So we had a pretty great week. It started out not so great, but ended better.
It also got up to 70 this week and has
been steady at high 50s for the whole week. It is weird to think that just a week ago we
had snow on the ground and it was freezing. We also have seen some miracles happening the
last couple days. So before I begin the
week report, you should know that we were kind of starting from scratch in our
teaching pool and so we don't have a lot of people to teach currently.
Monday we hung out at the church with the Sisters and a member from their ward. We played a new game called Quelf. It was pretty fun and interesting. We also got some "humble pie" too. There was whip cream there too and at some point, I got teamed up on in a whip cream battle. They got me once, but every other time I was too quick.
Tuesday we started out like usual at the Richard's farm. We pulled more stakes up out of the ground. We fed their animals (a great Pyrenees dog named Bear, a goat, and 50 chickens). As we were getting into the enclosure, I got two hooves in the back from the hungry goat. Then as I fed the chickens, Bear jumped all me because he wanted to play. He is one big dog. So after the farm, we went out with Tyler to see an investigator named Don. We started talking about the Spirit and then it changed to talking about the difference between judgment and righteous judgement. That night we had a lesson about the Book of Mormon with an elderly couple who are active members. After them we had a lesson with a lady named Rhonda. We ended up reading some of the Book of Mormon with her. She seems a little more interested than our first lesson with her so we shall see.
Wednesday we had our District Meeting. We had to change it because of a meeting we had on Thursday. After lunch, we helped a less-active move a couch out of her home. Then we went and did a lot of finding. We finally found one potential investigator. We have a lesson set for Wednesday so we will see how it goes.
Thursday our day started at 5:30 so that we could be out the door by 6:40. We had the New Missionary meeting in Knoxville and we were driving some other Elders down too. It was a good meeting. Lots of motivational things came out of it. The meeting was 3 hours and so we didn't get back until about 6:15 that night, but we had 2 awesome lessons. The first was with a guy named Bill. He was nice and would listen to us. He wasn't too interested though. Cool fact though, he got baptized in the Jordan River over in Israel a few years ago. The next lesson was with a lady named Edie. Both of these people were tracted into a month ago when we did exchanges. We taught Edie the Restoration and had a great lesson with her. She sincerely told us she would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It was a good night.
Friday was the bomb! Miracles everywhere! It started out with some apartment inspections and weekly planning. It didn't really start until 3. We went out and did some tracting. We applied some tips we got from the Elders we drove with to the meeting and we got 2 lessons with some potentials. We are hoping to see them again this week. Then we had a lesson with a guy named Dan. His first question to us was, “What does God want with me?” He also wanted to learn the basics again because he couldn't remember them. We taught a couple principles from the Restoration and also answered his questions. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and set up another time to see him. As we were leaving, he asked us what we would do if he wanted to be baptized. WHAT?! It was more because he is in a wheelchair and not completely mobile, but we told him we would figure something out. We then went and saw a less-active. It was getting towards the end of the night so we went to one of our investigators named Lina. She is the wife of a less-active. We met her a couple weeks ago and she is from Columbia. She speaks broken English so sometimes communication is hard, but not too bad. We stopped by to deliver a Spanish Book of Mormon for her. We were able to talk with her for a minute and we invited her to church and she said she would come. We also set up another appointment for this next week. So this day was one of the best days we have had in a long time. We might be able to get a couple of our investigators on date for baptism in these next couple weeks.
