Crash! Bang! And BAM!

Call up the Undertaker and order some flowers because you’re gonna die when you hear this; some things actually happened this past week!

So for starters, on Monday night, we had to come back to the library to look for Elder Berthelson’s planner that he left here and when we were leaving, I managed to get in a small fender bender with a car in the parking lot. It turned out to be not a bad situation at all, which was very lucky. I’m not too happy about it and definitely not proud. But I thought I would just let you all know. And for those of you who have lost track, this accident brings us up to number six.

On a happier note, we got a new investigator this week! He is a nine-year-old boy in our ward who hasn’t yet been baptized and needs to have the missionary lessons before he can get baptized. We had an appointment set up for Friday evening but had to cancel because our dinner appointment ran late and it turned out to be the parents anniversary so we decided it would probably be best to just reschedule. I’m excited about teaching him but I think it might be a little difficult simplifying the gospel for a young kid but we will surely see!

Church yesterday was the craziest thing I may have ever experienced in a house of God. First of all, President Pehrson decided to surprise us by showing up at our ward. Due to the location of the church, right off Main Street and the 2,000 plus motorcycle rally for fallen officers going down that street, traffic was backed up for a while and most people were late coming to church so we started about 45 minutes late.

It was also a missionary farewell; the old kind of farewell where the WHOLE family speaks. At the end of Sacrament, the bishop said that we would be canceling Sunday school and going straight to third hour and that we would also be ending church about 20 minutes early. No complaints there from me, I just thought it was weird.

When I talked to President Pehrson yesterday, he told me that I would be staying in Trumbull for a while which made me very happy. I am really loving this ward and this area and I’m making so many friends here. Like the Sisam’s, a really cool young family that we got close to this week. They fed us one day and invited us to come back on Saturday to do some service for their neighbor. It was a lot of fun and they are a BLAST to be around.

Overall, things are going really well for me. Every day brings new challenges and blessings and as I work my hardest and take things one day at a time, I know that I am doing what I need to be. I have a full day of letter writing planned so if you haven’t heard from me in a while, I will get to it soon. I promise. Thanks for all the love, support, and prayers!

Keep On Keeping On

What a week! Nothing really new…again. Surprise! We have just been doing lots of work with the members in our ward and stuff. The big news of the week (drum roll, please) is that we were able to have lunch with Emily’s family yesterday. It was really nice and her mom said that she would like us to come back. I think we are making some real headway there so please keep praying for her and her family! Other than that, nothing new. But think of it this way, no news is good news. For instance, I did NOT get shot at this week. If I did, you would for sure be hearing about it.

I said this week that something good must be on the horizon because el Diablo is working very hard to get me discouraged. I have been missing home quite a lot and haven’t seen our efforts yield great fruit lately. I am reminded that it is easy to get discouraged. It is easy to complain and it is easy to give up. However, the easy thing to do and the right thing to do are hardly ever the same thing to do (according to President Pehrson). It takes determination to press on in the face of adversity. It takes humility to accept the circumstances you have been dealt and to then adapt them to meet your needs, and it takes courage to do the same thing everyday, having FAITH that one day, the same thing will yield a better result.

As I said, I know that great things await me as I press forward with faith. Although this week was rough, I really am doing well. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than here and it is so easy to see the ways that my family and myself are being blessed. Thanks for the prayers. Please keep it up. I love you all!

Nothing New

I know you hear this a lot from me, but I’m being completely serious when I say that NOTHING new happened this week. Elder Berthelson was down with a virus for a good chunk of our time and so we didn’t spend a great chunk of time out in the streets (which was a refreshing change of pace). It did make me realize, however, that without finding, there is no teaching. We didn’t have a bad week by any means, just slow and lazy, I guess you could say.

We were able to meet with our investigator, Gloria with a guy in our ward. It went well but we are a little nervous that she won’t keep commitments. We are going to have to teach her the importance of every commitment we leave her (like how important it is to read, pray, and come to church). Right now, she just doesn’t see the importance of it and the blessings she can receive from them.

