Week 9: I don't know what to put for the caption this week... a lot happened.

So Tuesday night was awesome. Elder Powell and I were out knocking and didn't really find anyone to teach for an hour and a half, but a half hour before we were supposed to be finished we went down this hidden driveway that Elder Powell found, and the first house we knocked on was this old lady who had talked to the missionaries and had lessons from them a few years before, but for some reason or other she didn't want to be baptized. It was such a miracle coming across her. She says that she's had a few near death experiences that had caused her to want to change, and since then she's turned to the bible and studied everything about it. It was so cool to meet her, because we ended up just talking with her for 2 hours. She was supposed to have bible study that night but it had gotten canceled, and yet we ended up on her doorstep and in some of the first few moments that we shared some things with her we taught her some things that the other missionaries didn't talk about. And she said that some of these things were very important to her and that she wanted to know more. By the end of the night Elder Powell ended up sharing something with her in Isaiah that made her tear up and feel the need to go talk to God when we were finished.

It took up the rest of our night and her house and now our clothes reeked of cigarette smoke (she smoked an entire pack while talking with us), but it was so worth it. It's just too bad that she's not Hispanic, so we have to refer her to the English missionaries.

Wednesday we had a meeting with the stake president and the rest of the zone. The stake president had some good tios for us, but what I really found meaningful is what the zone leaders had to say. One of the things they shared is a quote from Preach My Gospel:

“I have often said one of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work! If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; and if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people and he will be happy. There will be no homesickness, no worrying about families, for all time and talents and interests are centered on the work of the ministry. Work, work, work—there is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work.”

—President Ezra Taft Benson


Thursday was Thanksgiving and no one from our branch invited us over, so the zone leaders found a family for us to have dinner with named Sagastizado. The food was just pretty standard stuff. We ended up staying there from 1:00 to 8:00 because after the meal we played a 4 hour game of risk and then a 2 hour game of unstable unicorns. It was so fun, and it was nice that we wouldn't just be at our apartment all day.

Friday we did exchanges with the zone leaders which was interesting.

Saturday we didn't get to do too much because we had to do weekly planning. We did get in a small car accident but everyone was fine and only our mirror got broken off, and so now we have a better car so the other one can get repaired. About the crash, Elder Powell didn't see a lady when he was switching lanes and she zoomed ahead to try and avoid a collision. It took off the mirror as you can see.

Sunday was mostly uneventful. Other than the zone leaders' car getting stolen. They got it back eventually because of a device the church put in the car, but the the ditched it and stole the bike rack and a few other things.  My companions and I were asked to speak, and we had to do it in Spanish, so I was super nervous. We were given the option to speak on anything we wanted to. I chose to speak about the Book of Mormon. I was supposed to speak for 10 minutes, but somehow I spoke for 15. Also giving a talk in Spanish is so much easier simply because I can't tell what I'm saying so I can't even judge my own talk on how it went.

I thought lizards lived in the desert?

Most of the zone

My companions and I: Elder Bradley, Elder Williams, Elder Powell (the ginger)

Unstable unicorns, it's a very interesting game.

Week 8: Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hey everyone!! This week has been pretty great. I've focused more on my personal studies and found a lot to learn from reading the Book of Mormon. Also this week we got 2 people on date for baptisms, so that's exciting. The hardest part though is getting them to come to church. They always have some sort of excuse as to why they can't come. We've also tried getting them to come to a church tour, but they won't even do that. This one guy, Brayan, who's probably in his late teens or early twenties, says that he feels like if he goes to church it should be with his parents and he just doesn't feel comfortable with church. We've tried to teach his parents but Brayan never invites us inside some just have lessons on his cold porch.

The other hard part about teaching Hispanics is that there's always someone different who answers the door and the other person you were going to teach isn't home. So we'll get plenty of new people to teach, but they don't commit.

Also a random experience that happened when we went to go visit some investigators: we were going to a trailer park, like usual, and there were four cop cars near our investigator's trailer. So there were lots of police out too, there were also some guys in military uniform, but when two of the elders went to meet with the investigator, they said that the police were out trying to find someone who had apparently been running around threatening people with a sword. We decided to not stick around for very long.

As for answers to questions about how a companionship of four works, we generally switch off every day. Me and Elder Williams just switch trainers, so he'll be with either Elder Powell or Elder Bradley, and I'll be with the other one. Then the next day we switch. Also we only have one car: a Toyota Corolla. So we generally only use the car and sometimes have members drive two of us so we can cover more ground and have members with us for lessons. We only have three bikes, and the elder who doesn't have one probably won't need one until he gets put in a biking area.

When we teach lessons, two of us will go meet with half of the investigators in the area, and the other two will meet with the other half. But usually we can't even get in the door. They either don't answer or they're not home. We have been getting fed some pretty good food though. When members feed us, they have to feed four of us at a time, but that's now changing. We had zone conference this week and one of the changes is that we won't be getting fed by members in their homes Monday through Friday. They either drop it off to us, we pick it up, or we just make our own food. On Saturday and Sunday they want us to have dinner with less active families, part member families, but if that doesn't happen then we can get it from members. It's putting more focus on the ward mission leader since he has to coordinate these things.

It can be difficult having to work some things out between four instead of just two, but it's definitely nice to have more people. Elder Powell is a funny guy who feels strongly about missionary work and his purpose. He's a wrestler and a football player. Elder Bradley is also pretty witty. He's very diligent and knows a lot about Spanish, how to teach lessons, etc. And Elder Williams loves to talk and fix things. He's almost always talking even if he isn't talking to anyone in particular. And if he's not talking, he's fixing something: food, tables, bikes, organizing closets, cleaning.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Elder Williams making an apron from a pair of ruined dress pants he found.

Meme that Elder Powell made of Brother Saucedo. Brother Saucedo is an awesome guy who loves talking about ionized water, BYU (he's never been, but he's taking online classes), and about the blessings he can get by helping us with lessons, giving us water, or anything else.

My small desk and bed. I used to just have the stool as my desk, but now I got an upgrade and have a bigger desk.

Service project we did Friday morning for a witch who hosted a coven focused on earth based paganism. (Also I'm not sure what Elder Bradley is trying to do in the very back. He's either dancing, doing some martial arts thing, or raking the leaves. Can't tell)

Week 7: Week two in the field

Not a whole lot happened this week, but it went by fast. It's kind of discouraging how every week and every day seems exactly the same. We try to set up appointments for people who have seemed interested or for our investigators, but they all mostly seem to fall through. When we go to meet with them they're always busy, or it's too late since it starts getting dark around 5:30 here. The main thing I've learned that I need to focus on is the good that I'm doing. Often, it doesn't seem like I have the opportunity to do very much good, but every time we do find those people willing to learn amongst all the doors being slammed in our faces, it really helps reinforce the reason why I'm out here.

But even though every day is the same, there's generally always something that makes it stand out from the others. For instance, I've met some people in trailer parks who haven't had anyone to talk to for a very long time. This one lady we met while knocking doors, who seemed to be in her 70's, talked to us for about 45 minutes, and the entire time she was either laughing or crying, but it was all about how glad she was to have company for her skittish dog. To me and Elder Bradley, it seemed that she hadn't talked to anyone other than her dog for several months or she had some sort of mental disability that came with her old age. Probably both though. It was such a sad sight, and the weirdest experience I've ever had.

Week 6: First week in the field!!

This first week has flown by so fast! Each day feels so long but it all happens incredibly fast.

I arrived to the mission field with about 25 other new missionaries, and after meeting the mission president, we got an amazing meal and found a place to sleep for the night. Next day we had a bunch of training and learning mission rules, then finally we got to meet our companions. Turns out that I have three companions. Elder Williams is from Mesa Arizona and he came with me from the CCM/MTC, then there's Elder Powell from Logan Utah who has been out for only six weeks so he's technically still being trained since training goes for 12 weeks, but he's also training us. And then there's Elder Bradley who is from West Jordan Utah and has been out for 15 months. He started out in the Federal Way mission, but that got closed so now he got transferred to this mission. The area we're serving in is the Lacey/Olympia area, but we're serving in the Rainier Vista Spanish branch.
Our apartment is really small, because there's only one bedroom with two beds in it. So elders Bradley and Powell are sleeping on the beds while Elder Williams and I are sleeping on the couches which are actually more comfortable than the beds.

Other than this, the apartment had multiple other surprises that I wasn't prepared for. One being that we had basically no food whatsoever, two, there's black mold in the shower (which we're going to try to clean up today, but we're not sure how so if you have any ideas let me know), and three, apartments are basically the missionary graveyard for unwanted items. We've found tons of stuff that have just been thrown in closets. Elder Williams has been going to town on the apartment. He's been cleaning absolutely everything including the walls, organizing closets, and fixing everything. It's pretty funny actually. He says he's never like this, but he just feels the need to clean.

Also between the four of us we only have one car and three bikes. Generally, we only use the car because everything is so far spread out and the branch we're serving in doesn't have any boundaries like a ward would. So I haven't even used my bike yet which is a little disappointing since I was actually looking forward to it.

As for the rest of this week, I've already had some pretty interesting experiences. The weirdest one so far is when I met a prophet while tracting. One thing I've been surprised about is the difference in culture here. Everyone is religious, but they're all of different faiths: Buddhists, Catholics, born agains, I've even met someone who said his faith is one where they study every faith and believe in all of them. But running into a prophet really takes the cake. This guy believes that he is a prophet and he has seen God. He has some crazy beliefs, and all he wanted to do was to bible bash us. It was so weird.

But so far our schedule is mostly studying in the morning until 12, go knocking doors, try to get appointments, but have all of them fall through and so we go knocking some more. I haven't been able to teach any lessons yet, and it's frustrating that we can only teach Hispanic people. I feel like the MTC didn't prepare me for this at all since all we did there was practice teaching lessons and I haven't had the opportunity to teach anyone yet.

However, I feel like I've felt the Spirit a whole lot more out in the field already than I've ever felt in the MTC. One thing I want to share from my personal study is an invitation from Elder Bednar. He invited all the missionaries in one of his talks to get a cheap Book of Mormon and starting from the beginning and mark every spot where it mentions God, Christ, or the Spirit. I've started doing this and the change in my study has been incredible. It's usually hard to pay attention sometimes or understand what its saying, but as I've been going through marking, I've been a lot more focused and I've learned more as I've read. I invite each of you to try this even if you only do it for five minutes each night, you will be able to feel His presence more in your life.

Our trainer is introducing us to everyone for our first Zone Conference.
Elder Williams, Me, Elder Bradley, Elder Powell