Saturday we did some service at the Davison's. Then we went over to Miss Rush's. We asked her if she felt like she was ready to find out for herself if this church is true. She told us that she is not. Sadly, she might not be for a while. Give it time and we hope she will, but just not right now. After her we did some finding. We stopped in at what we thought was a potential investigator’s home. We talked to the guy there and he was a little drunk and was trying to act cool and be funny. He wasn't interested so we just offered a picture of Jesus and he told us there wasn't much use for that there. Then he walked back inside after leaving us with a comment I have heard numerous times on my mission, "hail S***n." I just laughed to myself as we walked away and kind of felt bad for the guy that he chose to do that, but it was a first for Elder Bingham. We continued on like nothing happened. Cool little miracle from the day. We were looking for a less-active in a trailer park and we found the trailer, but the front door was guarded by 4 little yapping dogs. So we went to the back door which I didn't think would get answered. Well we got back to the road and looked over and saw a guy working on his car fixing his wheel bearing. So my first reaction was that this guy looks a little rough so I didn't want to bother him. Then I thought well. Elder Bingham likes doing mechanics so maybe we can help. I asked Elder Bingham if he would like to help this guy and he looked at me and smiled and said no. He is a little shy so I knew why he said no. Well the Spirit was giving this prompting to go and talk with him and I am not going to let Elder Bingham just stay in the comfort zone because there is no growth there. So I turned and walked over to the guy. He was a very nice guy. We offered help, but he didn't need it, which is ok. We gave him a picture of Jesus. We then asked if he knew his neighbor, the less-active we were looking for, and he said he did. He told us that if she wasn't at home, then she was at her daughters place right across the road. We thanked him and then found the lady we were looking for. She was not interested in coming back, but the lesson here was that if we had not talked to that man because of prejudgments or our shyness, then we would never had been able to find the less-active lady we were looking for.
Sunday was pretty good. We got a new Ward Mission Leader which is Bro Richard, so I am excited. He is awesome. Although now I am going to be training 2 people because he doesn't know too well what he is doing for this calling and I am the only one with the experience. The old Ward Mission Leader and myself are going to be helping him out until he gets it down. I am looking forward to being able to work with him. He is a convert himself so he might be able to give us some insight on what works and what doesn't. The rest of the day we did some finding. Towards the end of the evening, I took Elder Bingham to his first non-LDS church. We went to the East Bristol Church of Christ. It was a pretty good service. It was mainly on the life of John the Baptist.
Well that is all for this week. This next week is already looking good and I can't wait to see what else it has in store. One lesson I really learned this week is that I just need to do the work and within time, the fruit from our labors will come forth. It may be frustrating for a while, but in the end it will be great. I just need to listen to what the Lord says to do and then do it, no matter what the outcome, even though He already knows what that will be. I hope you all are having a great first month of the year. It's good to hear from you guys and the great things you are doing. I love you all and hope it is a great week. God bless and I will talk to y'all next week.
Elder Ellison
Monday we hung out at the church with the Sisters and a member from their ward. We played a new game called Quelf. It was pretty fun and interesting. We also got some "humble pie" too. There was whip cream there too and at some point, I got teamed up on in a whip cream battle. They got me once, but every other time I was too quick.
Tuesday we started out like usual at the Richard's farm. We pulled more stakes up out of the ground. We fed their animals (a great Pyrenees dog named Bear, a goat, and 50 chickens). As we were getting into the enclosure, I got two hooves in the back from the hungry goat. Then as I fed the chickens, Bear jumped all me because he wanted to play. He is one big dog. So after the farm, we went out with Tyler to see an investigator named Don. We started talking about the Spirit and then it changed to talking about the difference between judgment and righteous judgement. That night we had a lesson about the Book of Mormon with an elderly couple who are active members. After them we had a lesson with a lady named Rhonda. We ended up reading some of the Book of Mormon with her. She seems a little more interested than our first lesson with her so we shall see.
Wednesday we had our District Meeting. We had to change it because of a meeting we had on Thursday. After lunch, we helped a less-active move a couch out of her home. Then we went and did a lot of finding. We finally found one potential investigator. We have a lesson set for Wednesday so we will see how it goes.
Thursday our day started at 5:30 so that we could be out the door by 6:40. We had the New Missionary meeting in Knoxville and we were driving some other Elders down too. It was a good meeting. Lots of motivational things came out of it. The meeting was 3 hours and so we didn't get back until about 6:15 that night, but we had 2 awesome lessons. The first was with a guy named Bill. He was nice and would listen to us. He wasn't too interested though. Cool fact though, he got baptized in the Jordan River over in Israel a few years ago. The next lesson was with a lady named Edie. Both of these people were tracted into a month ago when we did exchanges. We taught Edie the Restoration and had a great lesson with her. She sincerely told us she would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It was a good night.
