Week 25 Journal: Christmas!
December 19th, 2016:
Before emailing today, I stayed with the zone leaders & we had a gift exchange of sorts. I gave them some cards and the Ice Breaker mints and they gave me a few things, one of which was a barely used journal! I needed one desperately.
Emailing and grocery shopping (collectively, the things we do before free time) took a long time today, as we were in a group of five elders. We did not end up having an activity.
We went to Uptown Cheapskate, a thrift store, and I got a cool sweater. I had been told to get one repeatedly by some of the older sisters in our stake.
December 20th, 2016:
Well, I told my parents the wrong time to call for the Christmas phone call! Whoops! It's okay, I'll get permission to email about it
We played basketball today. I'm beat. It was worth it, through; we had two of our three main investigators, a recent convert, a YSA president, and an assistant ward mission leader there. It was a very good time.
We passed out thank you cards to the parents of missionaries currently serving from this stake, as they helped with the dinner at out mission conference. We found them to be consistently friendly and very missionary-minded. We got two referrals from three houses! Amazing!
December 21st, 2016:
We didn't manage to do much today. We had studies, then we looked for an investigator's necklace at the church for an hour, then lunch. We then traveled down to Palmer court, a branch downtown that's in our stake for resources, to look for an investigator of ours who disappeared (we haven't had contact with him the whole transfer). Some investigators just do that.
Anyway, after that we were going to teach an investigator, but we had gotten a call--Elder Bach needed to see a doctor--earlier in the day, so our plans got shuffled. Then I found I had sent my parents the wrong time, so I had to sort that out for Christmas. We then got steak for dinner.
I learned to count and write numbers in Chinese, up to 100! (Typing them is a different story, however!)
December 22nd, 2016:
Elder Bach had another doctor's appointment today, but while I was waiting an RM from Canada Mandarin speaking sat next to me. he helped me learn the characters. They're so intricate in traditional.
We also had language study today with a different RM. He taught us about how to ask questions. The grammar in Chinese is orderly, which is hard to get down from English, as we have so much freedom in forming sentences.
We also did weekly planning today, but all our investigators are out of town so it was on the short side.
December 23rd, 2016:
After studies, we when on exchanges today. I'm with Elder Lyons for my first day in a walking area. It was fairly warm today for the season and place.
Elder Lyons is my current district leader. He's been out 18 months. He has dyslexia, so we related to each other's social abnormalities. At the beginning of our exchange, we had to determine what I wanted to work on. During that process, he helped me see in a new way: I have trouble talking to people, at times, because (as from what I discovered earlier) I had "learned" that people don't like small talk to be anything more than small talk. Now, this doesn't actually make people uncomfortable, but I had observed it at times and so learned it anyway.
December 19th, 2016:
Before emailing today, I stayed with the zone leaders & we had a gift exchange of sorts. I gave them some cards and the Ice Breaker mints and they gave me a few things, one of which was a barely used journal! I needed one desperately.
Emailing and grocery shopping (collectively, the things we do before free time) took a long time today, as we were in a group of five elders. We did not end up having an activity.
We went to Uptown Cheapskate, a thrift store, and I got a cool sweater. I had been told to get one repeatedly by some of the older sisters in our stake.
December 20th, 2016:
Well, I told my parents the wrong time to call for the Christmas phone call! Whoops! It's okay, I'll get permission to email about it
We played basketball today. I'm beat. It was worth it, through; we had two of our three main investigators, a recent convert, a YSA president, and an assistant ward mission leader there. It was a very good time.
We passed out thank you cards to the parents of missionaries currently serving from this stake, as they helped with the dinner at out mission conference. We found them to be consistently friendly and very missionary-minded. We got two referrals from three houses! Amazing!
December 21st, 2016:
We didn't manage to do much today. We had studies, then we looked for an investigator's necklace at the church for an hour, then lunch. We then traveled down to Palmer court, a branch downtown that's in our stake for resources, to look for an investigator of ours who disappeared (we haven't had contact with him the whole transfer). Some investigators just do that.
Anyway, after that we were going to teach an investigator, but we had gotten a call--Elder Bach needed to see a doctor--earlier in the day, so our plans got shuffled. Then I found I had sent my parents the wrong time, so I had to sort that out for Christmas. We then got steak for dinner.
