Week 48: I want to ride my bicycle

Monday, May 30th, 2017:

Today, being a p-day, was a usual blur of activity.  We were invited to a BBQ at our senior couple's house, but the zone leaders--who gave us a ride to Walmart--spent a long time in Mr. Mac, so we didn't have time to get to the BBQ.  It's okay, though; things like that happen.

The apartment is clean, which is great.  I didn't need to buy many groceries, which is wonderful.  I'm getting pretty settled in, at least temporally.

 We arrived at emailing at 1:00, but still had a good workout when we joined the activity.  Rugby, followed by four-square, with a boomerang and Frisbee thrown in (unintentional pun).

We ventured out on the field late because we hadn't gotten home on time from the activity.  With bikes, distance matters much less so we toured a few different places to see people tonight.  The last was Randy, who needed to get rid of a cheap replica Master Sword (from the Legend of Zelda) so he gave it to me.  

 

While we were there, we managed to get them to watch the conference talk they hadn't read yet.  They are a wonderful nerdy couple--they mentioned sorting out their duplicate games when they got married--and I really hope they'll accept the gospel.

I'm glad to be here.  I have already noticed how now I can focus a lot more on progressing forward as a missionary and a person.  Also, I've started changing my journals around and the extra time has been wonderful.

Tuesday, May 30th, 2017:

It's May 30th?!  ...Actually, I'm pretty used to that now.

For studies, I got a lot out of studying my patriarchal blessing: one part assures me that the leaders of the church will never lead us astray.  The way it was transcribed caused me to reflect a lot on how if I believe the Book of Mormon to be true (and other such things), I must also accept fully that the priesthood authority in this dispensation will be upheld.  While I never doubted the current church leaders, it is a strong reinforcement to one area of my testimony.

Another thing was to focus on the Kingdom of God first, before the things of the world.  This was reinforced by when I read 1 Nephi 6.  I just need to refocus some of my efforts, like my journal, to obtain a healthier balance.

One helpful thing I realized is Elder Clayton is prone to fault, as I am.  When we first met, I got the impression he really wants to be obedient--which he does--but I've found we're both working on being able to act.  Sometimes I'll just wait until he says "let's go" before I go instead of acting of myself.  It's good to note, as I will develop the habit of acting for myself now.

On that note, I have a goal now to not hesitate.  Time management and spiritual promptings, obedience and potential blessings I'm delaying, and so forth explain it well enough.

Biking has its ups and downs.  This morning, I was pretty unstable; by the night, I figured out that pedaling with the balls of the feet is much more effective.  Generally, a warm-up and prayer go a long way.

When we stopped by Katirina, we found her husband had talked to the bishop.  Apparently, it wasn't a good time because he doesn't ever want to go back to church.  ...I would say it doesn't matter too much but I've met a few people who keep promises like that.

We had a two-hour lesson with Ken.  He tends to take the conversation and run with it.  The good thing is, I knew a reasonable explanation to every single thing he brought up.  Actually being able to explain anything was a different story.

I found I did a good job keeping Elder Clayton in mind and not dominating what parts of the conversation we did have.  ~yay.

To round off the night, we had two member visits.  We're trying to go by the most active families in the ward and encourage them to do missionary work.  The first was good, but the second was a wonderful spiritual experience as the members were very involved and even bore their testimonies beautifully.

Wednesday, May 31st, 2017:

Interviews were today.  President Hillier talked to me about the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood.  The main things I got from it were how important it is to treasure up the word of God by having studies, a re-emphasis on exact obedience, and a sense of awe at how powerful a promise is extended to me for following it.

My District

We sorted out many things by phone, especially calling Katirina's bishop.  There's some confusion--he said she already received help but she says she hasn't--so we stopped by her later in the day.  We figured out what both sides meant, but it's a little bit messy.

We had dinner--they had steel wool and gave me a piece for the rusty little multitool I have, finally!--followed by a long member visit to another family.  This second family had two active young children; I'm learning a lot about parenting on my mission.

