16 June 2014

I've been reminding myself a lot recently that anything worth anything is worth anything. 

I'm so exhausted. Every minute of every day I am so tired. I feel healthy. Two years are catching up to me, I think. Mind over body, mind over body, mind over body...

We had a hard week. Actually, we've had a hard few weeks. We just cannot find solid people. We have done literally everything I have ever done or ever heard of and never done. I even got on my bike and biked around in 105 degrees! I got a flat tire. 

As I have written before, President Toone made a promise at the start of the transfer that every companionship could baptize this transfer. As of last week, every companionship in our zone was on track to do so. Half of them already have, the other half (minus us) had someone on date. 

Every companionship was assigned another companionship to pray for. They pray by name for those they are teaching. This last week we asked the zone to pray for us so that we could find someone. Before my personal study on Thursday, I got down on my knees and begged for someone we could find, teach, and baptize before I go home.

During my personal study I had a strong impression that we should alter our morning plans and spend an hour calling former investigators. We have two phones and thus were both able to call. We set up around five appointments after over fifty calls. 

The first lesson we had set up was with a woman who had only been visited twice,  years ago. We visited her and I was blown away by how powerful a spirit they had in their home. We had a great lesson and as we sat there teaching, I reflected back on the last two years. It has been hard, but it has been amazing. I don't want to be released as a full-time missionary. We taught this family and they all accepted a baptismal invite. We were very excited.

The next day was our monthly ward visitors center trip. We took the daughter-in-law to the visitors center. Her answers were just perfect. When the sisters asked her why she came she said, "I see so much happiness here. I want it." She loved the Joseph Smith movie. Afterwards she said, "That book...where can I get it? I love reading and I want to read it." Afterwards in another display she said, "This is what I want."

She accepted a baptismal date for June 28th. That's a mighty fine birthday present. 

On the drive home we sat in the back seat, ecstatic, as our investigator talked and became friends with the member. Remember, we taught the daughter-in-law at the older woman's home the day before.

The member asked where she could drop her off and the daughter-in-law replied, "_____." 

She doesn't live in our area.

No.

No...

That was a hard moment. We had to refer her over to the sisters in a different ward.

That was a very hard moment.

Yes, she is still going to get baptized and that is wonderful. It's hard to put into words why it is so sad to lose someone to a different area. There are no words.

That was a hard night. I felt tried to my last straw. I felt ready to give up. I felt like the Lord was trying to break me. And I almost let him.

I opened my scriptures and stumbled upon something that changed my perspective. 

 15 And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!
 16 And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!
When people try to tell me that God doesn't answer our prayers, I immediately think to the many many many times He has answered me. 

That scripture taught me that although we have not baptized in some months, I can find joy in my efforts. We're doing absolutely everything we can. Isn't that enough? We've frequently discussed what else we could do and we do it. 

Nothing worthwhile is easy.

Last night was the last Mission President's Devotional of my mission. Elder Myler and Oscarson drove up from Yuma to perform a musical number. They go home with me. Elder Sylvester and I translated. It was another unique experience of being lifted above our ability. It was smooth and felt natural. 

That was the last time I'll see many of the missionaries here. We only had five minutes after it ended to say goodbye since we had another meeting with missionaries right afterwards but it was a sad moment. I was happy to see a family I had baptized in Mesa there.

Exciting news! The church has released an electronic progress report that is accessed through lds.org! Gone are the days of spending time writing a paper progress report for the ward council! Stake and ward leaders can access an auto-generated progress report at any time from any device! 

President Toone got a cool new Tahoe. It's the only car he fits in. The Traverse he had was way too small for him. I offered to give him our Corolla for it but he sad no.

On the 27th of June we will be going to the Gilbert temple for one last temple session with all the missionaries that go home with me! There are six of us. President and Sister Toone will go as well. Can't wait.

I'm honestly toying with the idea of being a car salesman. 

A miracle we saw last week was that every single less active that we visited and invited came to church! One family works all night on Saturdays and used that as their excuse. We were bold with the parents and they came on Sunday with a big smile on their face! 

We were also surprised by a family of former investigators that showed up to church! There is still hope for a baptism before I finish my mission! 

If I've learned anything on my mission it is that happiness and optimism are choices we make. In the midst of a trial we decide whether to overcome it with a smile on our face or a frown. We control what happens most of the time, so why don't we? Why don't we take our happiness into our own hands more often?

Love you all!
EJ

15 April 2013

 Dear Family and Friends,

15 April 2013

Last week was a pretty tough week but it was nothing compared to this week. And just like last week it started off with a lot of potential. We called a fellowship to reach out to the investigator to ask them to set up a lesson for Thursday. Over the phone the fellowship told us that the investigator (temple tile worker one) wanted to get baptized in the next few days and that he was very excited about the church. Wooo! We were stoked! We finally had a potential!

