5 Months Out

So, tomorrow is my five month mark. Time has passed so fast and I feel like not that much has happened. Every week I say that there is “nothing new”. Sadly, for the most part, the same goes for this week but I’ll give the rundown anyway.

On Wednesday, we went to Young Women in Excellence in hopes of talking to Emily’s parents. We were able to shoot the breeze with her dad for about ten minutes and it went really well. I think they are starting to warm up to the idea of Emily getting baptized so please continue to pray for them.

Thursday night, we went to the English’s for dinner, one of my favorite families in the ward and helped them put a desk together. They are feeding us on Thanksgiving and I’m way excited for it. Sister English’s family is Greek and Orthodox Catholic so there is lots of drama promised.

Friday night, we taught Julian about Repentance and Baptism and finalized a baptismal date for November 6 so hopefully we’ll get him sufficiently prepared by then.

That is all that has happened this week. I hope you are all doing well! Have a good week.

What to Say

It was, once again, a very slow week. We weren't able to teach Julian because his family all came down with a cold and for us, that meant lots of finding activities.

On Saturday, we got the call notifying us of transfers and found out that Elder Thomas and I will be staying in Trumbull. I was excited about that! On Sunday, Elder Thomas had to speak in church and gave a really good talk on the "Faith of our Fathers". He told his grandma's conversion story and it was really good.

Please pray that soon we will have people to teach! We have one potential that works with some members. Her name is Christine and in the past year, she had breast cancer, a double mastectomy, and her husband left her. Some members in the ward are working with her so hopefully she'll be ready to meet with us soon!

That's all for this week. I love you guys! Thanks for everything!

Someone in Connecticut is Getting Baptized Soon

That’s right. Who, you might ask. I’ll give you some hints: This person is a boy. He is nine years old. Do you know who it is yet? His name is Julian.

This week, we taught him a great lesson on faith and the importance of relying on Jesus Christ. He was able to understand and relate the reading assignment we left him from the Book of Mormon. It was a great lesson and we were able to teach at his level to help him understand. At the end, we committed him to be baptized on the 30^th of this month. However, that date is probably going to be changed because the primary in our ward is doing a trunk or treat that day. It is so exciting to see someone progress toward baptism. I’ve already seen Julian’s understanding grow and know that he will continue to learn more.

Other than Julian, we are in a drought. Things with Emily are the same as they have always been and other than her we have NO other investigators. We have tried not to tract this week which has forced us to be a little more creative with our finding, but no more successful. We have gone by lots of former investigators and old potential investigators but no one is interested.

Last week for P-day, we took the train up to New Haven and went to Yale with our district. It wasn’t bad but it isn’t something I’m dying to do again. First of all, when we got there, nobody had a plan or knew what we were doing so we just walked in a gigantic circle. I don’t think I have ever had to use a bathroom so badly in my life as I did then. We went into a Dunkin Donuts with a sign that said, “Bathroom for customers only” and the door locked. I asked the clerk, “Can I please use the bathroom? I PROMISE I’ll buy something”. Then she told me it was out of order. Then we went to Sub Way. They had a sign on their bathroom too but theirs said, “Out of order”. We made our way over to the bookstore and the clerk there told me that they didn’t have a bathroom but there was one next door at Educated Burger. I made my way over there and climbed the stairs to their bathroom. I stepped inside and it was literally smaller than airplane bathrooms, and dirtier. But at this point I had to remind myself that beggars can’t be choosers and thus ended my bathroom pilgrimage.

We went to the bookstore and I had hopes of getting a few souvenirs. However, a children’s hoodie was 50 bucks. No. Thank you. So, even though it was hard, I walked away purchase-free. Then we went to a pizza joint for a late lunch and jumped the train back home.

That’s all that is new with me. I love all of you and thank you for your support. Let me know how you are!

The Work Moves On

What an amazing week this has been! Our key-indicators (numbers we keep track of and report like lessons taught and Books of Mormon given away) have been a record low; all zero’s except the three lessons we taught this week. However, we have worked so hard and enjoyed the Spirit very much this week.

