Week 40
Date
June 12, 2017
Area
Second Area - Monmouth, OR
Companion
Elder Elias
Week 40
This past week started out on fire!... kinda. Monday after preparation day we had dinner with a part member family in Monmouth 3rd Ward. More like, young, recently-ish married, and part member. It was the first time we met them, but from what we understood, she's been a member all her life, and he's currently a non-member. They're in between moves right now - coming from California - that will eventually see them in Salt Lake City within the next month or two. After dinner, which was also with the 3rd Elders, we played a board game for a while.... Usually we don't do things like that, but they insisted, and it was a good opportunity for us to get to know a really neat part member family in the area, so we felt like it was still a good use of time.
Tuesday was an epic day! We went to Dallas - about 20 to 25 minutes away - to look for a couple of referrals we have there, and to deal with a bank account problem Elder Elias was having (its been fixed, don't worry!). While walking to a former investigators house we felt we should knock, we ran into a member named Brother Maughan (pronounced "man" with a Jamaican accent 😂) who's doing summer sales for his pest control company. He talked to us for a couple of minutes, and gave us a sweet pep talk slash motivational pump up. One thing he said that really stuck with me was "Elders, I have a feeling you're about to have a sweet lesson with whoever you're about to teach!". And guess what? We did! We said our goodbyes to him, and continued searching out the house. We found it, and came upon a lady named ilda, who was the wife of the person we had information for! We taught her the entire Restoration, and she was very receptive to it, especially when we gave her a Book of Mormon, explained what it was, and why it was important. She was captivated by the pictures in the front. You know the ones of the prophet Joseph, of Nephi and his family on the boat to the promised land, and Moroni fighting? She got really interested in those, and after explaining them to her, she said she would read from the Book of Mormon! We're going to go visit her soon!
Later that day we eventually made it over to West Salem to contact some of our investigators, and for the rest of the day, had some success finding people we normally didn't find. We met a referral from the English Elders over there, named Maria who was a classic case from Preach My Gospel, where it says "[investigators] don't often know they are searching for the truth until they find it.... and are kept from the truth only because they know not where to find it". She told us she previously studied with the Jehovah Witness faith, and all in her family except her had been baptized there. We talked about our message of Christ, and she was receptive and open, saying she would read the Restoration pamphlet before we come back to talk with her again! It was amazing to see the change of her heart from the beginning words, to when she committed herself to read the pamphlet! We're excited to see her soon too!
Wednesday morning was a nightmare. We woke up with the stomach flu/stomach bug/lets-just-say-pain. We've been living in the apartment dying for the past 5 days, (this being Sunday night), and hope to be fine by tomorrow. Apparently, this has been going around in the Monmouth/Independence area for a couple weeks now, and from what we heard from people, we got hit extra hard by it. Classic throwing up/inability to eat food symptoms are what we have, though today's been a LOT better than any other day so far. We're almost completely recovered, and look anxiously forward to getting right back into the work!
We're feeling much better today (Monday), and we're very anxious to get out and do the work of the Lord. Thank goodness that's over with!
I did a lot of reflection and pondering this past week, and it was good for me. I thought about my reasons for being on a mission, like why I decided to come out, why I'm still out, and what I want to do to better myself now. Looking and evaluating myself was good; it's been a couple of weeks if not longer, since I've done that. I'm grateful for that chance to reflect on my missionary efforts, and to know now what areas need to be improved upon.
I love you all! I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kehl
Tuesday was an epic day! We went to Dallas - about 20 to 25 minutes away - to look for a couple of referrals we have there, and to deal with a bank account problem Elder Elias was having (its been fixed, don't worry!). While walking to a former investigators house we felt we should knock, we ran into a member named Brother Maughan (pronounced "man" with a Jamaican accent 😂) who's doing summer sales for his pest control company. He talked to us for a couple of minutes, and gave us a sweet pep talk slash motivational pump up. One thing he said that really stuck with me was "Elders, I have a feeling you're about to have a sweet lesson with whoever you're about to teach!". And guess what? We did! We said our goodbyes to him, and continued searching out the house. We found it, and came upon a lady named ilda, who was the wife of the person we had information for! We taught her the entire Restoration, and she was very receptive to it, especially when we gave her a Book of Mormon, explained what it was, and why it was important. She was captivated by the pictures in the front. You know the ones of the prophet Joseph, of Nephi and his family on the boat to the promised land, and Moroni fighting? She got really interested in those, and after explaining them to her, she said she would read from the Book of Mormon! We're going to go visit her soon!
Later that day we eventually made it over to West Salem to contact some of our investigators, and for the rest of the day, had some success finding people we normally didn't find. We met a referral from the English Elders over there, named Maria who was a classic case from Preach My Gospel, where it says "[investigators] don't often know they are searching for the truth until they find it.... and are kept from the truth only because they know not where to find it". She told us she previously studied with the Jehovah Witness faith, and all in her family except her had been baptized there. We talked about our message of Christ, and she was receptive and open, saying she would read the Restoration pamphlet before we come back to talk with her again! It was amazing to see the change of her heart from the beginning words, to when she committed herself to read the pamphlet! We're excited to see her soon too!
Wednesday morning was a nightmare. We woke up with the stomach flu/stomach bug/lets-just-say-pain. We've been living in the apartment dying for the past 5 days, (this being Sunday night), and hope to be fine by tomorrow. Apparently, this has been going around in the Monmouth/Independence area for a couple weeks now, and from what we heard from people, we got hit extra hard by it. Classic throwing up/inability to eat food symptoms are what we have, though today's been a LOT better than any other day so far. We're almost completely recovered, and look anxiously forward to getting right back into the work!
We're feeling much better today (Monday), and we're very anxious to get out and do the work of the Lord. Thank goodness that's over with!
I did a lot of reflection and pondering this past week, and it was good for me. I thought about my reasons for being on a mission, like why I decided to come out, why I'm still out, and what I want to do to better myself now. Looking and evaluating myself was good; it's been a couple of weeks if not longer, since I've done that. I'm grateful for that chance to reflect on my missionary efforts, and to know now what areas need to be improved upon.
I love you all! I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kehl
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