Monday, August 21st, 2017:
One thing: taking showers in the evening really helps on
Monday mornings, where we only have 30 minutes to prepare. I've found a
principle of having to compromise with myself--writing less in my journal,
saying prayers earlier than 10:20 pm to avoid drifting in thought, and making
less elaborate meals being prime examples--and found that sometimes I have to
give up some original expectations to reach a practical ideal.
The solar eclipse was today. I've heard it was
breathtaking in the totality areas, but from where we were in the valley the
biggest plus was the valley-wide mission activity. There were all sorts
of activities, but volleyball was probably the best.
I got the things from shopping I said I would, as well as
food items from Walmart and some produce from the Wagstaffs. Being close
enough to get food like that is awesome.
We didn't get to many people tonight. I suspect I
still fail to grasp something in how to use goals and plans well. In
hindsight, I recognize that our goal for meeting people--new investigator goal
specifically--hasn't been pushing us to do better like it should. We
still met with stake leaders tonight and contacted people, so we didn't waste the
night, but it's time to put some fire in our strides!
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017:
Early this morning, I went to family services. Sister
Balling wanted me to set a return appointment and President Hillier suggested I
talk to Kyle to help finish off some issues I've been facing. It was a
good talk. Sometimes, I wish I could take self-time to sort out what goals or
plans I have. This time at family services helped, somewhat.
We spent about an hour sorting out dinner rotations for the
three stakes. There are still a few WMLs who didn't get it because they
didn't list emails. I thought we mostly did dinners for the members, but after
having so much uncertainty I've realized it is also for us to a greater extent
than I thought. It's hard because we don't know if we'll cook for
ourselves the next day, so I don't use the crock pot.
We helped a sister move her mom's things out of a
recently-deceased sister's house. She had gotten past it already.
It was still odd to note how the mementos they had of their mother fit in less
than 20 neat file boxes.
Elder Parnes wiped out on his bike heading to a lesson with
Andrea. The curb went high unexpectedly. He was mostly fine, but
his bike light broke. We walked home at the end of the day.
The lesson went really well, though. Andrea is 60+ and
has investigated the church for about 30 years. We committed her to
action--to pray and see if the Book of Mormon is true. The brother who
hosted the lesson gave us some good advice on how to improve as well.
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017:
What a wondrous day! Our morning was slow, between
going to the care center and having someone from the mission office bring Elder
Parnes' medicine refill, but after meeting with the Highland View WML over
lunch we jumped right in to contacting.
Wendy was home. Jason is a convert who became
less-active. In the process of trying to meet his son, Conner, we ran
into Wendy. She is staying with Jason until she figures out what she
wants to do; she just finished degrees in psychology but doesn't know what she
wants to do with them. We had a good chat about previous missionary
encounters and challenged her to read. She seems so nice and I feel like
she may ultimately be baptized.
We biked around with another RM. Now is the time when
many missionaries have returned home but are not yet in school. They get
into a missionary work withdrawal.
There was a meeting for one of our ward's missions.
One brother there was close with a general authority and asked if
"Hastening the Work of Salvation" was still in force. It
is. The vision to it is integrating the members and local leaders into
the work, which would be amazing if done to the level it pictures. We're
trying to implement it now.
We received four referrals from one sister tonight.
Her bishop told us to go by her after we reported back to him on many of the
names he gave us. I never thought of reporting back as so essential
before.
Thursday, August 24th, 2017:
My digestive tract was not happy today, which put a damper
on weekly planning. At the fourth trip to the bathroom I took a hot bath
to help it calm down and move along. It worked well enough, but the rest
of the day was hard to carry through.
We put in many referrals to our area book, which helped
refresh our area as we have visited almost everyone we were asked to go by. It
was a slow day, which I wish hadn't been so.
Our district leader, Elder Opificius, asked me to explain a
concept very confusingly and later very simply as part of an object lesson in
district meeting tomorrow. He said I could talk about math. I'm
happy to do it.
Friday, August 25th, 2017:
Our weekly planning went better; we are almost done
now. I wish I could be a better example to Elder Parnes, and not just
because of my digestion.
District meeting was on using the scriptures to resolve
concerns. We related the math problem to explaining things simply and how
we're so familiar with the gospel when our investigators are not.
Here's the math problem, by the way.
This calculation proves the areas on the right and left side
of the y-axis are equal, so that the total area from "x=-a" to
"x=a" is zero.
The training on using the scriptures proved to be helpful,
as we did just that in a lesson with Kiki, Gong, and Tina. I'm glad I
finally got to meet them. They had a pretty similar concern to many of
the people I taught in Monument Park in that you'd ask if they were confused or
had questions and they'd say no, but then show they didn't understand in later
lessons.
Saturday, August 26th, 2017:
Our daily planning went a long time today. What's more,
just as we were finishing, many people replied to confirm or reschedule
appointments, so we had to reconfigure the whole thing anyway!
We went with the Chinese sisters to contact and pass off two
referrals. One, in the care center, actually was Japanese. It was
funny to be on the other side of such a situation for once. Sister
Cushman is still in the Monument Park area, by the way--her 5th transfer there,
or about 8 months.
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| Sis. Cushman with Elders Brothers and Parnes |
We met with the Canyon Rim stake president.
Surprise! It looks like the work in that stake will be very
promising. He seems like a spiritual man, from my first impression.
There were two activities in the Canyon Rim stake
tonight. We're focusing more on their stake.
Sunday, August 27th, 2017:
We made it to the Highland View ward council at 7:00 this
morning. You could say they are our focus ward, as we've bumped into the
WML often and now have a good relationship with their bishop.
We visited the Rose Crest 1st and 2nd wards today.
Jeremy gave a talk in his ward.
A young couple had us over for dinner. We've finally
straightened out the dinner calendars, yet sadly the approaching week is the
last one for the Canyon Rim stake. While we wanted to focus on that
stake, dinners in the other stakes will help us stay connected.
There was another dinner social tonight. I guess there
are a lot of activities due to the end-of-summer time frame (good weather and
tuning everything down for school to start). It could also be the fact that we
cover three stakes, so there are lots of activities.
We finally contacted a family we'd been told about four
separate times. They were in various stages of putting their kids to bed
when we got a hold of them previously. They weren't interested; the
husband explained to us that they both had split-religion households and
investigated many, deciding to just be scientists instead. They seemed so
promising, so I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little let down. They
were still very nice, though.
There weren't that many people left that we were ready to
contact tonight. As we toured around, we found one woman one of the
senior couples in our area works with. She offered a bunch of her grapes
to each of us, which was awesome.
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| The zone photo for Holladay zone. |
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