February 27th, 2017:
P-Day seemed to pass quickly today. We barely got our
errands done and exercised in a gym for maybe an hour and a half. The
chicken soup I made earlier came in handy, as Elders Lyons, Evans, Vernon,
Gudmundsen, and I didn't get lunch so I heated that up and fed everyone.
I didn't mind; it needed to be eaten soon.
We only got to visit one person tonight. The family is
active, but the father is not. Through the course of our visit, we found
out a good amount of info on where he's at. Maybe he will come back to
church! Sometimes, we can only hope. He's a great man.
February 28th, 2017:
Today, we had a meeting with the Pauls, sisters, and Brother
Wheeler. It was much calmer than last time. Just before the
meeting, we helped Sister Paul make cootie catchers for her young students in
the English class.
Lunch was a delicious stir fry, but it still took
too long. Everything was prepped, though... I think we've just about rid
our system of the urge to cook.
We made new bios today. I'll email both the old and
the new ones home. Utah is unique for missionary work, for good and for
bad. Covering such a large area makes it very hard to know/even see all
the members, so we make bios and post them up in the buildings.
We passed out more cookies from Brother Wheeler today.
The evening was crazy for us; we decided to contact an
investigator at Palmer Court--about 20 minutes away--and also got to English
class. The investigator wasn't there, but we got a few texts while in
there. As we were driving away, I get a text that no one had a key to the
church for basketball! We had to drive up to the institute building to
let them in, then dash over to English class. We had asked someone at the
class to prepare a message in case we weren't there in time, but we made
it. While sharing our message, my iPad had deleted the video I saved; the
app is still unstable from the latest update. Thankfully, we both knew
the content of the video and were able to share the message without needing the
video.
I've found I can work on pride when others talk bad about
things I enjoy, such as technology, anime, or video games. There was a
senior couple from the other mission at English class. The husband
started talking a lot about how we pay for these fancy electronic things and then
they don't work, and so on. I said nothing--especially since I was
preparing as I could at the time--but I recognized that was he was saying
easily could get me a bit defensive.
March 1st, 2017:
We had companion study with the zone leaders. It went
a bit longer because of that, but I'm glad we got the chance to because I still
feel like I don't know what the purpose is to companion
study. We can no longer use it to prepare for every lesson. I'm
figuring a few things out again now.
We made sushi for lunch. We had avocados and mangoes
and cucumber, shrimp and [imitation] crab and spam (all cooked); it was really
good! But it also took a ton of time. We are going to stop making
such fancy lunches now. *sigh*
We were supposed to have service tonight, but the family
already came by and helped her out. We ended up trying to tract an
apartment complex, but the first person was a member who told us to visit
another member family. We visited them for the rest of the night, more
than an hour.
Elder Gudmundsen and I talked a while. I understood
from him that while we are elders we are also priesthood holders and still had
those same duties. I knew we had fundamentally the same role, just more
focused, but still I felt like we could have done better with that free
evening. I'm still thinking on it. From that, I realized I still need to
work on pride. I thought, because I stopped to consider, that I
understood Elder Gudmundsen's points fully and he just needed to listen.
That will lead to a dead-end very quickly. I have to work on being able to say
I was wrong and change my mind as well. I have somewhat controlled that,
but I suspect it will still be in my future.
March 2nd, 2017:
Wow. No one is having lessons with us: neither Lizzy,
Rick and Dauri, nor Jason and Zhiwei. We did have lesson with Larry today
and we've found his dementia isn't bad enough for us to not teach him. On
the other hand, he's not a "golden investigator" (if there ever is
such a person) as he seeks more to learn than to change.
Elder Gudmundsen and I are getting along well, which is
great.
We finished weekly planning today but were somewhat
unfocused... we can only hope to be constantly improving, right?
Our member dinner went a very long time today, about an hour
and forty-five minutes. We need to learn time management better.
We tried to find two of our investigators at the family
history center – they attend weekly – but they had gone earlier. We ended
up staying a bit to see what the class was on. I thought of two things
while there:
- We should use family history in finding better.
- Big data analysis and family search pair well; should I find myself working in big data I should remember to consider how better to apply it to family search.
March 3rd, 2017:
District meeting was today. Our area has slowed down,
so it's up to us to try and pick it back up. Which will be hard--I've
found time soars by with a companion you have a lot of chemistry with.
We talked about music. I'm trying to understand why
other elders would listen to some of the music they do. It's not outright
disobedient, so I've agreed to let it be for now. Still, if it were up to
just me I'd listen to the hymns. I'm still figuring it out.
My grandma sent me a letter. She often writes about
her current calling in inspecting the missionary apartment in their stake.
They are supposed to make sure the missionaries are taking care of their places
and not getting too grungy. She has some funny stories. I love getting her
letters.
We ran into a very anti guy today. Elder Gudmundsen
needed to use the bathroom so we went to a member's house. He let us in
and I talked with him for about ten minutes without anything extraordinary, but
when Edler Gudmundsen got back and we talked about church, he very quickly blew
up at us. It was shocking how angry he got. I really wish
everyone could approach religion with a level head.
March 4th, 2017:
We watched a youth broadcast today (face to face). It
had a lot of great advice. Also, seeing all the youth in the stake was
great because we really want to start working with the youth.
Our monthly focus (called a VGP) is partially on trying to
become better missionaries, so I'm working on my confidence. It's hard!
Also, I forgot to mention we changed the designated driver
recently. No we take turns. It'll help Elder Gudmundsen learn the area better,
and I don't really like driving anyway. Just so long as the driver is safe,
I'm fine.
Abraham, one of our investigators, is doing very well!
I wish he could see his own progress. Hopefully he will get baptized soon
but who knows...
Dinner went way over an hour again. We're still
working on it. I really want to work on diligence in general; I feel like
we're not doing enough. Mostly, it's making sure we don't absolutely waste
time, not that we're being faster about visiting people.
A member in our stake gave us the five-or-so-thousand pages
of historical/scholarly writing he made as a PDF. It's pretty cool but I
will not have time to read it while on my mission.
March 5th, 2017:
We taught a priest's quorum today. It's always cool to
interact with the young men. I feel like it's more impactful for them.
We also went to Palmer Court for Sacrament meeting.
There were maybe five residents of the court (up to ten by the end) and about
20 missionaries. Being there makes me learn a lot about life.
We visited a youth in the Chinese ward after dinner.
He doesn't really know what to think about religion (he told me before), so
he's focusing on academics because it's one thing he really knows and finds
stable ground in it. We talked a lot about his future, which made me
think about mine.
Overall, I really want to work on diligence this
transfer. I feel like I'm slipping.
There was a snowstorm by the time we left the youth's
house. We decided to go into our apartment instead of driving in
dangerous conditions. It was a weird way to end the week.
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