 

That very same day we got a referral for a family of two that requested Spanish missionaries to teach the husband and wife, both in their sixties. Their daughter had just been sealed in the temple and joined the church the year before. Wooo! We were stoked! We finally had a potential!

 

The day we got the referral we went over and talked to them. We taught in English because the daughter didn't speak a ton of Spanish and that's how they greeted us. The family of 2 (we'll call them the Mrtnz') were interested but Mr. Mtnz didn't seem to grasp it too well. We found out that Mrs. Mrtnz had watched conference that past weekend and believed that Thomas S. Monson was a prophet. Awesome start! We taught them the first lesson and tried to commit them to baptism but they said they wanted to go slowly. Ok. We can work with that. We stopped by and talked with them for 4 minutes the next day and asked how her reading went. She said that all day she had felt really good and felt that God told her the Book of Mormon was true. Sweet! So we set up a lesson for Thursday planning on extending a hard baptismal date for 3 weeks ahead.

 

On Thursday we had lesson with temple tile worker investigator and the Spanish family. We excitedly prepared and planned and were ready for the best day in Queen Creek yet. The whole day seemed to be awesome. First up was the lesson with the 'Mtnz' family. We were planning on only speaking spanish with them to prepare them to go to church in Spanish. We walked in the door and the first thing she told us is that she wanted to get baptized. We hadn't even prayed yet! We said absolutely and began the lesson. As soon as we started, Mrs Mtnz asked us to speak in English instead of spanish so that she could understand. I thought, "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.' So we did... The whole lesson we were thinking that they would ask to go to church in English instead of Spanish now. But we ignored that thought and kept teaching. Mrs Mtnz had a gained a strong testimony of everything we had taught and so we extended the baptismal date for the 20th of April, 12 days after we had first begun teaching her. She accepted. We then told her what time the Spanish ward started and she asked if she could go to it in English instead.

 

(We taught her all the commandments and she said she would leave behind coffee forever because she knew that the Word of Wisdom was from God)

 

Aaaahhhhhhhh. Obviously we said yes but told her that would mean different missionaries would teach her and go to church with her etc. She said she wanted us to finish teaching her but she needed to go to church in English. So. We referred them back to the English elders but are going to finish teaching her and the English elders will baptize her.

 

I was devastated but you know, she is still getting baptized which is the important thing and we are still doing all the work.

 

We invited her to view a baptism that weekend which she accepted. She told us that she would be busy on the 20th so we moved her baptism up to the 19th. We had her get interviewed for baptism right after the one she saw and she passed that.

 

She is the most prepared person I have ever taught. Her first missionary contact will be 11 days before her baptism and she is getting baptized on the 11th day of learning about the gospel. Just an amazing story.

 

So, rewinding back to that Thursday day. We had just put someone on date but had to pass them off to the English missionaries. We were excited for her but sad that we just lost an incredibly solid investigator.

 

But it was ok because we still had a lesson that night with the other solid investigator we had! They were 40 minutes late to the lesson but only because they were lost. We had invited a member from the ward and an investigator who was getting baptized the very next day to testify to him and relate to him. We were going to meet at the church near the baptismal font. The set up could not have been better. Anyway, as soon as we started teaching we could tell something was wrong. Long story short he had been given tons of anti-mormon material. The lesson shifted away from the gospel to resolving weird concerns about how much the plates weighed. The lesson was spiraling out of control. By the end of the lesson he had decided he didn't want to get baptized and didn't believe what we were sharing with him was true.

 

So on Thursday we lost everything we had. We lost every. single. investigator and had no one else to teach. It was the most depressing day of my mission, hence the picture at the top. We came in that night and just lay on the ground from 9:15-10:15. Discouraged doesn't really do it justice.

 

The next day only helped to put things into perspective (weekly planning session where we make plans for who we are going to teach that week and what etc etc). We had nothing or no one to plan for.

 

As depressing as all of that is, Mrs Mtnz is still going to get baptized on Saturday and we are very excited about that.

 

We also got a referral for someone who has read the entire Book of Mormon before. She read it as a book and not prayerfully the first time. I texted her yesterday because she won't let us come by because her parents don't like the church. In the text I asked if she had prayed in it and she said she is rereading it and has prayed and feels like God told her it is true. She is the only person in our area that we have found and her parents won't let us teach her. Our only communication is via text message. We're praying for their hearts to be softened so that she can come to church and the activities.

 

 

 

We drove past the Gilbert temple (for those on google maps if you want to see how big our area is, go from the 

Gilbert temple to Florence and then east and west some). It's pretty nice.

 

Moving away from depressing and somewhat exciting news haha...

 

Arizona uses dust control trucks. We had a dust storm last Monday and they had trucks driving around dumping water on and off the roads to limit the dust being picked up.

