11 Jul 2016

This week was great! On Monday we got haircuts. We got them from a lady in the Spanish branch. We can't speak Spanish so the Sisters came with us.  While Elder Case was getting his hair cut the sisters were talking to this other lady who was there. Then I heard them all laugh and one of the Sisters turned to me and said, "She thinks you’re handsome and she wants to present her daughter to you." So the lady handed me her phone and showed me a picture of her daughter. I wasn't sure what to say so I didn't say anything. I've never been offered anyone's daughter before. After that we went to Donut Falls. It was really crowded, but it was the 4th of July so we expected it would be. It was a lot easier this time through and there wasn't any near death experience, so that was good. I didn't go all the way up to the falls cuz it got kinda steep for my liking. So I chilled with Sister Martinez and we watched everyone climb to the top. On the way back to the car we saw this family and they had a girl with them who was around 10 years old. She saw a chipmunk and said, "Look a little rat!"  It was really funny. 

The Zone leaders gave us a ride home to change our shoes, because they were wet from walking through the water. Then we met at the zone building and played games until 9. I got sick at around 7:30. It's probably because I ate 3 double cheeseburgers and then played basketball right after.

Transfer day! We got Elder Case all packed up and shipped him off to Grantsville. His new companion is Elder Bowler. He is the Shortest Elder in the mission standing at 5'4" and Elder Case is 6'9". So that's pretty great. They dropped me off at the new zone building and I waited there for like an hour for Elder Coleman. He had to take a detour through Magna so his companion could pick up his new companion.

We eventually got back to the house and unpacked and then went off to some lessons. We taught a lesson to a lady named Amanda Powers. She is a non-member who is engaged to a less active member. We taught her the restoration, but when we got to the end of the lesson we felt impressed to hold off on inviting her to be baptized. And that was our first day together.

On Wednesday we taught Tommy Bean. He was supposed to have gotten baptized on Saturday, but he wants his grandpa to baptize him. His grandpa isn't super active so he met with the bishop and they agreed that the grandpa would be ready next month. So he is getting baptized on August 20th. The grandparents are also starting to work towards the temple again, so that's super exciting. Then that night we met with brother Neff. It was a great lesson as always. We talked about scripture study.

Thursday was pretty uneventful. We had weekly planning and that finished a little early so I did some additional scripture study. We had Cafe Rio for dinner so that was good. I love Cafe Rio it's like my favorite place to eat. Then we visited people for the rest of the night.

On Friday I studied D&C 106 and 107 for my studies. It was really good! Then we headed off to district meeting. The Sisters were 15 minutes late. We did a small intro thing with everyone. I told everyone that I had been out a little over a year, and then everyone laughed at me. It was a good district meeting, but it felt weird not being the one giving the training. I didn't think I would miss being district leader, but I actually do. I miss the extra opportunity to serve others and checking up on everyone and asking how there day was. I feel like a mantle was taken from me. Oh well maybe it's just to give me a taste of what going home will be like. 

Then we went to Cafe Rio for lunch. After we went and taught Keven about prophets and scriptures. It was a short lesson. So we actually didn't have dinner this week and neither did the Spanish Sisters so we all went and ate dinner at one of their members houses. It was pretty good. I'm not used to eating Hispanic food. Not much happened that night.

On Saturday we had a morning workout with the Zone. We did Zumba. It was interesting. Then we got home and left at 8:30 to go help the District Leader with a service project. We mixed and layed concrete. I've never done that before, it was cool I guess. Then until dinner we visited Bishops and Ward Mission Leaders. We have some great support here. All of the auxiliaries seem to love us. So hopefully we will have some work spread evenly around the stake. We had another lesson with Rose. We teach her at Brother Aini's house. He is from the branch and he is on the high council. So we really can't move on with the lessons a whole lot because she hasn't prayed about the Book of Mormon yet. So we went a little more in depth about prophets and the scriptures and why they are so important. She said she would read and pray about it before our next meeting. It was a really good lesson.

On Sunday we gave talks in the 7th ward on missionary work. It's weird to think that this could have been the last talk on my mission. Everyone seemed to have liked it. I wasn't super prepared for my talk because I was going to put finishing touches on my talk Sunday morning but I ended up redoing the whole thing. It turned out good though. Then we went to the Marshallese branch. After Sacrament meeting we were talking to Brother Aini and he asked us if we like teaching Marshallese people. We said, "Of course. We especially love teaching the Marshallese people."  He got this really excited look on his face and said "Oh, I will get you two or three more people to work with then!" And then he went over to this lady in the branch and asked her for referrals for us! He was so excited. So I guess all you have to do is ask. Then we went to 3rd Ward Sacrament meeting. After that we had a lesson with Diana. She now lives in an RV so that's kind of interesting. But there are no signs of her giving up hope. She gets so happy and thankful at everything we say. We told her we would get her a gospel art book so she could picture things better and she said thank you so much and started to cry. She is awesome! Then on Sunday night we got 5 referrals from the Marshallese branch for people that come actively but are not members. So things are really starting to look up!