Wow, this week sure seems to have gone by fast! I feel like I just wrote my last email yesterday. It's good have fast weeks rather than slow ones I guess, it feels like we get more done that way.
This week started off awesome because we got a chance to play some touch rugby with the district last P-day which made me want to actually tackle something, haha. It was awesome because right after that we all had dinner together as well at member's home! It's was district unity day I guess.
Tuesday was cool because we had a really good time building a bunk bed for some former investigators. We were hoping to finally catch them home and got lucky because the wife is actually 9 months pregnant, so there was no escape! The husband was home as well so we got to go in and chat with them for a bit. When were finishing up we asked if we could help them with anything else and the wife pointed out a bunk bed box that had just been dropped off that morning. We jumped up and built that sucker in an hour. It was really good for us to have something like that to do to re-build (haha, see what I did there?) the relationship of trust there. We hope they start taking lessons again now, but we do have a few obstacles to jump. The main one being that they think they were married in the temple without being baptized, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
We kinda ran around the rest of the day trying to find some less-active members and actually finding a lot of success. We stopped by an enterna-gator's home and ended up giving 3 blessings in a row! It was pretty unexpected and now I'm going to need some more oil to bless but it was a cool teaching opportunity. The family that lives there only really has one active member, the mother and the rest are all non-members, a full family of about 12 people . The man who's been investigating pretty much just needs to marry the mother and then all would be just great.
The next morning while we were out running and working our huge muscles our district leader asked us if we wanted any "spud-nuts". He said they're his version of doughnuts that poor missionaries like us can make. We ran back to their apartment with them and found 5 heaping plates of the stuff! I resisted the devil's fruit and kept up with my workouts while they polished off 3 of the plates. We got one to take home though and I was weak and ended up eating some. They were pretty good actually, he managed to glaze them and everything somehow.
We had a good day that day because of the 6-month training both me and my companion went to. It's crazy, we've been out in the mission for almost the exact same amount of time, he's only got 10 days on me. It was a great training and President Weidman told us something pretty important. He said after 6 months all missionaries seem to either plateau or grow exponentially. His goal is to have us all do the latter, and so he continued to give one of the most awesome trainings ever. He simply put it this way "Whatever you get out of this training today, I want you to change in some way for the better." I'm trying my hardest now to do exactly that.
We went home and had a very busy night with dinner and meeting a new investigator that was moving into our area. Elder Parsons and Eddy found her originally but she was moving so we've got her in our sights now. She says her best friend is Mormon and that she really wants to learn more, but we're not sure if she was just saying that to get some extra hands to move. We're hopeful as always and we're going to get her dunked I'm pretty sure.
The next day was had a lesson with a poor girl that we are teaching. She has stage two breast cancer, a possible tumor in her neck, 3 kids to worry about, school and no husband. The poor girl really needs the gospel in her life and we tried to teach a lesson but there wasn't really a good way to go about it. She was far too depressed so we left her some uplifting scriptures and a promise that God will help her if she comes to church. We pray for her a lot.
We also met with a part-member family that I mentioned last week. The parents were only there this time but we had good lesson none the less. We didn't really know what to talk about before hand but it was given to us when she asked us whether ghosts and spirits exist. We dove into some scriptures and the end of the matter is that we have an FHE setup with them for Friday where we are going to dedicate their home. It's such a good opportunity to teach such a big family. There are about 17-20 living in the big home and only about 4 are members as far as we can gather, so there will be many baptisms soon :).
The next day was a day a every missionary dreams about. We had a day full of solid appointments. Literally we did not have an hour that was not filled with someone being visited or taught. We did nothing but bike and teach that day. When one appointment did fall through, we were guided to a man who used to take missionary discussion but lives outside our area and taught him for an hour. It was that good. We stopped at another appointment and they didn't answer the door, so we went to Mickey D's for a drink of water. While we sat down for a 10 min break a man named Simon said "Mind if I sit with you Elders?" within about 3 seconds. He's a social worker for the disabled and he was super cool. He was there to pick up his wife but came an hour early for some reason he said. I think it was no coincidence. It was nothing short of the hand of God. It's important to keep fairly spiritually in-tune now because these awesome stories keep happening and if we're not, we miss them.
Saturday was really cool. We had a lesson with a good investigator and then an elder's quorum barbeque! I guess I should have been more excited for the lesson but the call of smoked meat was really strong, haha. It was a great turnout and the aforementioned eternal-gator was there. Elder Parsons kept making jokes about going up and asking him when he would finally tie the knot but I didn't think he would actually do it. He says he's getting married in June. I was a bit shocked that it actually worked but it was good to hear. I probably won't be here to see him finally enter the church but a soul brought to Christ is good anyway. It's not really important who really finishes it off.
Yesterday was pretty cool mainly for the fact that we had 5 investigators at church! 5! Can you believe that? We were blessed by going from 1 to 5 in one week. We didn't even think 3 of them would show up for the next month! They are all from that huge part-member family and we'll be visiting there a lot so we have high hopes for them.
I guess that's kind of it for this week. I've still been studying hard-core on the character of the Christ and I have learned a lot there. If any of you want to I would suggest reading "Jesus the Christ" and the Book of Mormon specifically taking notes about who Christ is. Not just what he is but what he would be like if you were actually to walk up, shake his hand and sit down and talk with him. It's mind blowing what you can really learn from those two books about him. I think I will read the D&C as well to learn what I can from there but so far it has been very rewarding. I hope you all have a good week!
-Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
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