Week 66: Learning and growing

Week 66 Journal

Missionary Toys!

Monday, October 2nd, 2017:

Our p-day was very open, as there was no organized activity.  Late in the day we heard that a few companionships were getting together, and we realized we still had other things to do. We decided to wash the car instead of exercising.

We checked out the Olympus Clock shop.  It's right by our old zone building (for district meetings).  While most of the clocks were out of my price range--we went there to browse--I did found an unexpectedly cheap desk ornament on clearance.  It says "time flies."  What an appropriate souvenir for a missionary!

Tempus Fugit

Other cleaning/shopping aside, we did visit the mission doctor.  He looked at my hips and knees.  I have some sort of "mechanical problem" as he phrased it, but he wanted to talk to other specialists before deciding about what to do about it.

We had a lesson with Olivia, a 12-year-old girl with parents raised LDS.  Things went South.  Her mom had joined us and we read the Book of Mormon well enough, it being 1 Nephi 4 aside.  After, though, I pushed too much with her mother by asking her why she didn't go to church.  She said she no longer believed in the Book of Mormon, so I asked why, she named many reasons (Joseph Smith was a quack, people judge me for wine and coffee when others abuse food, etc.) so I asked her why again.  She told me flat out she didn't believe the Book of Mormon was true--that's why.  I then spoke about the Book of Mormon, half bearing testimony. I was confused during the lesson.  I don't know.  The mom was uncomfortable and spoke with the dad while Olivia eagerly showed us her Minecraft house.  The dad spoke to us on our way out.

After leaving, I talked to Elder Parnes.  I felt highly aware of my inability to connect to people, be aware, and my weaknesses in general.  I shed a good amount of tears of sadness.  The lesson was at 7:00, we finished at 8:00, and Olivia was done showing us her house and we were out the door at 8:15.  Talking took us to 8:53-ish, so we headed in.

I don't think I've ever felt a companion has known me so well as Elder Parnes. In part it’s because of what I've told him as I go through things and talk it out with him.

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017:

Area book 2.0 releases tomorrow!  We sorted out the details of it.  Fortunately, our mission had an MLC (mission leadership counsel), so all the zone leaders were with President Hillier and the assistants.  Everyone should have word of the transition.

We had lunch with Elders Opificius and Martin.  We went to Cafe Rio.  They asked how we were and we all talked generally of things.  I brought up Olivia.  It was hard to talk about it--"hey, by the way I nearly got us thrown out of an investigator's house"--but talking about it will help me get over it.  Still, it was only because we had service scheduled for a little later that kept me from again getting down on myself in a bad humor.

We found my missing copy of PMG!  The family hosting Andrea had found it it at their house; I finally got it back today.

The family we helped pack and move about a month ago invited us to dinner at Five Guys.  The wife gave each of us $25 gift cards, which was really nice of her.  We really didn't move that much.

The phone is now all sorted.  I spent about 45 minutes editing messages.  I was tired of running out of space and continually finding messages to delete on the go.

I haven't had time yet to write a lot of cards, but I'll get to writing people eventually.

We've had a lot of investigators cancel their meetings, so with daily contact still not fully executed they aren't progressing as fast as we hope.  Taking action is on our agenda.

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017:

The new area book is here!  It's miles faster, works with LDS tools, integrates the offline mapping function (no more area book map), and allows us to set events to any time, not just 15-minute intervals.  

Area Book 2.0

On the flip side, there is no longer an option to mark members as less active.  The calendar GUI is replaced by a much less straightforward list for daily and weekly schedules, which may look more professional but can be hard to use.  Information that was communicated by design elements is now communicated by text, like the logistical part of the schedule.  So it's a mixed bag that will take adjustments with everyone.

Elder Parnes woke up tired and remained so today. It was a hard day for him.  We spent a large part, maybe two and a half hours, of the day painting a fence.  The real estate agent felt bad for her client and asked some elders to help spruce up the place.  There were eight of us in all helping out.

Our meeting with the East Mill Creek North (EMCN) stake went well.  It focused on the idea of greater focus on individuals and their needs--greater focus on missionary work--in church leadership meetings.  It also covered how the WMLs should be captains of their wards' mission efforts and how we are only guest--if expert--sailors.  This was all from the high councilor over missionary work interpreting hastening the work of salvation, but we're happy with it!

Thursday, October 5th, 2017:

We had morning workouts with Elder Opificius and Elder Martin.  I got a little irked at Elder Parnes.  I can get competitive.  Elder Opificius must have taken note because he asked us to join them for companionship study; really, he held a group inventory and asked how our companionship was holding up.  We get along very well, which became apparent to him quickly.  I took the chance to iron things out about companionship studies; hopefully now we can have a more productive study together.

In between workouts and that, we went to family services.  Kyle and I talked about empathy and how to emotionally connect with people, as I felt like I didn't grasp it last time.  It ties in well to some of the materials my mom sent me on mindfullness.  Learning to be a socially/emotionally skilled person is an exciting prospect for me.

Weekly planning went fast--we made sure to plan in a lightweight manner--but we only had time to discuss the investigators we're already working with.  We'll finish the rest on Saturday, probably.  Elder Opificius advised we move correlations and do weekly planning on Friday to finish it; I don't know why but we haven’t done that.

