August 21, 2008

"So... drum roll please... rum pum pum bum... I have been transfered to Seguin.  I'm sure you know that by now.  So I'm still in the East Zone.  That means Elder Moore and I are still in the same zone.  We are on other sides of the zone byt we will stil see each other every once and a while.  Sweet, eh?

     So they put me in the country.  My area is so big.  If you start at one end and drive to the other, it takes 1 1/2 hours going 70 mph.  You guessed it... I'm in a car area.  It's about as red neck as you can get out here too.  Thick Texas accents.  

     More about baptism Bill.  We met Bill the Wednesday before transfers.  Keep in mind this whole time I didn't know I was gonna be transfered.  Elder Moore and I were praying really hard to find someone this week to come to church.  If someone came to church this Sunday  then they could be baptized by the 31st.  We were supposed to go on pair-ups that night- meaning that a high priest was going to drive us to all our appointments.  When we do this with them we are supposed to try and schedule appointments to teach at the time they are supposed to go on pair-ups.  This way the high priests don't get bored and they will tell all the other high priests what a great time they had.  The only problem is... zero investigators.  All the appointments we made had cancelled too.  What were we to do?  Well, I'll tell ya... we had a list of about 50 less active members that the bishop gave us to go see.  This isn't the funnest activity for a high priest but it's all we had.  Elder Moore picked the name Scott.  While we were teaching Scott, someone pulled up and waved to the high priest who was with us.  He said it was his friend Bill and that we should go visit him.  So we all went over for a visit.  Lets put together all the things that made this possible by the Lord:  There was only one thing holding Bill back from being baptized and that was his wife.  Funny enough he had just barely seperated from her. Bill is the very definition of "elect" (D&C 29) .  Before we could tell him about the need for a prophet in this day he said "I don't see how anyone could say that there is no need for a prophet!"  WOW!  We told him he had to give up coffee and he paused for about 3 seconds then said "Okay, if it's what needs to be done I'll do it!".  We committed him to baptism for the 31st and he said "Of course!".  We warned him about transfer calls that night but told him not to worry cause no one gets transferred after only 2 transfers.  Urrrrrrn!!  Wrong!  LOL.  You know the rest.  I got transferred to Seguin and no Bill baptism for me.  But guess what?!  We are baptizing two people on my birthday, Alfredo and his wife.  The next week after that will be three more!  Rudy and his wife-to-be, Isabelle, and Alex.  They'll be baptized on the 7th of September.  That will be 5 in two weeks James!!  Oh the Tender Mercies of the Lord.  We have to teach the law of chastity to Rudy and Isabelle.  That will be my first time.  Fun, eh?  

     Right now the mission has 102 baptisms committed for August.  This might be the month we finally get our goal of 100! I'm so excited!  It sucked saying goodbye to UC ward.  I'll miss them.  Bro. Tiemann took me and Elder Moore on a little tour of Randolf air fore base.  It's such a cool base.  It was sad going to church on Sunday and not having my UC family.  I don't know how to explain.  I'm way excited for my new Seguin family, but it made me slightly trunky for UC.  LOL.  

     The story of Charlie the wet squirrel:  Elder Moore and I were doing our weekly planning.  It was raining like crazy, which caused a lake to form outside our sliding door.  I looked over and saw something fall from the sky.  Well, it was Charlie skydiving into the lake.  Sadly Charlie wasn't feeling so hot after this.  So we took him inside and cared for him.  He was shaking so we dried him off and wrapped him in a warm towel.  In a while he was better, after he took a nap, and then we let him go.  There's Charlie's story!  :)  

August 25, 2008 email

I got transfered with my new companion... Elder Finger!!!!! Lol! sweet name ah: well, to tell you breifly about this place, its way a hick town. Its a country area, meaning its farm ville. LOL! it takes 1.5 hours to get from one side of my area to the other going 70mph. thats right, Im in a car area. I am going to try so hard not to get fat! There is tons of spanish in this area, now I just need to speak it. I hate that I sometimes get shy with new things. I hate feeling like people are judging my spanish. That will stop right now. This is for sure a Different kind of living here. All day saturday we did servous. We tore a whole deck down and built a brand new one. A lot of hard work to do here. 

August 18, 2008 email

Guess what... I am getting transfered. don't send a letter to the UC. funny enough, we just found success too. someone we talked to 5 weeks ago decided to call us and ask if he could come to church. Another person we met when doing pair ups with a high priest that wasn't suppose to be there. he just happened to come with us. We met his friend, bill. Bill came to church. We taught Bill that night. Comitted him to be baptised on my birthday. HE SAYS YES!!! That very night I get told I'm being transfered... no birthday baptism:(

August 8, 2008... 08/08/08!!

I added up the number of return lessons I have taught since I've been here... I can count them on one hand.  It's really sad how hard the hearts are of the people of UC.  I walked up to a man and asked him if he needed help with anything and he treated me like scum.  All I wanted to do was make the man happy and I got treated nothing like what I thought the position of an Elder should be.  This happens all the time.  People who won't shake your hand, people who say "not interested" before you even say hi.  Lets just say I thought christians would be more christ-like.  