Emily didn’t make it to church yesterday. She was at her aunt’s in Massachusetts. Her family also rescheduled dinner on us for next week when Emily’s boyfriend from Colorado will be in town. Things still seem to be going well there though. Their family is going to have dinner with our Ward Mission Leader’s family and I guess they are planning on talking baptism. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

I just want everyone out there to know how much I love you. Thanks for your support and your letters and everything else! I can’t imagine life without amazing people like you in it! Take care!

What a Week!

Let’s start with the bad. Exchanges were this week and our District Leader, Elder MacLennen came to Trumbull with me. We had a lot of fun and I think he is such an awesome Elder. Anyway, we knocked on this door and a lady there was incredibly rude. She told us to “get lost” along with more “hot sauce” words. It was hard to take but… Life goes on.

Next, we went to stop by a woman in the ward who was baptized 25 years ago and has never been to church. She talked to us for a minute and said, “my husband is on his way home and he hates Mormons. I’ll tell you when I see his car and you can make a quick getaway”. We didn’t think too much of it until he pulled in the driveway, jumped out of his minivan and started screaming at us. “Get the Hell out and don’t ever come back!” Once would have gotten the point across but he seemed to think it necessary to repeat these spiteful words until our car was far enough away that the only thing I could hear was my heart about to pound its way out of my chest.

On a lighter note, Things seem to have taken a turn for the better for our friend, Emily. She bore her testimony last Sunday about how badly she wants to get baptized and even though she can’t right now, she knows that someday she will be able to. It was very powerful. We fasted for her yesterday and when her mom came to pick her up from church, we got to talk to her for a few minutes. She was very friendly and invited us to dinner this week. Hopefully this will help with her situation! Please pray for her!

Yesterday I taught Gospel Principles and Prayer. It went really well and I actually enjoyed teaching. More of the same old same old again. We didn’t get to teach Kim this week and she didn’t come to church which was hard but hopefully we will get with her soon.

I hope you are all doing well and most of those letters I promised will be going out today so be sure to check your mail boxes! I love all of you and thank you for your love and support!

Short and Sweet

I feel as though I should start with apologies this week. There is much I feel bad for. First, I'm sorry this wasn't sent out until Friday. I know how much all of you look forward to reading my updates on Monday evenings as part of your Family Home Evenings. Second, I'm sorry that what you are about to read is an account of a less than exciting week. I try me best, but some days just lack that certain spark of excitement. Finally I want to apologize to many of you for not having heard from me in so long. I want to make time to write each of you but so often, the time is simply lost. It is so hard, in part because I am getting so many letters from all of you! I love hearing from all of you. It helps keep me going. Please just bear with me. Keep writing and I WILL write you back. Those are my apologies. Forgive me? Good.

As I mentioned earlier, last week was just so....vanilla. It wasn't bad at all, just nothing outstanding. In fact, I just asked Elder Berthelson what we did and neither of us can remember. Just the same old. Tracting... service at the food bank... more tracting...

For now, just look at the pictures and look forward to the upcoming weeks email because there will be more to talk about there. I love you all and hope you are doing well.

Happenings in Hartford

As of late, things have been pretty uneventful day-to-day. We have done lots of tracting and stop-by’s (surprise, surprise) and promoting the 21-Day Plan we started in church a couple weeks ago.

The 21-Day Plan is a promise from Elder Ballard that if we make a list of our friends or people we know that we’d like to share the gospel with and offer two prayers for these people a day for 21 consecutive days, someone on our list or someone we know but didn’t put on the list will accept an invitation to be taught by the missionaries. We presented it to the ward and most people are doing it. We are already seeing the blessings.