I'm adjusting well to the new area book.  It's still a little displeasing to not have the calendar setup, but I love how fast it is.

I've learned to love hymns on my mission.  Music has stuck with me more than video games.

Friday, October 6th, 2017:

I’ve been out for 15 months today.

Our afternoon was dominated by four meetings--a stake presidency member, two senior couple correlations, and zone meeting.  The Sorensens cover Canyon Rim stake; he raises bees.  Sister Sorensen loves her grandchildren. They both said that they have moments they wished they had hearing aids. 

The Shephards cover EMCN stake; Elder Shephard can be apologetically bold, which has pros and cons.  Sister Shephard is pretty sweet.  They make a great couple.

It occurred to me that I really don't know what a senior couple's role is in missionary work and I don't know where to look to find out.

Zone meeting was on the Book of Mormon.  It was pretty powerful.  While there, the zone leaders got our baptismal goals--we set a goal of 2 in October--and set the zone goal at 33.  That's pretty high.  I felt, especially recently but also generally over the course of my mission, that we should expand longer term.  Knowing the people I worked with, I had a good idea of where they are at.  I don't feel comfortable pushing them for fear of acting on the wrong motives.  Setting finding goals for the month and focus on a more comprehensive picture for all of missionary work (more finding -> more teaching -> more converts, hopefully) might work better for me.  That's just how I feel, though.  The zone leaders did well; I can't deny that.

The mission doctor called.  I've been diagnosed with "Chondromalacia patellae” or “runner’s knees,” which means I have soft cartilage.  It's insubstantial, which is the best I could have hoped for.  The sounds from my knees are the worst things I can expect from it.

Kiki had to cancel tonight.  I feel like we don't have weekly lessons with most of our investigators, though we try to.  We contacted people instead.  No miracles happened, but we did encounter one whispering man who spoke few words.  "What language do you speak?" we asked.  "No."  "Language?"  "Lan-gu-adge?"  "Swahili?"  "Yes.  Swahili."  He then shut the door.  We knocked on his neighbor's door to confirm and she told us he was Autistic.  Ooooh, okay.  He probably speaks English.  We will not send the Swahili sisters over, then.

My mom and dad sent two packages and a card.  The one had a fleece scarf and the other had gloves and snacks.  The card was a season linked hello from my mom.  I particularly like the scarf and card; thank you!

I had learned, about a month ago, that licorice contains wheat.  Apparently, no one makes gluten free licorice.  I learned this from the family that had us over for dinner tonight.

Saturday, October 7th, 2017:

Our new VGP (the mission brought them back a little while ago) is on planning and using the 13 guidelines from PMG.  Elder Parnes and I already try to do this, we just normally don't finish.

We had a lesson with a member in the care center; had asked us to come by, but when we did he had nothing to talk about.

We were able to meet with Andrea; her lesson went well, but at the end I extended a promise through the priesthood.  She interrupted to answer her phone.  That helped me realize she has put everything after her family.  It's hard on her; I think she should talk to President Hillier.

We're almost done with weekly planning.  We spent about two hours this afternoon.

Our stake president asked us to bring a young man with us a few times while we taught or did missionary work.  He joined us this evening, where we contacted a few people.  We had a doorstep lesson with an agnostic man; we talked to him for almost an hour.  He invited us back.  Hopefully, we can help him set all of his reason-based issues aside and try to discern the Spirit.  Perhaps not the best lesson to take a future missionary to, but he went from "I'm not interested, missionaries never know how to answer my questions" to "Yeah, you can come back some time."

We got word back from Marie's social worker.  She said that the urologist didn't want any bacteria getting to her port via the water and thus there was no way she could be baptized.  We're going to consult President Hillier on what to do.

Our zone will have a pumpkin carving activity this Monday.  The Sorensens have a pumpkin patch in their garden and are willing to let us have two.  It'll be fun.

Sunday, October 8th, 2017:

We made it to the early-morning mission prep again.  There were fewer youth there this time.

We went to two sacrament meetings and a stake correlation this Sunday, then returned home to plan and change.  We had some tension in the daily planning session, so I started our companionship inventory.  We normally don't have a lot of things to talk about in companionship inventory.  This time, we got to a good level of discussion and found out some more things about each other.  We also examined the process of goals.  We finished and headed to a meeting with a high councilor.  We didn't finish planning, but we did go through the planning steps through the evening: we only had two referrals, who weren't home; there were two potential families we could visit, so we tried by one; then we thought to give one of our investigators a try and were able to visit him for a bit.  We didn't go through all the steps, but I'm still happy with how it all turned out.

One thing we did address in companionship inventory is how we haven't been getting all the phone work done that we wanted to do.  I've talked to President Hillier and Elder Parnes about trying to make contact with each of our investigators daily; most of that contact is normally done through the phone.  Usually, we try to set some time aside to text everyone and handle setting up lessons, but we then don't get everything done in the time we have or we have to cut the time short.  Elder Parnes noted previously that Elder Moe was able to get all the phone work done as they drove to visit people, but I take time to write down what we do (in person and on the phone) and am unable to send messages so much.  I decided to try to be faster instead of simply saying we need to make more time for it.

A new kind of mobile home