August 10, 2015

Hello all!

The work is still good in AZ! Last week was a slower week, but still good. I'm doing well and having fun! Things are still kind of warm, but school has started and places are a lot less crowded. Another fun thing that happened this week is that I've been assigned to be a mission tech! Aka, I help the mission with their iPad usage and implementation, help answer people's questions, and test the apps with Apple's new software! Currently I'm Beta testing iOS 9. It's a fun responsibility to have! Also sorry for the lack of pictures this week.....I'll get better.

FYI: The next time I email home will be one week from Wednesday because of transfers!

Monday: In the evening we had  a lesson fall through, then FHE. We ate Papa John's wings/pizza. It was so good! We also had a good lesson with one of our progressing investigators (we've had a lesson with her almost every  day this week and she will be getting baptized this Saturday)!

Tuesday: We did some service (fence painting and digging holes), then had a normal day with a few lessons. Dinner was super good. Our branch president took us out to a restaurant called Samurai Sam's.  I loved it! We also got to go temple cleaning in the evening which was awesome as always!

Wednesday: Most of the day was spent doing district meeting and missionary night (members of our congregation gather together and go and visit less active members or investigators). We got pizza to entice people to come to missionary night. It was from Little Caesars and they have a really good pretzel pizza. I got to go with the branch president during missionary night and we had some very powerful visits. It is amazing to see the love he has for his branch members. He is the principal at Show Low HS, so he had many of them in school as well. He took me on a off-road short cut in his Jeep which was super fun as well.  

Thursday: Not much happened. We had a good lesson with our progressing investigator, our recent convert family, and we visited a less-active YSA and his girl friend. The less-active guy was sleeping because he had work soon, but his girlfriend gave us some extra dinner (we ate a lot that day).

Friday: We had weekly planning which took a lot of time. We also had four set lessons, but only one actually occurred. It was a super good lesson though. We were preparing our progressing investigator for her baptismal interview the next day. We also had a really good dinner: homemade Chalupas.

Saturday: Another slow day. We did our studies, then our zone leaders came over so Elder Anderson could check their Area Book inputting. We then had our progressing investigator's baptismal interview which she passed! Elder Anderson had a meeting, so I just spent time waiting.  And our lesson for that day, unfortunately, fell through.

Sunday: Good as always! It was busy though, we had branch council, then did some companion study, then had ward council. In ward council, we got a training on how to make sacrament meeting and the Sabbath day more meaningful. The answer is that it all starts in the home. We contacted a lot of people in the park after church, then went to a really good dinner (homemade orange chicken and peaches with ice cream in them). After dinner, I felt sick for the rest of the night so it was hard to focus. We had a good lesson with another one of our investigators. He is so interested in learning more and because of that the Spirit is always present when we meet with him (especially when his kids are there too).

Monday: All we have done today is shop. Today I'm going to have to get caught up in my journal writing.

Last, I was very sad to hear about the car wreck and the death/injury of Holly, Dale, Kyle, Kevin, and Hannah. I have been keeping those people, as well as all affected by this accident, in my prayers. I sent a statement home to my parents to share, but here it is again (plus some additional comments)...

Note from MOM... The post dated August 8 has two paragraphs. The first was his original statement, which appeared on Facebook, and the "additional comments" are the spiritual thought he shares in the second paragraph.