This week was...interesting. Last Monday after emailing you guys I went and got the worst haircut of my life. haha. I forgot my camera so I´ll send you the pictures next week. Everyone in the ward was calling me baldy and the like, so its been a good opportunity to learn humility. ha. Recently we have been working with our members a ton, since there are lots and lots of problems in the ward. It's been rewarding. We have had some very spiritual lessons with some ward members that are feeling like they´ve reached the end of the rope.
We had stake conference this week which was pretty cool. They called a new Stake President - he´s a young guy; probably no older than 30. He was a Bishop for two months and then got the call to be stake pres. Pretty cool. Elder Valenzuela from the Seventy and Elder Walker, an Area Seventy, came to reorganize the stake. They gave some pretty awesome instruction. In other news there are apparently 2 people in the stake that play piano and I´m one of them. So I got to play in the conference - it was fun.
A missionary´s life is somewhat interesting. There are so many ups and downs. It's been a bit of a rough week. But extremely rewarding. I love being a missionary. Which reminds me - I try to avoid paying attencion (Clark's Spanish spelling!) to the calendar, but sometimes I realize that a good chunk of time has passed in other ways. Ex. - today I finished off the last of my 5 jars of peanut butter. I also realize that I´ve been here a little while when I see how white a new missionary´s shirt is compared to mine. But I digress.
Thanks for your emails. Its always a pleasure to hear about your weeks. You guys never fail to make me chuckle. ha.
Roy - In your FACE Texas! ha. I´m confident you and Andee have kept the ´´KILL!!´´ tradition alive. ha. It's a bummer that you guys won´t be there next year. But all is well. You destroyed the GRE!! holy cow! I hope you get into your preferred school. (btw what is your #1 school?) Advanced Probability sounds pretty legit, but then again it sounds pretty tough . But, then again the only spot on your record came from a freshman level geography class ha. Love you bro. Thanks for the email.
Dad - Taysom Hill eh? I approve. I´m glad to hear the Braves are Rocking, and the Jaguars are embarrassing their fan base, as always. 11 punts in a day is pretty impressive. haha. How´s Dunn Avenue doing? I liked what you said about preparing yourself for spiritual things. You really have to get in the zone, so to speak. Let faith overcome your doubts and follow the admonition of Christ. ´´Be not afraid, only believing.´´ That's awesome that Tom is on a Indian reservation. Hopefully he´s been able to resist the cheap liquor haha. (is that racist?) if it is, my apologies. Anyway, on to the questions.
1. Tell us about the streets flooding. How does that happen. It looks like there are hills. Doesn't the water keep moving?
The street flooding is amazing. Within a minute the streets can do from dry to covered with 6 inches of water. There are hills indeed. Which function similarly to the endless wave on cruise boats. Its genuinely impressive.
2. Tell us about an investigator.
We have a ton of great investigators. One of our harder cases is Roberto. He is from Honduras (he´s an illegal here) and lives with his girlfriend (uhh! why!?). He believed from the first second we started talking about Joseph Smith and can´t stop talking about how much he likes what the church teaches about families. But...He has to get married. Which is going to cost a ton of money (he either has to go to Honduras and do it there, or become a Mexican citizen first - a short, 7 year process). But I´m sure he´ll stick in there till he finds the way. I won´t be baptizing him, but someday he´ll get dunked ha.
3. Tell us something you either learned this week or something you know that was reinforced by experience.
One thing that never fails to surprise me is how willing less actives are to go to church. In many cases all they need is an invitation. I´m confident that with a relatively small, yet diligent effort to rescue the less actives, most wards could improve their attendance by 15.
4. You may have told me this before. But the self cooling sweat rag we bought at Home Depot and sent in your package with the peanut butter. Does it work? Is it amazing?
The cool rag isn´t really a miracle, but it's nice.
5. Do people have Internet there? Do you have people look things up on LDS.org? That kind of stuff.
Very few have internet in their house, but they all go the the cibers. We always invite people to check out lds.org and mormon.org but they never do. haha.
6. What can we do to help you?
What can you do to help? Pray. Be member missionaries. I would encourage you to do all that you can to participate in this great work. If every member of the church invited 1 person to receive the missionary lessons this year, and 1 in 15 went on to get baptized, there would be over 1 million convert baptisms this year. It can be done.
Have a great week Dad. I love you!
Mom - haha, I can totally see myself having a mission contracted disease for the next 10 years ha. That was a cool insight from the Samaritan woman at the well. The words from Henry Eyring senior come to mind, ´´Hal, I wasn´t there for the weeds.´´ Have fun on your trip to New York. I gotta say that I´m a bit jealous. But I´ve got a Mexican Visa and you don´t so in Your face! ha. I love you mom.
A to the D - your singles ward story made me laugh out loud. I can totally see that happening. Luckily our bishopric was formed of older men so I never got that shocker ha. Keep on rocking and scream your lungs out at the football games for me. You rock, never change haha.
Times Up! Until next week Godspeed. And Brethren, pray for us.
Elder Roth
No comments:
Post a Comment