Serving in Kentucky: "It's My Birthday! (I deserve attention)"

February 20, 2017

Dear Family,

For the sake of time and sanity (yours and mine) I'll keep this letter short. I'm just going to talk about the best highlights of each day.

The title of this email comes from a button the Diels gave me on my birthday. Speaking of that, I'm 21 now! Yay! I don't feel too different. A couple days after my birthday someone asked me how old I was. I had to stop and think for a second. I'm not 20 anymore. I'm 21!

I've also begun my last transfer. Because of that I've been enrolled in the "My Plan" program. It's a six week course I take online every week. It's all about going home. It's super trunky. I've also made a goal to read through the whole BoM in my last transfer. That's about 6 chapters a day. It'll be fun!

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

Any P-Day you give 2 blessings is an abnormal P-Day. We gave a blessing to Bro Ponder, our branch mission leader, for a head injury he sustained recently. He's doing better now. He's healing. The second blessing was for a Sister's mom who just got out of the hospital for some reason. She's old. It could have been anything.

We saw Mr Ad like usual and read out of the BoM with him. Whenever we read with him, we read where he's at. This time, he was in one of the Isaiah chapters in 1 Nephi. It's difficult enough explaining Isaiah to an adult. Try explaining Isaiah to a 16 year old. It's hard! Very hard!

-Tuesday-

It was Valentine's Day. This holiday means nothing to missionaries.

We called bingo again. For some reason, it being Valentine's Day made the care center MUCH busier than it normally is. There were SO many old people there playing bingo. Elder Koepfer and I had to yell out the numbers so everyone could hear them. B-12!!!!! I-19!!!!! N-34!!!!! G-55!!!!! O-70!!!!!

We taught a man named Jo for the first time. Elder Williams and I met him on our exchange last week. We weren't able to teach him much because he kept telling us all about his Bible experiences in prison. He read through the New Testament 3 times and wrote it out once. Because he's actually studied the Bible, he knows a lot of doctrine. From what we've heard so far, his doctrinal understanding is correct. We introduced the BoM to him, and of course, he took interest in it. I feel like he'll actually read it.

-Wednesday-

I turned 21... It still hasn't hit me. As far as the missionary work went, next to nothing happened... Really... Nothing. We had a weekly planning session. Everyone we tried didn't answer. Life's hard.

Apart from that the day was actually pretty good. I got a lot of "Happy Birthday" wishes from a lot of people. Elder Irwin, the zone leaders, members I've met in the mission, less actives, friends and family from home, and even a few investigators. It felt good seeing all the wishes from people I knew.

The Diel's took us out to dinner for the occasion. They gave me a button that said "It's My Birthday! (I deserve attention)." I wore it to district meeting later in the week. :D

-Thursday-

Typical for most Thursdays, we did a lot of service at the Clearinghouse and Food 4 R Souls. We happened to run into Ms Ro at the Clearinghouse. We were able to set up a time to meet later that day. That was good because it had been a a while since we saw her. The meeting itself was normal. She's still Ms Ro. She's kinda stuck. We're running out of ideas of how to help her. She's probably going to have to help herself more at this point.

Food 4 R Souls was the busiest it had ever been. There were an excessive amount of people. I felt like the whole town was there.

-Friday-

Another district meeting came and went. I don't have many more to go to. Elder Irwin had everyone in the district give mini-trainings on different aspects of following the Spirit. Our topic was about conversion and how the Spirit affects that. It went well. I felt like I learned some things from what Elder Kloepfer and I were saying.

Later in the day we had a surprise. We decided to go try some members who live in the top right corner of the area. We had to drive on some one-lane gravel roads to get to their place. When we got there, we were welcomed openly. Bro R basically founded the Scottsburg branch forever ago. He had quite the impressive list of callings. He had a lot of trials starting with the 2008 recession that led him to be less-active at the edge of our area. He said he wants to come back to church and wants to feel the Spirit again. It's difficult for him to go anywhere though because he has to take care of his bed-ridden wife. He has potential. We'll see what happens.

Later that night we met with A, J and B. We read a chapter with them. That's when B went off. He likes to tell a lot of random weird stories. He told like 5 in this visit. The best one is when he tried to buy a rocket launcher from a gun shop next to a Pentecostal church way out in the country.

(Note: I had to turn my auto-correct off so I could use the words and grammar B used in this story.) "Oh my goodness. My most favoritest gun that I've wanted ever since I was an itty bitty kid... is a rocket launcher!" (My thought here was "B, that's not a gun.")

"I went out to this gun shop in the country next to a Pentecostal church and asked the man, 'Do you guys have a rocket launcher?'" (My thought here was "Who thought it was a good idea to open a gun shop next to a Pentecostal church? Is it even legal to sell rocket launchers to civilians?")

"The man said 'Yeah! Right up there!' I looked up and said, 'Oh boy! I've died and gone to B heaven!' The man told me they cost twenty grand. I looked at him and said 'Are you high?" (Oh, B...)

-Saturday-

Saturday was one of "those days..." We had 4 appointments with G, Ms Ro, Bro L and H & P, the family we taught last week. Guess how many of those 4 went through... 0... Yeah... It was rough. Everyone was sick.

On an interesting note, we got to drive out of the mission! It's not often we do that. Miss B lives north of the Scottsburg boundary. The northern boundary is also the mission boundary. For some reason she and her family have permission to attend Scottsburg even though they live in North Vernon's area. Because of that, we're allowed to go up there to visit them occasionally. The distance to their house is another reason we have most lessons at the church. Unfortunately, Miss B wasn't there. Her dad was. We we talked to him for a bit. He's a nice guy. Works on semi's for a living.

-Sunday-

Sunday was similar to Saturday. We had a few appointments that feel through. Church was good though. There were some uplifting talks and lessons given. We've been combined in 3rd hour for about 3 weeks straight now, getting ready to start this whole "Come, Follow Me" thing. It's going to be fun!

We met a less-active member named J for the first time. He hasn't been too church since he was 17 in the 70's. He disagreed with the whole race and priesthood thing. His wife is a nice lady. She's not a member either. They're in the process of finding a church. She's Catholic, he's Baptist and they're trying to find a church they can both agree on.

-> Small Plates <-

In going to do something a little different this week. I'm going to help you find your own spiritual thought! Towards the back of the "Adjusting to Missionary Life" book there's a list of scriptures that are particularly uplifting. I've used this list on days I feel particularly down. It's helped a lot. I'll write the references down and encourage you to look up the scriptures yourself.

Do you want to be uplifted? Read these: