Tuesday, July 31, 2012

We love riding bikes

President Snow came to our Zone District meeting and said he was going to take two minutes, well two hours later we all had our minds blown! He talked about faith and how all the things we complain about, or problems we have in missionary work are symptoms of a lack of faith. He also talked about having enough faith to repent and especially repent of something that is keeping the powers of heaven from your life. Then he talked about sacrifice and being willing to sacrifice something to the lord so he can bless you. I loved every second of it. He really shook the faith of a lot of missionaries to the point where they wonder if they even have enough faith to be out here. 
 We were really short on miles so we decided to borrow some bikes from the APs and hit the cart path trails here for the day. Well having never used  cart paths before Elder Searle and his keen sense of direction got us 5 miles(at least) out of the direction we wanted to be going. We made it back from were we started and then asked some girls on a golf cart how to get where we wanted to go. We made it!!! After hours of wasted time trying to get where we wanted to go we ended up at a members house to see if he could go to an appointment with us. Turns out we showed up at the perfect time. He really needed help. We changed his flat tire while he cut his lawn. He invited us in after to do family home evening with him and his family. He committed to us at least two days a week that he could go out with us. One of the new things President has put in is we can not teach any lessons from preach my gospel without a member. If a member is not present then we can only read the Book of Mormon or answer questions. We went out on his golf cart afterwards and tried to visit some people.

We spent the whole next morning doing service for a sister who's husband is in Iraq. We cut the grass. Did the hedge trimming, pulled weeds. The cool thing is they have a riding mower. The really bad thing is that the Elder who was cutting the grass has never driven one and had no clue what he was doing so the grass looked horrible. Then the mower died. I couldn't stand how the yard looked and the member was very concerned with the disaster grass so I cut it all over again with a push mower. I don't think any of you people realize the humidity and the heat we have going on right now!! She is from the DR and made us Mangu, its a super good dish that I love!!!

 We have three baptisms this coming Saturday so we spent a lot of time getting them ready this week. We had some great lessons and they are getting very excited! We take a white board to keep them into the lessons. They are teenagers so they get distracted really easy! Sound familiar mother? You've had a house full of them for years!

We were at a members house eating a little snack before we headed out to a lesson. She came running back in the house and yelled for us to go help her neighbor move his yard sale in. We stepped out side and realized the problem. IT WAS POURING RAIN!!!! We ran over and started taking stuff into shelter. We were instantly drenched with in a few seconds. We literally looked like we jumped in a lake! We borrowed some shorts threw our pants in the drier and then headed back out to work.

We spent all day Saturday helping a member move, but nothing was ready to go. So we got to help pack and then move. We were staying in the same trailer park and went to the new trailer where that family was still in the process of moving out. We got to help two people move out. We had 15 people there to help move. The branch president says thats a record! Normally 3 show up. We made a great impression on the family to the point where she turned to her friend and say "me voy a cambiar de iglesia" (I'm going to switch churches)

We had a great meeting with our branch president on saturday, he then taught the sunday school class and really threw down on missionary work. The branch is getting really excited about it. They came up with activities we could do and gave us times they can come out with us. Its really picking up!

 It is really hard to get members to lessons especially when our branch area covers the whole stake. We have lots of struggles missionaries that teach in english or teach in other countries don't have. They talk about people walking to church and blah blah blah, well the church is over 20 miles in one direction from some of the people we teach. There are fears of driving for legal reasons. People randomly get deported. We have lots of struggles, But we have been trying so hard to get members to our lessons. The support is really building and I  think very soon we will have the majority of our lessons with members. We need to do as our leaders tell us and thats what we were told.

Happy birthday Jack!!! I was not able to get a letter to you yet but i'm sending it today!!