General Conference was amazing! There has been no experience thus far in my mission that has come with such a spiritual high. The announcement of the temple in Hartford brought indescribable feelings of elation. There were only a few people in the chaple with us watching when the announcement was made, but the joy and tears and Spirit there was electric.

Prior to Conference, I wanted to understand my purpose more. As I mentioned earlier, our numbers had been slipping and our pool of investigators has dropped to two people (Emily and Julian). I started to experience discouragement, telling myself that any baboon could stand in my shoes and accomplish the same thing. However, my prayers for a greater understanding and resolve were answered in the priesthood session. Elder Nelson was the opening speaker. He stepped to the pulpit and asked all full-time missionaries to stand, wherever in the world they may be. I stood and he took a moment to offer praise and thanks for the valiant men serving missions. It mad me realize that I am not in this alone; that I am one member of a massive army, moving the word of God forth. It was a great feeling. I’m getting emotional all over again just thinking about it.

Between sessions yesterday, we went to lunch at a Spanish members house with the Spanish Elders and had TOSTADAS!! Before yesterday, I didn’t even know what those were but it brought a smile to my face as I thought of my surrogate brother being chased around by the girl screaming, “Eli, want a tostada?”

This week, as you could probably tell by the numbers, was full of tracting and trying to find people to teach. We still have a few potentials and people we need to follow up with so please pray that Elder Thomas and I can start teaching some of these people.

Today, we are taking the train up to New Haven and going to Yale (Not Harvard…). It should be a neat experience and I’ll let you know how it turns out. Maybe I’ll love it so much that I’ll decide to go there. You never know. Haha.

I hope you are all doing well. Remember how much I love each of you and think about you all. Have a great week!

Slow But Good

This week, we had a pretty fun experience. We were able to teach early morning seminary on Friday on D&C sections 4 & 5. It went really well and it was so cool for me to see the dedication of the students. I wish I would have taken more advantage of seminary and seeing these 30 kids wake up at 5 in the morning to partake of the gospel.

Elder Thomas and I are doing tons of tracting and trying to find people to teach. We are making some progress with Julian and Emily is moving along great, as always, but we want to be teaching so bad! Luckily our ward is great and are also looking for missionary opportunities.

There isn’t much else to say. Just please pray for Elder Thomas and myself and for the people out here. Remember, missions are a hard thing. Letters make them better. Thanks for everything. I love you all very much and think about you constantly! Have a splendored week.

Two for One

I guess I have two weeks to cover since the library was closed for Labor Day last week and since a lot has happened lately, I’ll just jump right into it.

Elder Berthelson has gone home to his family. This makes me a little bit sad and a lot jealous but there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. His name is Elder Thomas. He’s my new companion (also from West Jordan but he never knew Elder Berthelson). So far, we are getting along great and having tons of fun together. He has been out one transfer more than me so we are both fairly green but I am learning a lot from him.

Before Elder Berthelson left, he woke me up one night to tell me he heard water running upstairs. I was annoyed at first, until I realized that same water was starting to run down the wall of our living room. We tried to wake our landlords to no avail so we called 911. Some police officers and firemen showed up and ripped our ceiling down. It was a huge mess and a pain for quite a few days but they have finally started to fix it.

I don’t know if I have said much or anything about our French investigators but they are moving out of our area soon. I had mixed emotions about it. They are such golden people and I want the missionaries to still have contact with them, but on the other hand, we never really “taught” them because of the language barrier. Hopefully there will be a French speaker in their new ward.

Yesterday we went with our friend Brother Bailey to deliver invitations to all the less-actives in the ward for the upcoming Stake Conference. We were able to meet a lady that we have been trying to get a hold of for a long time named Tatiana. She was way nice and said she’d have us over for dinner sometime. Hopefully, we can get her back to church and possibly teach her husband.

Julian, our nine-year old investigator, hasn’t been able to meet with us lately. We had an appointment set up for Friday but that morning his mom went to the hospital. She was having some chest pains and ended up having a miscarriage. It was very sad. Prayers for their family would sure be appreciated!

I love to hear from all of you and find out what is new and how you are doing. I love all of you very much and know that I have such a huge and awesome circle of support. Thanks for the love and thanks for the letters!

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!