Monday, September 7, 2009

Week 10

Hey there everybody! It's been another wonderful (and fast) week here in the lovely state of Texas! Everything is still going pretty good here and guess what? We had a baptism Friday!! Woo hoo!! Korea (Ryan) got baptized on Friday night and was confirmed yesterday in church. It was so awesome to see the blessing of the restored Gospel in his life. Hopefully he'll continue to progress and maybe serve a mission. Time will tell though. His parents were there for both the baptism and confirmation, so it was great to see the support and love they have for Ryan. Hopefully Ryan will be able to work with them and they will start taking the lessons as well. We will see.

This week (although great) was also one of the toughest of my life at some points. Monday was good (we saw Korea and of course, it was P-Day) but Tuesday...yeah that was not fun. We had basically nothing planned until that evening because I guess everyone was busy that day (of course it was the second day of school, but still). We had an appointment with a lady named Marie in the morning and she's now a new investigator, but we didn't have anything planned until 6 PM after that. So we went tracting. And did lots of tracting. And of course we went to a more backwater area of Little Elm where everyone's dog was off a leash. So we skipped about 20 houses out of fear of getting mauled by a dog and (wouldn't you know it?) a little 2 year old decides to open the screen door of his house when he hears the dogs barking and 5 DOBERMANS RAN OUT. Needless to say, I freaked out a bit and turned my back to them...not a good idea. The one in front bolted and chomped down right on the back of my thigh. Then the owner comes out and tells me to stop running. At this point, I thought "Your dog just BIT me and you want me to let it get CLOSER to me?" I was upset. Thankfully, the dog didn't get its teeth through my pants because then I would have had to go to the hospital and check for rabies and what not and yadah yadah...not a good day. To make it even better, Christian punched (cancelled) the appointment we had with him because he had too much homework. How much homework do you have on the second day of school? Pretty much worst day ever. And I hate dobermans now. I think the Lord was definitely humbling me in some way. Elder Hall (one of the missionaries serving in the same district who came out with me) said it was about time I had a hard day, because quite frankly, I've been blessed beyond reason, and he is having a difficult time in his area. Still, the end of the day was alright. We had an appointment with Mendi and we finished up the Plan of Salvation. It made sense to her and hopefully we can set a baptisimal date with her soon. I just need to recognize the Lord's hand in everything and I think things will pick up.

Wednesday went much better. We had Zone Conference and received training on how to really activate the Ward Mission Plan, based on a program set up by Elder Perry, one of the 12 apostles. It definitely helped a lot and hopefully we can see an increase in our numbers as the ward gets more involved in doing missionary work. That evening (zone conference is basically all day) we went on exchanges with the Elders Quorum Presidency as we do basically every Wednesday to go visit people. We were going to have an appointment with the Lewis' that evening, but they were taking care of some things and so sadly they had to cancel. We did go see a few other people though and had a good night visiting the less-active members who needed someone to talk to.

Thursday we had planning and we did get a lot done. We Geocoded all the addresses in all the wards (basically we took the address, looked it up in the map, and put the coordinate next to it, i.e. 554G) and then compiled them on spread sheets to make it a lot easier to find people in the ward when we don't know where they are. That took awhile (pretty much all day), so we had dinner with the Wilsons, a member from The Colony 1st ward (if I haven't mentioned before, we get fed almost every night by members. That's another reason Tuesday stunk. We didn't have a dinner scheduled) and then went and saw the Mendez family. Brother Mendez was baptized about three years ago and then sadly fell into inactivity. He never received the priesthood either, and so we've been working with them to get them reactivated and going to church on a regular basis. The lesson went well on Thursday so hopefully he'll be coming more.

Friday was, of course, Korea's baptism, but we started volunteering at a food bank Friday mornings, giving them extra hands and muscle. It was only our second time going there but it was fun and I loved it. It's amazing how much this means to people, especially because sometimes people don't want to admit they need help. It leaves me with such a good feeling, and I'm looking forward to working there more. Before the baptism that night, we went to the Lewis' for dinner, but sadly, Kelly got held up at work and we weren't able to see him. He was really upset as well, and I know he wants to be baptized, and so we're not going to worry too much about it.

Saturday we had another blitz, but this time in the Frisco 2nd & 6th ward area, covered by Elder Stettler and Elder Hall. It went well and we got them quite a few new investigators. After that, we went to a baptism for some one Elder Hatfield taught in his old area. We were pretty late (the baptism was scheduled for 3 PM and we didn't get there until about 4 PM) because the member picking us up got lost because she had bad directions, but we got there and it went well. We had dinner with the Stegemans (Little Elm ward [LE]) and went and saw Mendi again. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she really liked it. She's getting closer and closer to baptism and hopefully we can see her baptized before the end of September.

Sunday (Game Day as Elder Hatfield calls it) was alright. We didn't have that many investigators at church (only Korea, Mendi, and Kelly showed up)mbut Korea did get confirmed. As I said earlier, it is great to see the effects of the restored Gospel in a person's life. That evening we had dinner with the Burkes (The Colony 1st ward [TC1]) and they are doing awesome in their own missionary work. They all invite their friends to activities and always try to be examples of what a member should be like. It has made a difference in the lives of those around them and hopefully we'll be able to teach people soon.

Today we played basketball and dodgeball (as we do most P-Days) but in 2 weeks we have laser tag!! Woohoo!! We're all excited and it should be lots of fun. Tonight we have another lesson with Delia and the Lewis', so it should be a great day all together.

Well that's all for this week. Thanks for all your love and support and may God bless!!

Elder Grondel

No comments: