Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Transfer 17, Week 5, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward‏

Dear Family,

This week was great!!!! 
I can't believe its week 5 already! This transfer has gone by super fast! 
Well this week we had an amazing start! Its always great when you can have a lesson on a Monday, since we don't have too long to proselyte. 
We met with Anna and Grselda and read the Book of Mormon with them. They seem to love it and Grselda loved church! We taught them the Plan of Salvation this week with Brother Jolley our Ward Mission Leader. They were not able to make it to church this week because of Grseldas sisters wedding. But we hope they can continue to progress and do well! We are teaching them tonight (Tuesday May 27) and we will be teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are so cool and so prepared for the Gospel! Its great to see that if you just talk to people the Lord will put people He has prepared into your path. 

We had 2 lessons with Armour this week. We showed him a mormon message, "origin" and discussed how important it is for him to ask in faith and obtain an answer. He was finally able to connect some dots by himself and he realizes that he needs to do more. He came to church and stayed for the full 3 hours. He cancelled his lesson with us this morning because he got a rough start today. We hope to meet with him this Saturday. 

We met with Catherine and she is set to be baptized this Saturday. She met with the mission president and he is excited for her to be baptized. Tonight we will be meeting with her and talking about the atonement. We will also pound out the details for the baptism. 
It was super cool at church. She sits with us every week and I help her sing the hymns (by the way, she attempts and does a really good job with every song!). After church she came up and said that she realized that this would be one of our last weeks to sit together since I leave soon. She started to cry and it was super tough! We are so happy for her to be baptized this week! She is super cool and she has a great story!!!

We met with Jarmaris this week at brother Gardiners house and he did another new member lesson with us. It was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jarmaris has read the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the History of the Church (included in the triple combination). He is working on the Doctrine and Covenants. And he's only been baptized a few weeks!!! 

So in less spiritual news... SWAT blocked off a few streets to catch someone... and there was a sniper on top of one of the church buildings. Pretty cool. 

Also on a less spiritual note. Which will help you get a view of the "preparation day side" of missionaries... every companion that Elder Campbell has had has done something called the 'Kool Aid Challenge'. You drink 15 'Kook Aid Bursts' in 15 minutes without throwing up. Well I got through 7... and then i didn't keep it down. Elder Campbell got down to having 3 and 1/2 left. But he didn't make it either. It was super fun but obviously a 'Memorial Day/P-Day' activity. :) 

We also went on exchanges. I went with Elder Johnson in the Young Single Adult Ward. It was a great day! We went to a less actives house and she came out and said, "I'm not going to be the Prize Heifer at the Cattle Auction". haha it was great! obviously she thinks that ysa wards are just to get you married. Which I guess is true... but I hope she still wants to go to church regardless of her circumstances :) 

This week was our last district meeting... of which I will tell you more about last week. But This last week I was thinking of something cool to do for Elder Johnson, who is going home this transfer as well. So I asked him who his favorite Recent Convert was that he was able to baptize. His name is Samuel and Elder Johnson met him at the beginning of his mission. I got his number and had Samuel come in as a surprise in district meeting for Elder Johnson. He talked about his conversion and how he is now sealed in the Temple. I wanted to surprise Johnson but also let the younger missionaries see what comes from our work that we do. 

We had Zone Conference this week. It was super good! It was mostly on the Atonement. We had to host it and conduct. But it still turned out good :). I gave my departing testimony. Which was hard but good. I quoted a lot of Maxwell :) 

Well I love you all! and hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder John 

There was a funeral that we were asked to attend this week. One of our Recent Converts nephews just died and they had the service at the church. 
"Though otherwise a “lively” attribute, hope stands quietly with us at funerals. Our tears are just as wet, but not because of despair. Rather, they are tears of heightened appreciation evoked by poignant separation. Those tears of separation change, ere long, becoming tears of glorious anticipation." - Neal A. Maxwell

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