All the missionaries know that Preach My Gospel says we need to teach when we find and find when we teach, but listen, we just got finished playing street ball out in the zone leaders part of reading and they picked up two investigators just by us playing ball for like 3 hours! Anyways that was a good start to the week, next week we just have to ball in our area!
So this week I got to go on exchanges with Elder Laine, my Finnish friend, once again! He was in my district back in Lehighton. We had a sweet day, taught some solid lessons and went to an all you can eat wing Wednesday! We ate 80 wings together and tried the Thai Suicide sauce to finish it off. It was a mix of habanero, jalapeño, Cajun and Cayan pepper! I've never cried so much in my life! I also got to go with Elder Willson, who's a complete stud. He knows all the pastors around Reading and they hook it up with free stuff! We also got to teach someone named Chad Smith, super gnarly.
We had our last zone conference with President and Sister Anderson. Man how our mission will miss them. I've never seen so many missionaries crying at once. It was an awesome zone conference though, getting us geared up for the new mission president. I also got to see my trainer Elder Stimpson for the first time since he got transferred so that was just peachy!
To finish off the week we had Paul Vandi's baptism. The guy was so prepared! He was so excited for such a quiet guy. I got to baptize him, which I thought was odd because he was referred to us by his friend who is a member, but I guess he prayed about it and wanted me to do it so I'm game especially because I have white pants that actually fit me now! We are so excited for the growth of this ward. Paul wasn't even the first in the new Reading 1st ward to get baptized. The other elders had a baptism Saturday and should have three next Saturday! Crazy stuff out here!
Last night we got to go to a members house for dinner, and they have a HUGE backyard, goes all the way back into the forest. They wanted to take us out there to see all the Lightning bugs, and man are those cool. With so many of them out, the ground just looks like it's sparkling, it's pretty cool! It's times like that when I just think how great this earth is. Everything here has a purpose, even if it's just a bug that lights up so humans can be entertained. No way you could look at this earth and not think about our Father in Heaven. Stoked for another week here, last week of the transfer so we will see what happens to us! Love you all!
1) Stimpy! 2) tryin to clean out the baptismal font with a homemade skimmer (thanks to Stockton Christensen for the genius idea!) 3) Paul Vandi! I promise he's nicer than he looks in the picture!
Well this week was pretty crazy because I went on two exchanges out of my area! The first one was over to the south side of Reading with none other than Elder Martinez! We just joke all the time that we will end up being companions by default because we've gone on at least 10 exchanges with each other. We taught some good lessons and ate really good burritos so that was a thumbs up day! I then went to the south side of Reading again with Elder Thompson, a Spanish missionary. So essentially the entire day I had no idea what was going on because I chose to take French in high school! It was so odd, I was probably less than a mile or two outside of my area, yet I felt like I was far away in a distant Spanish land.
So last week I wrote about Andrew and Vivian, the brother sister combo that came to church. We taught them this week and I've never seen someone as stoked as Vivian was when we invited her to be baptized! She just yelled at the top of her lungs to everyone in the run down motel "I'm gonna get baptized!" We also got a sweet member referral from someone who was in the Reading 2nd part of the ward, so we are already loving this merge of the wards! Her name is Haja and she's from Sierra Leone. The lesson went pretty well and we are stoked to teach her! I also had the opportunity to do a baptismal interview this week for a guy named Anthony. He's been married to his wife, who's a member, for 18 years. He's kinda been on and off investigating, but he's consistently come to church to the point where people didn't even know he wasn't a member! Anyways after his daughter got baptized something clicked in him and he realized he needed to be baptized. He was so solid too, but it just goes to show that you should never give up on anyone with the gospel.