Friday was the bomb! Miracles everywhere! It started out with some apartment inspections and weekly planning. It didn't really start until 3. We went out and did some tracting. We applied some tips we got from the Elders we drove with to the meeting and we got 2 lessons with some potentials. We are hoping to see them again this week. Then we had a lesson with a guy named Dan. His first question to us was, “What does God want with me?” He also wanted to learn the basics again because he couldn't remember them. We taught a couple principles from the Restoration and also answered his questions. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and set up another time to see him. As we were leaving, he asked us what we would do if he wanted to be baptized. WHAT?! It was more because he is in a wheelchair and not completely mobile, but we told him we would figure something out. We then went and saw a less-active. It was getting towards the end of the night so we went to one of our investigators named Lina. She is the wife of a less-active. We met her a couple weeks ago and she is from Columbia. She speaks broken English so sometimes communication is hard, but not too bad. We stopped by to deliver a Spanish Book of Mormon for her. We were able to talk with her for a minute and we invited her to church and she said she would come. We also set up another appointment for this next week. So this day was one of the best days we have had in a long time. We might be able to get a couple of our investigators on date for baptism in these next couple weeks.
Saturday we did some service at the Davison's. Then we went over to Miss Rush's. We asked her if she felt like she was ready to find out for herself if this church is true. She told us that she is not. Sadly, she might not be for a while. Give it time and we hope she will, but just not right now. After her we did some finding. We stopped in at what we thought was a potential investigator’s home. We talked to the guy there and he was a little drunk and was trying to act cool and be funny. He wasn't interested so we just offered a picture of Jesus and he told us there wasn't much use for that there. Then he walked back inside after leaving us with a comment I have heard numerous times on my mission, "hail S***n." I just laughed to myself as we walked away and kind of felt bad for the guy that he chose to do that, but it was a first for Elder Bingham. We continued on like nothing happened. Cool little miracle from the day. We were looking for a less-active in a trailer park and we found the trailer, but the front door was guarded by 4 little yapping dogs. So we went to the back door which I didn't think would get answered. Well we got back to the road and looked over and saw a guy working on his car fixing his wheel bearing. So my first reaction was that this guy looks a little rough so I didn't want to bother him. Then I thought well. Elder Bingham likes doing mechanics so maybe we can help. I asked Elder Bingham if he would like to help this guy and he looked at me and smiled and said no. He is a little shy so I knew why he said no. Well the Spirit was giving this prompting to go and talk with him and I am not going to let Elder Bingham just stay in the comfort zone because there is no growth there. So I turned and walked over to the guy. He was a very nice guy. We offered help, but he didn't need it, which is ok. We gave him a picture of Jesus. We then asked if he knew his neighbor, the less-active we were looking for, and he said he did. He told us that if she wasn't at home, then she was at her daughters place right across the road. We thanked him and then found the lady we were looking for. She was not interested in coming back, but the lesson here was that if we had not talked to that man because of prejudgments or our shyness, then we would never had been able to find the less-active lady we were looking for.
Sunday was pretty good. We got a new Ward Mission Leader which is Bro Richard, so I am excited. He is awesome. Although now I am going to be training 2 people because he doesn't know too well what he is doing for this calling and I am the only one with the experience. The old Ward Mission Leader and myself are going to be helping him out until he gets it down. I am looking forward to being able to work with him. He is a convert himself so he might be able to give us some insight on what works and what doesn't. The rest of the day we did some finding. Towards the end of the evening, I took Elder Bingham to his first non-LDS church. We went to the East Bristol Church of Christ. It was a pretty good service. It was mainly on the life of John the Baptist.
Well that is all for this week. This next week is already looking good and I can't wait to see what else it has in store. One lesson I really learned this week is that I just need to do the work and within time, the fruit from our labors will come forth. It may be frustrating for a while, but in the end it will be great. I just need to listen to what the Lord says to do and then do it, no matter what the outcome, even though He already knows what that will be. I hope you all are having a great first month of the year. It's good to hear from you guys and the great things you are doing. I love you all and hope it is a great week. God bless and I will talk to y'all next week.
Elder Ellison
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| Humble Pie - Tastes Like Pumpkin |
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| New Missionary Trip with these Hooligans |
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| This Parrot Tries to Eat our Shoelaces |
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| Tracting for Dayz! |
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