Chapter 80 - July 22, 2013

So this week was a good week for us :).  We were again able to teach 20 lessons this week, which makes that 3 weeks in a row now! woot!  Elder Farnsworth and I are trying to figure out now how we can increase our number of lessons taught a week because we can consistently get to 20.  More good news is that all 6 of the people that we are teaching right now that have baptismal dates are all progressing very well :).  The people i told you about last week, Megan and DJ, are super receptive to the gospel.  This last week we taught them about the Plan of Salvation and at the end of the lessons both knew from the spirit that the Plan of Salvation is true.  Our Heavenly father is really blessing us right now in our area. :)

Well, that's all i have to report on this week so peace out till next week :).  Ill make sure to send some pictures :)

Chapter 79 - July 15, 2013

So things are going awesome right now for me and Elder Farnsworth.  This last week we had a goal of trying to teach 25 lessons and unfortunately we didn't teach that many, but we did teach 20 lessons so we still were able to meet the mission standard of teaching 20 lessons a week :).  This week we also were able to invite 2 more people to be baptized and they accepted! :).   That now puts us up to 6 people that we are currently working with that are progressing towards getting baptized.  We would have 8 but one is kinda in jail for the next 3 weeks or so and the other one we just haven't been able to meet with recently to setup another baptismal date with.  

I would have to say i have 2 highlights that tie for the best highlight of the week.  The first one is that Brother and Sister Jose came down on friday and took me and my companion out to lunch!  Woot! :)  It was so awesome to see them again cause i seriously miss everyone back in Ririe so much.  The other highlight is one of the investigators we found.  We met with her and her husband this week and it's amazing to see how much our heavenly father has prepared her to meet with the missionaries and to accept the gospel.  A day after our first visit with her we get a text from her about how she has been reading the book of mormon and how everytime she picks it up and starts reading she gets goosebumps.  She says she has never felt the spirit so strong like this her entire life of reading the bible.  She knows already that the book of mormon is true and is amazed by how much it goes hand in hand with the bible :).  The other cool story we had with her this week is we went to go stop by on saturday to see how they were doing and to remind them about church and about after a few minutes of talking with them she asked if we could read scriptures with her and her husband.  So we started off with a prayer and began reading where she left off in the book of mormon and about after reading 3 pages or so she stops us and asks if we can say another prayer real quick that her and her husband will be able to retain everything that they have just read and that they will be able to understand/retain everything else they are about to read.  She is so amazing and prepared it's awesome.  I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost and our Heavenly father for making this all possible and touching her life and testifying to her about the truthfulness of the book of mormon.  Well, that's all i got to say this week so peace out till next week :)

With love,

Elder ---chis--->

Chapter 78 - July 8, 2013

Things went really well this week for us :).  Like really really well :).  This week we were able to...TEACH 21 lessons! XD.  We were so excited when we finished off the week having taught that many lessons.  This next week though we have a goal of teaching 25 lessons! XD we also found 3 new people to teach this week and they all accepted our invitation to be baptized :).  Heavenly father is definitely blessing us right now in our work :).  Transfer calls come this week and me and my companion, Elder Farnsworth, are really hoping to stay together another transfer.  He is probably one of the companions i have gotten along the best with :).  The 4th of july was alright.  I definitely enjoyed the fact that we got an all day p-day but we really couldn't figure out what to do hahaha.  We kinda just did random stuff throughout the day and then at night hung out at a members house :).

So ya that's another awesome thing about idaho is that your experience you had with fireworks on 4th of july happens here too hahaha.  Everyone goes and gets fireworks and lights them off in their backyards and what not :). 

  

I am glad everything is going well back at home.  love you all and peace out till next week :)

With love,

Elder ---chis--->

Chapter 77 - July 1, 2013

So things went alright this week for us.  We were able to get in contact with a few of our referrals this week and from that we now have 2 new families to begin teaching and hopefully we will be getting atleast 1-2 more families to start teaching :).  Also, one of the less-active people we have been working with came to church again for the 2nd time now :).  It's so amazing to see how much the lord is helping us in the work.  I seriously see it everyday from him reminding us about stuff, because me and my comp are a little forgetful sometimes hahaha, to him giving us people to teach and leading us right to them.  We had a cool experience the other week.  We were going to go contact someone that had previously been visited by missionaries and while on the way we get this phone call from a member who was asking if we would go visit the exact family we were about to go visit.  So when we got there we found the husband outside and just started to talk with him.  He said his wife really wants to start coming back to church again and that he himself would really like to get involved with the missionaries and learn more about the church.  I love being a missionary :).

This last week there was this huge Priesthood Scouting encampment and they gave out this new award there called the Thomas S. Monson award.  To get this award they had to talk to missionaries and discuss different topics like duty to god/eagle scout/the book of mormon/for the strength of youth/etc.  So you will never guess what happened to me and my companion?  We got selected to be some of the few missionaries to go to this encampment and help the scouts get their award!!!!! :)  It was soooo legit to do that.  We all had our own stations inside the LDS visitor center tent and i taught the scouts all about the importance of the eagle scout/duty to god awards.  It was hard standing all day and talking for 7 hours straight but man was it a ton of fun.  I will have to say this though, i definitely now know that i never want to be a temple visitor center missionary because my throat hurt sooooo much at the end of the day hahaha.

To answer your super long list of questions; 1) As a district leader i conduct district meetings, go on exchanges with everyone in my district (which i have 8 other missionaries in my district so that's a lot of exchanges haha), do phone calls every thursday to check up on them and then again on sunday to get their numbers for the week, give them permission to do things, and make sure all the elders in my district are doing ok.  2) yes, i am finally getting the hang of conducting district meetings, it was definitely a little stressful my first few times hahaha.

Well, love you all and hope the best for all of you :).  Peace out till next week :).

With love,

Elder ---chis--->