a few years ago. We're meeting with them again on Saturday. Hopefully they progress well.
-Sunday-
Of all the days of the week... Sunday was the worst... At least the weather was awesome! What made it so bad? Well... Honestly there were only 2 or 3 events that made it bad. The rest was average. At church the Diels gave awesome talks. They're awesome old people ;). It was just us and J in Gospel Principles. It was almost as if we were just teaching him in his home. 3rd hour was combined to talk about the new "Come, Follow Me" program. The New Albany stake is one of the 3 stakes in the US to pilot that program. It changes the way Sunday School and Primary work. I'll go over the details of that when I get home. :)
Remember that sweet part-member family I told you about last week? S & S? Well... Her dad, who's an active member in the branch, pulled us aside and told us to stop working with them because apparently "they're too nice to say no" and I guess us trying to work with them would tear them apart... Yeah... Her dad didn't explain the details well... At all... Anyway... I won't explain everything about our meeting with him. It was enough to upset me because her dad said in effect "I don't trust you guys." Yeah... I don't like small town drama.
Later that day we had dinner with the Diel's. They fed us Phillippino food. They had chicken with a sauce similar to teriyaki sauce. They also had fried rice with soy sauce. It was very similar to some of the meals I had growing up. It was very good!
Usually on Sunday nights we go to the church to use the WiFi to make sure all of our lesson reports for the week are accurate and reported on. Usually we just park the car next to the church and sit in it for convenience. Guess who decided to show up as we were sitting in the car... The cops... Yeah... My heart dropped a bit when I noticed the cop car next to us. I rolled the window down and one of the cops, there were two in the car, said something like "Hey, we usually don't see cars here at night." I replied with "Oh! We're missionaries for this church. We're just using the WiFi." Then the cop quickly put his hand up and said "Alright. Have a nice night." And they drove off. I thought it was funny how fast they got out when they found out we were missionaries. :D
-> Small Plates <-
Here are a couple quotes from Elder Bednar from the missionary broadcast from a couple weeks ago. You can watch the broadcast here.
I'd suggest watching it. It's cool! In this broadcast the members of the missionary executive council were asked questions about missionary work and they all gave their thoughts on it. These quotes are a couple of the answers Elder Bednar gave to some of the questions.
The question for this quote was something like "How does a missionary know that they really know and understand the gospel?"
Elder Bednar's answer was: "I think, too often we as members of the church have a cookbook, checklist mentality about living the gospel. So, faith is this little separate thing, and then repentance is a separate thing, and then there's an ordinance of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. All things are gathered together in one in Christ. So, faith is in the Savior, in Him as the Son of God, in His nature and attributes. Repentance is a dependence upon Him. Faith in Him, depending upon Him. Following Him is baptism. Pressing forward with Him is enduring to the end with the companionship of the Holy Ghost. It's all gathered together in Him. So, as we are proclaiming our continuing dependence upon Christ, that is repentance, which leads to the mighty change of heart."
The question for this quote was something like "How can I keep my investigators focused on baptism?"
Elder Bednar's answer was similar to the first: "All things gather together in one. Again of we just treat baptism as separate and apart from 'Okay, I did the repentance thing, so now I guess the next thing is baptism.' It's ongoing. They're all inter-related. In my judgement there is little or no spiritual power in treating these fundamental elements of the doctrine of Christ as separate things. It's when they're tied together we see 'faith unto repentance, and repentance proceeding baptism, and baptism helping us press forward on the straight and narrow path, the covenant pathway.' When we see all of those tied together, there's power. Not when they're separated."
Have fun!
-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)
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| Great Morning! |
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| Selfie... yes, my eyes are that color! |
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| Elder Williams selfie |
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