Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Received Monday, April 15, 2013

Somehow - I guess through not paying enough attention, I posted this on the wrong blog...OOPS
I was going to take it off and repost where it belongs, on Zak's Mission blog, elderzak.blogspot.com
but maybe people might read it here and enjoy it; if you don't then just don't and 
please accept my apologies!



QUESTIONS:
Have you heard the First Presidency letter about testimony meeting?
yup, our bishop read it a few weeks ago. I will comment further below

I sent you mail this week with some pictures; got it yet?
yes I did! I will comment further below

Don’t your Pres. Packard interviews go along with transfer weeks? Does that mean transfers are coming again soon??
we have interviews about every 3 transfers. Our next transfer is a week from this Thursday

How did your Mormon.org appt go this week?? How old is he?
we went and...... he was not there. Unfortunately that is not an uncommon happening with this sort of thing. We haven't gone back yet, but we certainly will soon. We do have a home phone number too. We don't know who it was that requested the missionaries sent to that house. It was not stephon, probably a friend from out of town or something that thought he would listen too/they knew he was an open thinker.

note on mormon.org referrals: we get them every once and a while and this is close to the best one i've gotten. often times it is exactly like tracking; you knock and they just say all set (or some derivative. people in CT don't use it as much). If you want to share the gospel with a friend it's usually not the best to do it in secret and silently send missionaries while hoping your friend never realizes it was you who sent them. You ought to ask them yourself if they're interested; they are way more likely to respond well to you, a friend, than two goons in suits who knock on their door while they're in the middle of something. If you care about/believe in the gospel and you care about your friends it only makes sense you want to connect the two. done with the right way with the right intentions, friends will feel more cared about and loved as a result, whether they say yes or no. (not that there is specifically a "right way" or silver bullet answer, but I think you know what I mean). 

One interesting analogy I found when I first came to the area: We asked a couple (they have 2 kids, both priest age, everyone very strong in the gospel and good at missionary work) to come with us to a lesson. it went well and afterwards they took us out to lunch (at Arbys!). while there they told us a funny story about how the neighbors/friends in the area, about the same age, also with kids etc, would invite them to keggers/wild drinking party's. they thought it was kind of gross parents were having such parties and kind of funny that they kept getting invited even though everyone knew they were Mormon. they would say stuff like "hey I know you're not coming but, there's a party this Saturday if you want!". I asked how they (the couple) felt when they were invited to such things. they said honestly, it was neighborly and friendly! the invite is oozing with irresponsibility and not-smart-ness, but because it was done out of true care it still made them closer friends. how come the beer-party people have figured this aspect of missionary work out, but we struggle when we are sharing something to helpful, meaningful (which people already learned once before they were born! all we have to do is remind them about it) also clearly a lot of people would be offended by that invite no matter how it was given, so we do need to think about what we invite people to as well as how we do it.

Did you have Hot and Cold weather this week? Did you wear short sleeves this week?
a little bit. I think coming from California and just enduring a NE winter I'm confused about what is hot and what is cold. Most every day this week I went out in long sleeve shirts, no sweater. we did have a colder rainy day too. And we did turn the AC on in the car a number of times which was exciting

What are your plans today?
just regular P-Day things. I mentioned we're speaking at church about general conference soon, it's this sunday (the 21st. I may have accidentally said a different date last time) so we'll spend some time printing out a few conference talks to use and quote from. Then dinner at the Phillips and then a lesson with an investigator

What good food have you eaten recently?
our fast sunday meal yesterday was Sooo good. it was grilled chicken (and he "grilled" a few pieces of wood, I think cedar, along with the chicken to give it flavor). and Risotto and salad and broccoli (they said they have broccoli almost every day!) and some of the best rolls ever. Also there were cookies and ice cream for dessert.

Hear any news on any of your old companions...how they are doing? Just wondering.
my trainer Elder Woodruff is home. I heard from another missionary that he was made ward mission leader there. I called Elder Beck once, he was doing fine. He has since been transferred somewhere else

Did you ask the Elwells if they knew the Coles from Duarte?
no, I forgot to ask about the connection there. another person in the ward, brother Purser said we may be somehow related because he has some sort of Cole relatives in Idaho, but I can't remember exactly. Also did I mention there is a Cole family here in the ward? I'm not good at keeping up with all the past and old genealogical connections; I would not have made a good Jaradite prophet.


About the letter you sent, It was fun to read. I can't believe you guys didn't immediately see the joking'ness about watching conference in our apartment! us missionary types have basically no access to technology; if we had a math problem to solve we'd probably have to ask around for an abacus because we've forgotten how to use anything more advanced
and good drawing you put in the end

this week was pretty good. we had a ward party on Friday which was very well done. It had a decades theme (50's through 90's). A lot of people dressed up pretty well, and we had an investigator come! she and her daughter who came both really liked it and a member or two did a great job reaching out to talk to her.

sunday we were really excited because that same investigator was going to come to church for the first time. we even went to the house in the morning to make sure and everyone was getting ready. then, they never showed up! (we found out later a friends had to go to the ER, and she dashed over to watch the kids. understandable). but initially we were disappointed while at sacrament meeting. Also none of the youth invites pulled through, most people were already out of town for spring break and stuff, so we'll continue thinking about them. but the cool thing was that still all the priests got up and bore their testimony. everyone really liked it. Most of them spoke about missionary work which was cool too. Another person also got up and talked about a great missionary experience. very good meeting, made us feel a lot better. Afterwards bishop got up and talked about how he thought it was a great meeting, and beforehand he was thinking about whether or not to re-read the first presidency message, but was glad he didn't because it went well. also he said something like "the reason this was a great meeting was because we did exactly what it said, which surprised me!). it was funny.

exciting news for quinn, he often gets to spice up the emails. I hope Christopher enjoys his long muddy run. I hope Kobe doesn't retire. Good luck to everyone on all their different things

-until next week,
Me