Kinda a funny experience I had came on Saturday when we took Dontá out teaching with us. We called him the night before to come out most the day with us. I guess he was half asleep because when we picked him up he was so bummed out that he agreed to come with us. He told us he had a date planned, a baseball practice and swimming with his friends and all that. As we drove our way out to our appointments he kept joking with us that we were holding him hostage from his fun day! So we just kept joking back and forth with him and finally I told him "watch, the girl you were going to take on a date will probably get sick and wouldn't have been able to go anyways, your baseball practice won't happen because it will rain and your boys won't be feeling the pool because of the rain too" and son of a gun guess what happened? Dontá's date's allergies got way bad, it started raining and he never got invited to the pool! Each thing that happened he just looked at me with that "are you kidding?" kind of look. I think Dontá made the right choice coming out with us!
I was thinking about it this week and if the age requirement for missionaries never changed then I would have just barely become eligible last week to serve a mission. I feel so blessed that I've just barely turned 19 and I've already been out over 9 months! Anyways thank you to the people that wished me a happy birthday over the week, it was pretty cool to be across the country and still feel remembered back home! Things are great here in Reading! My mom wanted some pictures of the area so I'll attach some so you can all see what a beautiful and sanitary place it is! I hope you all have an amazing week!
May 30, 2016 Happy Memorial Day my friends! What a sweet day it is today because a) we get to think about those who served for our freedom b) we all get to play around and c) it's p-day as you all know! It's been a great week topped off with some crazy news on Sunday so I guess if you want to know what it is you will actually have to read to the end! As far as our investigators go, they are doing GREAT! So we were able to teach Hendy and Bennesen, but they sadly didn't show for church. Same with Paul, he had to work. D'Anthony did though! We found out he's moving to New York though:( but he loved church! In a lesson with him this week he took out his nose ring mid lesson because he didn't really feel right wearing it anymore! We have a star recent convert named Dontá who comes out with us a bunch! He's 20 and he's super hood, he grew up in Philly! He's so dope and we got to spend a bunch of time with him teaching others and reading with him! I was so pumped!
We picked up a couple new gators this week, Andrew and Vivian. They are a brother sister combo ages 20/18 and we are lucky to teach them! Last week Andrew called up the Reading 2nd elders and asked if he could get a ride to church. He loved it and wanted to come back, so the Reading 2nd elders referred him to us since he's in our area. We got in contact with him Saturday and he told us he wanted to come back to church and he was going to bring his sister! Well they came and they loved it! Especially Vivian, she kept saying how she hasn't been to church in so long and how she wouldn't have thought to be there today! She even got up in the middle and moved towards the front of the congregation to see better!
I got to go on a couple exchanges this week, which were pretty fun! I went down to Pottstown with Elder Kilcrease from Provo, who's last companion was good ole Elder Johnson! It was awesome to reminisce about the times we each spent with the guy and compare our times with him! It was a sweet exchange, Elder Kilcrease came out one transfer before me and he's such a good missionary! We taught an investigator with three members there and they took over the entire lesson, wouldn't even let us talk! So we got to joke about that all day, then ate dinner with a member, who is a body builder, and picked apart his brain for us to lose weight! Then I brought Elder Crowther, who's from Layton, to my area! He's been out about 15 months so he's kinda got the ropes down and we had an awesome time. It was way fun to talk about all the mutual friends we have back home!
So the big news this week came with a 2 hour sacrament meeting with Reading 1st and Reading 2nd! The stake presidency was there and we found out that we are now one big ward! This ward is big! (Still a little smaller than an average Utah ward) it's still called Reading 1st, although I wish it was something cool like Mega Reading but oh well. it's going to be really interesting working with the other part of the ward and the missionaries who were serving there, so the next few weeks will either be sweet or a headache. We also got to help a member put in a new hardwood floor, so I'm back in the renovation business! In other big news, it's extremely hot, I'm always damp and sweaty now and once again I moved my bed into the living room. Anyways I realize this email is getting lengthy so I'll end it with a quick testimony that I know this church is the one and only true church and I'm so happy to be a missionary working to help it grow! I love you all, have a great week!
