Date
September 7, 2020
Area
Salt Lake City, Cannon 6th Ward (Español)
Companion
Elder Spencer Ross
Week 11
Hey ya'll what's up! I am loving it here. The mission is so much fun. There is a lot of work to do, but it's all very awesome. I have 1 week until I get to the temple to receive my endowment. I am very excited to go and have a been preparing a lot! It's a real blessing to get it on my mission because I can't think of a time where I could be more spiritually prepared.
Monday: We hung out with some other Elders up stairs (Elder Bullock and Elder Smartt). We played Uno, and talked about funny Bible stories. Not much else happened, we kinda just chilled till 6:00 o'clock haha. I had aquired a new friend last P-day! His name is "Levi" (short Leviathan). He's a stuffed shark I saw at Walmart and was like "How could I not buy this!?" haha.
Tuesday: Not much happened. We knocked some houses looking for members and some kid opened the door who clearly didn't like us. He was like "I am not interested, leave." and he slammed the door haha. I think those interactions are so funny. We were then standing on the curb talking to other missionaries we ran into, and he stuck his head out the window and said "Don't come back here." lol. We also meet a lady named Myra, she was nice and we were going to go see her again on Thursday.
Wednesday: Sooooooo missionaries aren't allowed to do the food bank anymore :( Our mission president said that they are using us too long for a service that doesn't really help us with Key indicators (our numbers). It makes sense because we had like 10 missionaries there for 2 hrs each. So that's sad, but Elder Ross and I got to go back for an hour because we needed to teach people how to do the traffic system. We also had exchanges with our District/Zone Leader, Elder Roberts. He came to our Area and Ross went to his area. So long story short We found a guy who is interested, but is moving to Texas in a week, and another guy who is interested as well. Now to the funny part. We were going to knock the door of a lady, named Maria, but her husband came out and started "Bible Bashing" with us. If you don't know what Bible Bashing is, it's when someone tries to disprove our beliefs with the Bible, but fail really hard because we believe in the Bible as well, and it supports our beliefs. Okay, for other missionaries.. Don't Bible Bash with people because they don't really want to listen anyways, but if I could go Bible Bashing for like a P-day activity or something I totally would because it's way fun lol. It's pretty awesome how the Bible mentions the Book of Mormon, Eternal Families, and many other Doctrines nobody else has.
Thursday: We had a lesson fall through with Myra, and we also had one member lessons fall through as well. We did however teach a lesson to a recent convert named Joshua and his dad, Jose. They're cool. Jose said that in the next few weeks I'll speak perfect Spanish because of how far I have progressed with just 5 weeks in the field haha. We also had bike problems, yay. Can't go a week without getting a flat, haha. The Elders upstairs say they get one flat every like 3 hours, so I guess I can't complain. (Happy Birthday Garrik!)
Friday: Was multi-district conference. It was fun, I really like most of the missionaries meetings. They had us role play how to begin teaching with different missionaries as our companion, so that was strange. Luckily my Spanish didn't just stop working on those practices. Elder Ross and I got to practice with Bullock and Smartt also. Elder Bullock was pretending to be a blind older lady, so to spite him I showed a picture of Jesus while I was talking. Elder Ross told me a story about when he was learning Spanish, it's kinda long, but the jist of it was that he asked a blind lady to read a verse during one of their lessons lol.
Saturday: Kind of a flop day lol. If you look at our Area Book, it has lots of red circles (which means they didn't answer). We did have a lesson with a member, where I shared a message about the hope that comes through the gospel. My Spanish was not doing so hot that day though, so it was kinda choppy. Over all a good lesson though.
Sunday: We saw some miracles today. So earlier throughout the week, we had nobody to teach. Our teaching pool was looking more like a drained pool, but even drained pools still attract skateboarders, so not the best analogy lol. Our goal for each week is to get 4 "news". News are people who were find and who we have scheduled another visit with (after leaving them a commitment). The past few weeks we have been getting 2 or 3, but this week we got 6! A lot of fasting and prayers went into those 6. We were going to head over to this guy's house (his name is Serafin). We've talked to him before, but he's either playing with his Grandchildren, talking with friends, or is just absolutely wasted lol. So we were going by and it looked like he was having a party because of all the cars on his street, so we were kinda like "lets just comeback on a different day", but I felt like we should go over anyways, so I convinced my companion and what do you know, all the cars were for his neighbor. He was just sitting on the porch with a beer lol. So we talked to him and his wife, and we taught them a bit. We have a return appointment on Tuesday. They're pretty golden investigators! Blessings!
Okay, this week I would like to talk about the Book of Mormon and the Bible. They work so well together! Many individuals here just shoot down the Book of Mormon because it's not the Bible, but if they would just read it, they would realize that it's true and that it just testifies of the divinity of Jesus Christ, just like the Bible does. Just read the dang Book! Millions of people know this book is true, so why don't you go see for yourself. I kinda don't like Moroni 10:3-5 because it's used so much, but that doesn't change the power of its promise. In the wise words of Elder Bullock "Just read the Fetching Book!" lol.
Interesting moments:
1. A lot of the cats here are nice and let us pet them, so Elder Ross and I talk about getting a Cat for our apartment.
2. We bought a little pad lock to practice our new lock picking skills, and I realized why they don't want you to have a key lock in high school. It's way too easy to pick...
3. The DZL told me a story, after our Bible bashing incident, about some man that tried to smite him through the name of Jesus Christ in Paraguay. He didn't have the priesthood so nothing happened, but still funny.
4. Read 2 kings 1:9-15 (I won't spoil the story, but what in the world was that King thinking lol)
5. I love making wallpapers for my phone. I have so much fun with it haha. I put my favorite one in the photos.
6. Almost all of the missionaries use the word "Fetch", like all the time. I don't know why, but it's still pretty funny.
Photos:
(Picture 1) Levi!
(Picture 2) Elder Ross petting a cat he chased out of a bush. (He was worried it was a skunk)
(Picture 3) Leaf bug we found by the other Elders apartment.
(Picture 4) Levi holds my marking pens! He's a helpful Scripture Shark!
(Picture 5) My home screen (Resurrected Christ teaching to the Nephites)
(picture 6) My lock screen (The crucifixion)
(picture 7) At Walmart today, some Elders were being creative with spreading the gospel.