New Year, New Me, New P Day
Date
January 3, 2023
Area
Las Vegas, Nevada
Companion
New Year, New Me, New P Day
Hello, and Happy New Year!
It's 2023, and my P day is now Tuesday. I thought I would really hate the change, but we had a really great Monday doing missionary work so maybe it's for the best.
We had a pretty great week, there's several people we've been in contact with to schedule lessons and meet, and it's been going really well. Unfortunately, Bob, who is still really interested in more lessons, moved outside our mission, so we had to refer him to the east mission elders. I hope he continues to seek knowledge through the gospel. But, at least there's still more people were teaching.
This area has really been such an awesome experience, It's such a unique and diverse place. There's been a lot of times where we knock on a door, and they speak Spanish, sometimes they know a little English other times less. But the cool thing is, through some very broken Spanish, we've actually gotten a few phone numbers from Spanish speaking people. We have a card with a Spanish missionary greeting asking for their number, and it's actually worked! It's very fun to try and work past the language barrier.
I've been trying to be more bold in following spiritual promptings lately, and it's made a difference. Like one time we were at a door in some apartments, just doing a door approach, and I felt prompted to speak about baptism. I just sort of mentioned it, asked if it was something he wanted to work towards possibly. Which is weird, because i would normally never mention that in a first greeting, but he didn't seem too weirded out by it lol (Although he didn't seem too intersted either, but that's ok. He was very polite). I also gave out a Book of Mormon in a street contact with someone who was just outside, after we had 5-8 minutes of religious conversation. They seemed kind of interested, which was nice.
On New Years, we didn't do anything too wild, just jenga and uno at a member dinner before our early curfew. But (hypothetically if we stayed up till midnight *wink*) we were close enough to the stratosphere building on the strip from out apartment to see fireworks fired off of it, which was pretty neat. We also ran into several drunk people in the street, including one very opinionated and foul-mouthed fellow, whom we patiently listened to about his own religious point of view, before he drunkedly stumbled away back to his new years eve party. It's probably a good thing we had an early curfew that night lol.
I was also on an exchange with Elder Barrios Martinez, and he is an awesome missionary. He was just so genuinely interested in people, and I admired how friendly and interactive he was with everyone. There was a mother and daughter outside their apartment complex near a contact we were trying to visit, and he effortlessly befriended both of them, barely even mentioning that we were missionaries, but was just being a really friendly... person! He gave the daughter (4 years old) a little "future missionary name tag" (they were just a street contact, not members or anything btw), to which she responded with a generous gift of two broken pieces of her half eaten candy cane. Then the little girl ran into the neighbors house after seeing her neighbor return from work, and Elder Barrios Martinez followed her lead and walked right up to their door, introducing himself! It was a very fun interaction to watch, and inspired me to try and be more genuine with the people we meet.
We also did a hike which was cool! There's a little hike up a canyon just outside the city, and it was really nice to get some fresh air that didn't smell like weed or cigarettes. We hiked up to a cave called the "rave cave", which was pretty big and filled with graffiti and stuff. There was also a notebook hidden in the back to sign your name in, so we did that. There was also a hole in the cave with a spray painted arrow indicating it as "hell", and the other elders who looked into it said they saw some weird stuff in it.
But it was nice to see a part of Nevada that wasn't Las Vegas. The desert reminds me of Southern Utah a bit, and the sky was pretty cloudy so it looked like the scene of an old western.
A talk I read this week by Elder Holland, called "Be with and Strengthen Them", spoke about ministering. I think what Elder Barrios Martinez did in that interaction was a great example of what Elder Holland described as ministering; "Pure religion"- or genuine kindness and caring towards others. Reading that talk made me excited to receive a ministering call one day, but for now I'm happy to be ministering to the people in the Charleston area in Las Vegas.
I hope and pray for you all to have a happy new year this 2023!
-Elder Rogers
It's 2023, and my P day is now Tuesday. I thought I would really hate the change, but we had a really great Monday doing missionary work so maybe it's for the best.
We had a pretty great week, there's several people we've been in contact with to schedule lessons and meet, and it's been going really well. Unfortunately, Bob, who is still really interested in more lessons, moved outside our mission, so we had to refer him to the east mission elders. I hope he continues to seek knowledge through the gospel. But, at least there's still more people were teaching.
This area has really been such an awesome experience, It's such a unique and diverse place. There's been a lot of times where we knock on a door, and they speak Spanish, sometimes they know a little English other times less. But the cool thing is, through some very broken Spanish, we've actually gotten a few phone numbers from Spanish speaking people. We have a card with a Spanish missionary greeting asking for their number, and it's actually worked! It's very fun to try and work past the language barrier.
I've been trying to be more bold in following spiritual promptings lately, and it's made a difference. Like one time we were at a door in some apartments, just doing a door approach, and I felt prompted to speak about baptism. I just sort of mentioned it, asked if it was something he wanted to work towards possibly. Which is weird, because i would normally never mention that in a first greeting, but he didn't seem too weirded out by it lol (Although he didn't seem too intersted either, but that's ok. He was very polite). I also gave out a Book of Mormon in a street contact with someone who was just outside, after we had 5-8 minutes of religious conversation. They seemed kind of interested, which was nice.
On New Years, we didn't do anything too wild, just jenga and uno at a member dinner before our early curfew. But (hypothetically if we stayed up till midnight *wink*) we were close enough to the stratosphere building on the strip from out apartment to see fireworks fired off of it, which was pretty neat. We also ran into several drunk people in the street, including one very opinionated and foul-mouthed fellow, whom we patiently listened to about his own religious point of view, before he drunkedly stumbled away back to his new years eve party. It's probably a good thing we had an early curfew that night lol.
I was also on an exchange with Elder Barrios Martinez, and he is an awesome missionary. He was just so genuinely interested in people, and I admired how friendly and interactive he was with everyone. There was a mother and daughter outside their apartment complex near a contact we were trying to visit, and he effortlessly befriended both of them, barely even mentioning that we were missionaries, but was just being a really friendly... person! He gave the daughter (4 years old) a little "future missionary name tag" (they were just a street contact, not members or anything btw), to which she responded with a generous gift of two broken pieces of her half eaten candy cane. Then the little girl ran into the neighbors house after seeing her neighbor return from work, and Elder Barrios Martinez followed her lead and walked right up to their door, introducing himself! It was a very fun interaction to watch, and inspired me to try and be more genuine with the people we meet.
We also did a hike which was cool! There's a little hike up a canyon just outside the city, and it was really nice to get some fresh air that didn't smell like weed or cigarettes. We hiked up to a cave called the "rave cave", which was pretty big and filled with graffiti and stuff. There was also a notebook hidden in the back to sign your name in, so we did that. There was also a hole in the cave with a spray painted arrow indicating it as "hell", and the other elders who looked into it said they saw some weird stuff in it.
But it was nice to see a part of Nevada that wasn't Las Vegas. The desert reminds me of Southern Utah a bit, and the sky was pretty cloudy so it looked like the scene of an old western.
A talk I read this week by Elder Holland, called "Be with and Strengthen Them", spoke about ministering. I think what Elder Barrios Martinez did in that interaction was a great example of what Elder Holland described as ministering; "Pure religion"- or genuine kindness and caring towards others. Reading that talk made me excited to receive a ministering call one day, but for now I'm happy to be ministering to the people in the Charleston area in Las Vegas.
I hope and pray for you all to have a happy new year this 2023!
-Elder Rogers
0 comments
« Back
Local
Nevada