My zone just won The Shoe.  It goes to the zone that has the most baptized in the mission.  My zone has only won it 2X in the last 8 years.  We got 12 baptisms last month which means TSAM history!  It's awesome and I feel way excited for everyone.  It really sucks to have not contributed to it though.  

We dropped Marie officially.  We told her that she would receive her answer when she was finally willing to act.  We told her she can call us any time and to keep coming to church and reading the BOM, but we've taught her all we can.  We also dropped Jessica, she said she felt guilty reading, and wasn't willing to read.  That officially drops our investigator pool down to zero.  Big. Fat. Zero.  

We recently had interviews with President Cutler.  I told him how it was tough for me.  I have the truth and no one is willing to listen.  No one will even let me mow their lawn.  They won't let me do one thing to make them a little happier.  Pres. Cutler asked me what I could be doing better.  I told him that I could be better at talking to everyone.  I sometimes don't talk to a couple of people.  He said "fine, work on that."  Next, he read me Alma 20:30.  Stop and read it now!!  :)  It answered the question of what was wrong, but brought up the question of why me...

Why had the Lord picked me to go to UC?  Why didn't he choose someone who could actually do good for them?  Did he stick me here cause I was unworthy to teach others?  Why weren't my prayers of teaching somebody working?  It got to the point where I was pretty much going through a checklist just to be obedient, but I had no faith in the UC people.  

We just went to the temple last Thursday and I went with 2 questions:  What can I do better?  and why do I have to go through this dry spell?  I got a confirmation that I was doing my best and I could do better at talking to everyone.  As I was pondering about the second question, I remembered something a lady said to me earlier that day.  She said "I'm glad you talked to me today.  Having people challenge you really strengthens your faith."  Then I felt the spirit say "I am strengthening your testimony for later when I need you!"  I thought about how much my testimony has been strengthened.  I really have grown so much.  I can see how the Lord is strengthening me and blessing me.  I wish I could help people more.  I say this, but it turns out that with my last two companions, this is the area that they both have done the most service in.  

Anyway, it was a big (even though it should have been small) problem that I faced.  I started writing this letter when I had reached a breaking point and finished it with my answer!

July 31, 2008

"BAM!  Ask and ye shall receive!  We found a family and 2 investigators yesterday! I'll tell you if they actually follow through.  

We went to go see Tarnail (sp?) ... one of our return investigators, and he gave us a bum address and phone number.  I guess he's not elect.  :)  

UPDATE:  Those investigators all dropped out.  It's so funny how people are excited to hear when you talk to them but you leave them alone for a day and they get lazy or just poop out.  We didn't drop Marie.  We re- committed her to everything.  She didn't come to church because she thought that people wouldn't want her there because she isn't baptized.  Silly Marie!  The only thing stopping her is her family.  She knows it's true, but she doesn't have a strong enough testimony to give it up.

P.S. I don't think that Jennifer and Kevin are ever coming back.  It's all ok though.  It's way tough working so hard and getting nothing, but I know the Lord will bless us.  Even now he's blessing me by strengthening my testimony and knowledge. " 

July 30, 2008

"You know how I said we were out of our dry spell?  I was wrong.  The only return appointment we have had in the last 2 weeks is Jessica (23 year old beautiful girl we wanted to set up with mission leader's son"  and she won't even read one page of the pamphlet we gave her.  We are dropping Marie today too.  That means we have no investigators.  We have been knocking a lot and working with members.  Pray we find someone soon!"

July 14, 2008

"My new companion is Elder Moore. He is 5'6" tall. He is half peruvian. His mom is the one from Peru.  Luckily he speaks Spanish.  Now I just have to get over my nerves with Spanish and actually talk to him in Spanish.  

It was a tough week!  We have totally spent the last 4 days having all our investivators drop out on us.  No one was making appointments, members weren't willing to help us, and we spent all of our time knocking on doors and having them slammed in our faces.  One time Elder Moore told a lady to have a nice day and she said " I hope you fall and break your head!"  Needless to say, she wasn't willing to be taught the lessons.  We also had one of our favorite families from the ward tell us that Marie, the old lady German investigator with the bamboo, was just taking advantage of us, and they weren't willing to have her in their home.  All we wanted was for the father to tell her how he made the step from being catholic to being mormon.  She comes to church every Sunday, she's only been investigating for 2 months, and she keeps all her commitments.  Her only problem is that she grew up catholic, and this man wants us to drop her.  Lets just say that I wasn't too happy that one of my favorite families basically stated that they don't trust me and aren't willing to help.  

Elder Moore decided to go through the area book and see if there were any old investigators that we could pick up.  By this time, we were having no success knocking over 6 hours a day.  The area book has old information on what other missionaries have done in the area.  We checked some out and found 2 new investigators while doing it.  The Lord really blessed us."