Whadda Week!!

March 14, 2016

The Lord had blessed us with a pretty swell week and I'm pretty stoked
to tell you all about it so buckle up!

Monday, after p-day, we got to have dinner with the Herway family.
Anytime they say "let's have a prayer" their 2 year old daughter
immediately starts praying every time haha it was adorable. We taught
Emin although he seemed more interested in a jar of mayonnaise bigger
than his head... We walked across the street to see how Joshua and
Ashley were doing and talked to Joshua about his Book of Mormon
reading and said he didn't keep reading on because he didn't want to
get "messed up". We weren't sure what he meant by that...

Tuesday was very warm so we put on some short sleeve shirts and went
out looking like true missionaries! We did some finding and a lady
recognized us as elders so she had us carry her bags into her home
haha. We taught Maurice although I'm not sure what about, but we
headed up to Joshua's after to teach the word of wisdom and even
though he is not living any of the word of wisdom, he was pretty
understanding of all of it! Regarding coffee he said "yeah that one
totally makes sense because it makes your teeth yellow" like sure
that's good enough!

Wednesday we started with district meeting and did exchanges after, so
I got to have good ole Elder Martinez with me in Morrisville! We did a
little tracting and got yelled at a lot, which reminded me as to why I
haven't tracted extensively in a long time. We did get in contact with
a part member family and a potential investigator who has 10 kids so
we hope to work with them soon! We had dinner with the Harts and they
made a big ole seafood plate that was sooo good! Elder Martinez did
Jennifer's baptismal interview, so me and Bro Massimini stood outside
and talked to Joshua and Geraldo and all their kids! She passed the
interview and Elder Martinez said she was one of the most prepared
investigators he's seen. 🏻 Corbin wanted us over to have a
barbecue, but when the neighborhood found out they all showed up and
he ended up throwing a large scale cookout, he wasn't too happy about
all the freeloaders. But we got to go inside and teach him, which was
fun because me and Elder Martinez teach really well together. We
taught the restoration which can be such a powerful lesson and invited
him to be baptized on April 16th and he's way stoked about it!

Thursday was Zone Conference so I got to drive into New Jersey and
it's a pretty nice place! Zone Conference was great. President
Anderson talked to us about being smart with our finding and using
members and not just going out and tracting because that's too easy
and yields less success. Our Assistants gave a great talk on the
sacrament. We teach all of our investigators about the sacrament, but
as missionaries we worry too much about others and we need to slow
down and focus on ourselves during the sacrament each week. After Zone
Conference, Sis Patton signed up to feed us and since she's single we
brought Bro Massimini. We were all pretty worried about what she'd
feed us, but she cooked a full thanksgiving dinner that wasn't too
bad! Of course the dinner came along with some crazy conversation.
Some crazy Indian lady stopped us before we went into our apartment
and talked to us for couponing for like 20 minutes so I'm pretty much
an expert on it now.

Friday morning we started setting up the church for Jennifer and
Geraldo's wedding. A lot of work was put into that! We taught Phoenix
about the Book of Mormon and he thinks the Book of Mormon is great now
haha he's progressing quite well. We had a lesson with Maurice and he
just told us about Mosiah 4 for an hour, but we were outside so it was
nice. With Sister Benfield we taught about the Book of Mormon
answering "questions of the soul" then headed to teach Nyema. Holy cow
I still can't understand him and he has some crazy good questions. He
analyzes these scriptures and pulls out things that I'd never see. We
had dinner with the Pray's that night though and they are still my
favorite people just incase if anyone's wondering.

Saturday was the big wedding so we headed over to set up for it and it
looked great! There was a lot of member support and a bunch of non
members came and got exposed to the church! Even Joshua and Ashley
came and he was stoked to finally be at the church. We left early so
go teach some lessons, some of which cancelled, but we made the best
of it and stopped by Bill. We went back to clean up the chapel then
down to Corbin's. His family was sick so we just chatted with him
outside, but he said ever since he's been meeting with us he could put
a smile on his face!

Sunday was great although I blame daylight savings for me being tired
and none of our investigators showing up. We were in and out of
classes because we had to fill up the baptismal font. I don't know why
but I've never seen a baptismal font that actually fills up correctly?
It's always a struggle with the drain or the water not staying warm.
Anyways after church we got to have the baptism for Jennifer and
Geraldo! All this work and they finally made it to baptism! I remember
coming to this area, seeing them in the area book and Elder Johnson
saying "they can't really progress because they aren't married", but
we did it! Obviously the spirit touched them and told them buying a
house can wait, right now what was important was baptism which
required them to get married first! After church we visited Bro
Benkert and watched him paint, he was so excited when we told him we
had a baptism haha he makes us feel like missionaries are superheroes.
We had a pre dinner with the Hludinski's. Their kids found our
instagrams and were having fun with that! We drove out to the Topham's
for dinner so I was pretty stuffed! Afterwards we were supposed to
have a lesson with Joshua, but Ashley didn't know where he went so we
showed her the new Easter video "Hallelujah"

Which brings me to this, all of you should go out and watch the new
Easter videos the church put out and go share them on Facebook or
whatever you use because they are fantastic. It's such a good reminder
that because of our Savior, this life isn't the end. We can live
forever with our families, which is so important to me because being
out here for a little over 6 months made me realize how important they
are to me and how much I miss them. I think you can access the videos
through Mormon.org and they are worth your time! Things are going well
here, we now just have to get our investigators to church and confirm
Jennifer and Geraldo next Sunday! I love you all and miss you a bunch.

1) Short Sleeves!!!
2) Elder Martinez made me take this picture I swear...
3) The Zone at Zone Conference!
4) Jennifer and Geraldo's baptism!