This week was pretty good overall I think and I have a couple tender mercies to tell you all about! But let's start from last Tuesday.
We did splits (again) to start the day. This time with Elder Spencer, Elder Foster's companion. We immediately headed off to lunch at a member's home which was awesome. We had some eggs, hot dogs and spicy cascades (probably butchered that). It was a bit of a strange combination but who am I to turn down free food? We chatted awhile and had a good time but then the sister got serious really fast. She told us she was having some forgiveness issues and wanted us to help, and so began miracle #1. I said a quick prayer for guidance and flipped open my scriptures and opened it to a highlighted section in my scriptures, but as I read through it I thought it was the wrong one and quickly started leafing through the pages. Frustrated after a few minuets I finally went to my study journal to find the scripture, only to find it was the one I had flipped open to! I felt a bit stupid for denying that little bit of revelation and read the scripture to the sister. She still had some issues but we gave her some more scriptures to read and she was happy to have some stuff to do.
The rest of the day went pretty remarkably but me and Elder Foster had a good time. He's a really good missionary and a cool guy. We get along great and did some good work that day.
The next day we un-split and took off to a new missionary orientation. President Weidman and Sister Weidman were there of course and we did a lot of break out sessions about teaching and contacting. It was a great day full of inspired teaching and I learned so much more than I could ever write in this email. I also saw Elder Olgilve, Elder Kinney and Sister Jamieson there which was fun. Elder Kinney said he just got an email saying his visa cleared but they were still working on the background check but at least he knows he's taking off soon!
Later that night we went to FHE (family home evening) at the ward building. We call it FHE but it's really just a youth night for older people and investigators I guess. We played some pictionary and had a great time with that. My favorite thing that happened was that one of our ward missionaries and one of our senior missionaries went against each other. They were both well advanced in years and both said they could hardly see what they were drawing so it was a pretty hysterical match up. It took forever for us to guess what in the world they were drawing but we all eventually got it. After all the fun and games we had way more cake than we healthy for us and took off for home.
The next day we got a call from Elders Martin and Murray. Their car needed a bit of work and so we had to drive them up to the mission office to drop it off. That took most of our morning and them we had to get them to a training so we drove them all the way there only to find we had about an hour and a half to kill. We went to a nearby Red Robin's for lunch and all ate way too much fries and hamburger-y goodness. Elder Froisland was a bit disappointed by the fries at first so he said "This is it?". Sadly for him when the waitress came out next she pilled up the fries and his pride wouldn't let him stop till he had eaten them all. The poor guy almost died I swear.
Later that day we came back to their apartment to help Elder Martin fix up his bike and while we were there we deiced to look around the apartment and see what goodies we could find. It's been a missionary apartment forever so Elders had been stashing stuff in there forever. Elder Froisland was digging through the closet and found a long coat. Like the deep black Terminator type ones. It's super huge on him but it's getting cold out and I was wearing mine a lot so he held on to it. So Pretty much wherever we go now we look like we're from the mob :).
The next day was Zone Training Meeting (ZTM) so we pick those two up again and took off to get to the church early. About 3/4 of the way there we were told by the ZL's to go get another missionary pair about 10 miles away. We dropped Elder Murray and Martin off and went to go get Elders Luna and Martinez, the Elders 10 miles away. We had to do this because usually there are 5 cars in the zone but for one reason or another we had somehow gotten all the way down to 2! We got them and were only about 10 mins late which wasn't too bad. The AP's showed up about 20 mins later and everyone started flipping out because it was rumored our mission had just been approved for iPads and the whole deal. But they weren't there for that, they were just stopping by to check in on the ZTM just like they do every once in a while.
After that we dropped off Elder Luna and Martiez and turned right back around to pick up Elder Martin and Murray. Little did we know we were spending the rest of the day with them. Elder Murray had a doctor's appointment to get his feet looked at later that day. That took till about 4 and after that when we went home they had locked their keys into their house! We looked for an unlocked window or something but there was no way in short of breaking something. We called management but there was no spare so we called the AP's and they said to go get the spare.... from the mission office. We drove all the way up there again and ended up with about half an hour to kill so we walked into the Visitor Center and found our old friend Sister Thompson. We said hi and started talking. She told us about this super cool idea that she was doing in her planner. She said everyday she would write a little miracle or something that she was thankful for. I remembered a quote I really liked from General Conference "A person who is grateful is rich in contentment" (Elder Bednar). That to me was a little miracle in it of itself and I'm taking her little challenge on. We drove back made sure that they could get back into their apartment and ended the night there.
The next day we went to a baptism for one of Elder Froisland's old investigators, Ivan. It was a great service and even President Wiedman was there. We confirmed him there as well and the spirit was just awesome.
We headed out with that spirit to an appointment with two teenage boys Yovani and Gerado. We started a bit rough on the lesson but in the end the spirit was super powerful and we set a baptismal date for Jan. 5th! They seem like super solid boys and I hope they can follow through on their commitment. They both do some martial arts so we had plenty to talk about.
Sunday morning we got a special treat. We were able to attend a training meeting with our area 70! He was a great man and once again I wish I could write all that I learned in this email but it is just too much! Just make sure you always have a referral for your local missionaries, okay?
We had our regular Sunday and then took off for dinner with Sister Barrios and some Spanish Elders. She's a Mexican sister and we were having fish tacos, so there was no shortage of food. We chowed down like a wolf pack and it was all amazing! I swear, I had a bit more bump on my stomach than usual when we walked out and we had a great night. I even made a new friend in their iguana, Scales (he was named by a 5-year-old). It was especially fun cause he freaked out Sister Barrios. Her husband really had some fun with that.
That's it for my week, I hope you can all take a little something from it and that you enjoy these emails. May God bless you all! Ficam doce!
-Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
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