I learned to count and write numbers in Chinese, up to 100! (Typing them is a different story, however!)
December 22nd, 2016:
Elder Bach had another doctor's appointment today, but while I was waiting an RM from Canada Mandarin speaking sat next to me. he helped me learn the characters. They're so intricate in traditional.
We also had language study today with a different RM. He taught us about how to ask questions. The grammar in Chinese is orderly, which is hard to get down from English, as we have so much freedom in forming sentences.
We also did weekly planning today, but all our investigators are out of town so it was on the short side.
December 23rd, 2016:
After studies, we when on exchanges today. I'm with Elder Lyons for my first day in a walking area. It was fairly warm today for the season and place.
Elder Lyons is my current district leader. He's been out 18 months. He has dyslexia, so we related to each other's social abnormalities. At the beginning of our exchange, we had to determine what I wanted to work on. During that process, he helped me see in a new way: I have trouble talking to people, at times, because (as from what I discovered earlier) I had "learned" that people don't like small talk to be anything more than small talk. Now, this doesn't actually make people uncomfortable, but I had observed it at times and so learned it anyway.
Well, Elder Lyons asked about changing my nature. I
hadn't thought of it that way--not letting social things get in the way of
sharing the gospel--only as a change in behaviour.
There were a lot of miracles for Elder Lyons' area during
the exchange. A less active member told us his background story and
agreed to go to church. A LA RM told us why he drifted away. There
were more, but I didn't know enough about them to appreciate them as miracles.
December 24th, 2016:
It's Christmas Eve! I talked to my family today.
...
I was glad to see Ollie. On the other hand, I really
didn't miss my dad's puns. Mainly because I had been making better ones
myself ;P.
Goodness, though, it was really hard to hit that "end
call" button.
A note to my mom: I've been holding 160-165 pounds now so I've
been doing well. I've learned how to cook, especially with a
crockpot. I've been doing really well, otherwise, too. To answer
your question, the only really "gadget" I could wish for is a cap for
my USB stick.
I'm excited for Christmas tomorrow; Elder Ballard is
speaking!
December 25th, 2016:
Wow. Snow. Everywhere.
We got a fair blizzard last night through today. Lots
of snow and icy driving! Fortunately, Elder Bach had some experience
driving in ice in Richmond before he went to college in Dallas.
Christmas! Elder Bach and I opened presents in the
morning. I'll write thank you cards as I can, but for now I'm supper
happy. It was a wonderful time, and I'd like to thank everyone for it.
Elder Ballard spoke, and he asked David Archelletta to
sing! Also there was an actor from what I guess is England's Broadway--Sister
Stevenson will play as Glenda in Wicked in London. Honestly, it wasn't as
spiritual as I had hoped. I hope it wasn't because of my lack of
spiritual preparation...
Many of the other wards were cancelled, so we ended up at
the Chinese ward with about half attendance. After that, we attended a
baptism the sisters had, went to a dinner appointment, and went to the mission
home. It was a slower day than I wished it could be.
December 26th, 2016:
I wanted to write some of my feelings from this week: I
haven't felt myself. I feel tired. Honestly, I really don't know
how I feel--a good way to phrase it is "out of it." I can tell you
what I've felt:
I guess I've felt tired because disunity hurts. There
was the whole incident of a sister trying to lift our WMLs up by bearing her
testimony, some of those WMLs complaining to our stake high councilor over
missionary work, and him critiquing the sister for her testimony. There
was a lot of misunderstanding and some pride as well. I could see the
effects of it on the sister and I could predict the effects on the work.
There have been many times that missionaries start joking
around together in public in a manner inconsistent with their calling.
Basically, I don't know why but I've found things like this
hurt me. A lit,. I have n idea how to try; to change it, so
normally I end up trying to ask them to stop while feeling very bashful.
This has been more and more noticeable as I've been out
longer on the field ("this" being the effect on me). I'm trying
to figure out how to not feel so torn down by it while also not becoming
complacent with it. I think it's especially bad now because I've learned
to recognize it so much but haven't learned how to help others improve.
Another factor in my mood has been that we haven't done as
much work here. There's so many meetings, activities, and otherwise
things that take up time here. It felt so good to go on exchanges because
we got to go out and talk to people!
Anyway, I don't have time to write more...
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