On Sunday the 18^th, some members in our ward (The Bailey’s) brought their neighbor Kim to church with them. She said she enjoyed the service and later in the week Sister Bailey called us and said that Kim wanted us to teach her. We taught her in the Bailey’s home on Friday night and it went really well. We taught her the Restoration and she had a lot of great questions. She committed to coming to church, reading from the Book of Mormon, and to getting baptized when she discovers the gospel is true. She wasn’t able to make it to church this week. She realized Saturday night that she had already made plans. However, she promised to be there next week and she already read the assignment we gave her. I can’t wait to teach her again!

That same Sunday, I taught Elder’s Quorum. By myself. It went so great! The lesson was on the Priesthood and I felt like, all things considered, it was a great lesson.

We have taught a few lessons this week to recent-converts and less-active members. It is a great way to practice teaching. One thing we have been doing that I like is finding conference talks that we think can help certain people and read them as part of our lesson. It is a great way to invite the spirit and to plan a lesson.

Last night there was an Inter-Faith Musical/Fireside at the church that we went to. It was really good! Quite a few of the numbers were performed by missionaries so President and Sister Pehrson were there so it was good to see them.

Well, that hits the highlights. I hope everyone is doing well! For those of you who have recently experienced a change in address, please let me know how I can get a hold of you now! For everyone else, don’t forget how much I would LOVE to hear from you! I love you all!

An Unproductive But Nonetheless Good Week

So as you know, I woke up last Tuesday with some pretty heavy flu-like symptoms. After we went to the library and did our weekly emails, we went back to our apartment and I got straight to bed. We had to cancel dinner appointments on Tuesday and Wednesday and that made me feel really bad but I really didn’t want to get anyone else sick.

When I finally woke up from my days of rest on Thursday, we went straight to Zone Conference. It was so good. We just had some training from the zone leaders, the office elders, the assistants and from President Pehrson. I really love him. It was such a boost and really picked me up after being sick and being down in the dumps about missionary work.

At Zone Conference, they announced the new way they are going to schedule things. They used to hold Zone Conference every month. Now, it will only be quarterly. Same with interviews. I was kinda sad but everyone says it will be better that way because President’s schedule will be more flexible and he can spend more one-on-one time with missionaries, which should be nice.

After Zone Conference on Thursday night, we went to a part-member family’s house for pizza and a lesson. We watched the Restoration DVD and bore some good testimonies. Elder Berthelson is such a stud. The lesson went really well and the spirit was definitely there.

Friday, Friday, Friday… Friday was a very … emotional… day. We got a call in the morning from some other elders in our district who asked us to help someone move. We went over there and nothing was ready. The house was a mess and it was a very hard task to accomplish. I have never seen so much STUFF in all my life! That night we stopped by a less-active member and got her to commit to reading from the Book of Mormon so that was good. We had a really neat discussion with her about the Bible and then we finished the night off with some tracting.

On Saturday we honestly spent the majority of the day writing our talks for Sacrament meeting on Sunday. We went to stop by a less-active who wasn’t home but his wife was very nice. After that, we went and got our haircuts at the Bailey’s house (a super nice young family in the ward). Then we just came home and went to bed.

Sunday was a good day. We were hoping Guy and Solange (Our French investigators) would be at church, but by the time the Sacrament was over, they were nowhere to be seen. There was a talk followed by a rest hymn and then I got up to speak. Shortly after I started, they walked in. I got so excited to see them my whole voice changed. My talk went pretty well. Considering the time and resources I had, I was pretty proud of it.

All in all, I would write this off as a good week. One thing that got me really excited was a bunch of gossip that has been going through the mission. Because our mission is so small (about 70 missionaries) there is speculation that when President Pehrson goes home next year, our mission will be dissolved and split up and added to the New York New York North mission and the Massachusetts Boston mission. I keep having visions of being in NYC or Boston and it gets me really excited! Whatever way it all turns out though will be for the best. For now, I’m just content right here in Trumbull! I love you all and thank you for all of your love and support!