 

Last Monday we went to play ping pong(!) and basketball at the church for P-day. I went up for a lay up at one point but tripped over someones foot and landed square on my knee. I don't think I've ever hurt myself so bad. I got up and hobbled off to the side and sat there for a few minutes thinking it would get better quickly. I thought I had broken my kneecap or something. It got bad enough that I could barely walk. Just touching it softly was excruciating. That night I prayed that it would heal and I would wake up feeling better the next day so we could go out and work. When I woke up it was almost entirely better and I could walk normally. It was still bruised but the bone felt fine. Pretty cool.

 

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa J, Susie, Annie, Mom, Eric, Will, and Aunt Andra for the letters

 

 

 Anyway thank you all for your continued support!

 

Con amor,

EJ

 

18 March 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

It would probably be a good idea to send letters to the mission home. I'm probably going to stay but we will see.

 

This was a pretty hard week. 80% of those we are/were teaching dropped us and so we have just about no one to teach. We only taught 8 lessons last week. The spanish work has just dissapeared in an area that it was already hard to find. Our baptism fell through and things seem to be going against us right now.

 

So instead of teaching lessons this week we worked the only statistic that we can really control. OYMs, or street contacts, are things I've never really prioritized since we are usually teaching lessons and don't have time to wander around and talk to people. But since we didn't have anyone to teach, we spent a lot of time walking and talking this week. A good week of OYMs is about 120 with the standards of excellence being at 140 different people spoken with. A good OYM constitutes the bearing of testimony and inviting the person to do something. This week since we little else to do, we got tons of OYMs. And by tons I mean 348. 140 of those were in one day. We walked 20 miles that day haha. So hopefully that helps us in some way this week because it's looking pretty bleak.

 

We talked to some pretty funny people. One of them said no and threw an onion and two jalapenos at us. Another started to yell anti stuff at us. We listened for a few seconds and I asked him if he had ever read any of the things he was quoting. He said no and I asked him how he could judge anything without ever reading it. He said, "Not to be disrespectful or anything but you teach from the wrong source - false scripture from a false prophet and it distorts all of you. You only go after 'softies' and when anyone puts up a fight you leave!" I asked him how he could say he was trying not to be disrespectful and say that. After a few more seconds of him yelling we just told him to read it and walked away to hear him arguing at our backs. Fun.

 

We also didn't get to go to the temple this week. We carpooled with the two other Elders that live with us on the way to the temple. Their member picked us up in their brand new VW Jetter TDI, 2 weeks old. I talked to him on the way over about his car and his line of work (designs missles). Halfway to the temple, Elder Arndt says we need to pull over quickly but we were in the middle of a work zone. The member floored it and pulled over but it was too late. Elder Arndt threw up all over his companion, all over Elder Allen, and all over the new 2013 Jetta. Everyone was in shock so I opened up the door and ran around to open his door so the rest wouldn't get inside the car haha. The good news? I escaped unscathed! The bad? No temple...

 

It's starting to get hot. I am so acclimatized to the 'winter' that I'm going to die. It was 95 the other day and has been around 90 for most of the week. I heard it's supposed to cool off a bit. The sad thing is that even if it's 90 degrees, it's still going to get 30 degrees warmer... It was funny though, I was biking on exchanges and my shirt was a little wrinkly in the morning and by the time we stopped it looked like the sun/wind had ironed it straight. That makes life easier!

 

During our spanish study this week there were helicopters hovering overhead for the entire hour. That night we learned that someone had gotten into a gun fight with the cops and was shot dead in the park nearby.

 

I finally saw a road runner!

 

Two days ago we went by to visit someone in the evening and as we turned to leave we saw a giant black widow in the corner of their walls outside. We went home that night and checked the perimeter of our exterior walls and found two or three black widows and six scorpions. So naturally we caught them.

 

 The scorpion won.

 

We were walking around the only trailer park here last week and someone yelled at us to give him a ride to the store because he was drunk. We said no because we're not allowed to give rides in our mission car. We ran into him this week again and he was drunk. Again. The conversation began with, translated, "LIARSSSSSSS. You're not men of God! I needed to get to the store to buy beer but you wouldn't give me a ride!" We told him we can't drive people in our car and he said, "I wanted you to drive me in my truck! LIARS! You don't help people!" And so on. Elder Allen told him that if he wants to drive places he shouldn't drink haha.

 

We went to teach a lesson last night to a potential spanish investigator that we have. We knocked on the door and she invited us in saying they were praising God already. We walked in, slightly suspicious, and went to the back door. When we got there we saw probably 20 hispanics with someone preaching to them at 8:30pm. She invited us to join them but it was super awkward so we politely declined and left them with some cards haha.

  

Thanks for the letters: Sister Hines, Tanan, and John!

 

Do insects have blood?

We have lots of black widows in our neighborhood. How dangerous are they? Could they kill me?

 

Anyway, hopefully this next week yields more success than this week! Hope you're all well,

 

Love,

Elder Johnson