We met a Muslim man in an apartment complex later that day.  He ended up preaching to us just as much as we preached to him.  The whole time, I drew tons of parallels between our two belief systems.  I think every (most every) faith is viewing God, just in different ways.  It's amazing how many shared values exist between two people that have never met.

I've gotten my biking legs now, well enough.  I'm still new for sure, but I'm out of my shaky phase of riding.  I want to say thanks again to my uncle Art for bringing a bike down for me to use.  It's worked well.

Thursday, June 1st, 2017:

My mornings have been going well; I'm getting much better at time management.  I still have more to improve, but I'm glad to be improving in the way I am now.  My next goal is to be prompt to all appointments; there have been a few people recently that made me realize how important being on time is.  No one was chewing us out--it came up as a topic in conversation--but I received it better because of that.  It'll be an amazing skill for life.

We had a long weekly planning; we took a lot of time without getting very far.  While it's generally useful things instead of wasting a lot of time, we're planning too much.  The extra stuff we plan is a layer of detail that, in reality, doesn't effect too much of what we do and thus isn't as effective.  We're determined to improve on that, as well.

We had a lesson with Suaad.  We're very hopeful that she will get baptized soon and we're both excited.

We had a few other visits set up, but for various reasons they had to cancel.  We continued weekly planning until we had a lesson.

Our visit with Chad, the less-active member who told us he would go to church last week but didn't make it out, was good.  We learned a lot about what he was going through.  However, it ran so late that we had to ask a member in the neighborhood to give us a ride.

Friday, June 2nd, 2017:

All of today was weekly planning or district meeting.  We finished weekly planning, though.

We get along well.  However, we need to take care to stay focused because of that.  Elder Gudmundsen frequently told me I had an amazing ability to focus, but I think it's harder for me with Elder Clayton.  Now's a good chance to develop more self-mastery.

Our district meeting was on finding and proclaiming the gospel to everyone.  It relates to fully accomplishing our purpose.  It's pretty cool how, as a missionary, you can walk up to people and say something like "Jesus loves you" and it isn't weird unless you feel weird doing it.  I have yet to get to that point, especially so bluntly, but I could do much more in giving people a chance to feel the Spirit.

James, an investigator, dropped us by text.  He said he was working through things by himself.  This was in response to us asking to confirm for our lesson tonight with the YSA sisters.  We'll still pass him off to their records, but more for reference.

Saturday, June 3rd, 2017:

We thought we didn't have many things to do today, but we were wrong.  Due to two service opportunities and an unexpected zone blitz, we didn't do many of the things we planned for.

The first service activity was helping someone move.  During that, we talked to a man who gave us advice about women and how they differ from men.  It was a nice conversation, but he pushed us away any time we lead into the gospel.

After lunch, we biked over to the zone blitz (which we thought was cancelled).  The area we went to seemed more hostile to missionaries: no one tried to harm us or anything, but people were pretty curt with us whenever they opened the door.  I wonder if they ever realize the hope and peace we want to offer to them.  Everything else aside, I wonder if they realize we have good intentions.

After the blitz, we ate dinner at a ward mission leader's house, changed at home, and biked to a service opportunity the sisters told us about.  A 3.5 mile bike ride later, we waited for 15 minutes before they told us they were getting a truck and 15 more before they told us they had to do it another day.  We biked back and headed in.

Sunday, June 4th, 2017:

We had an easier morning because we didn't go to a ward council meeting this week, but the rest of our Sunday was packed.  It was a long, hot fast Sunday.  We attended three sacrament meetings, participated in classes as we could, and went to dinner with a young family.

Suaad came to church, but Randy was busy moving and Katirina had a family reunion.

The dad gave us a ride to a lesson with Suaad; she cancelled, so we met a few people in the area; we got a ride with a member to Randy's area (who wasn't home); and we visited many people in that area.  The whole time, we were in suits.  A few scattered moments from that: meeting a quaker for the first time, meeting a Newfoundland dog who slobbered on the sleeve of my suit, visiting a lady who was feeding some wild ducks in her yard, and getting a ride from the same family who had us for dinner that day.

 

The house in my area where my dad lived until age 7