"Bits & Pieces" from January 2014

January 6, 2014.....
 
"this week was a great week it was kind of hard to get into houses cause people are still out of town and ya we have the flu sickness here sooo many people are sick its crazy. but we did have some success this week . We didn't get to see Gabby cause she was out of town a lot. but we did see Travis Boykin with a member and that went very well. We read a chapter out of the book of Mormon 3 Nephi 11 and he loved it he is seeing a lot of changes in his life since we have met and hes loving it. We are gonna go to rehab with him on Tursdays to help him with that so we are excited about him and then we got a new investigator this week named Evaline Boykin. She is about 50 and the blackest lady ever. Shes so funny, but we had a great 1st lesson with her and committed her to be baptized on Feb. 1! oh and on the 3rd was my official 6 month mark so I had fun and got to burn a tie! We also have another investigator named Tyrus that's awesome. He is such a funny guy and he loves to feed us. which is also very bad. He fed us a huge southern meal on New Years Eve with everything southern you can think of,  fried chicken collard greens potatoes mac n cheese  dressing(stuffing) gravy biscuits cornbread black eyed peas lima beans!! It was crazy and everything was homemade and it was soooo good!! Gosh I felt like I gained 10 lbs though haha. Then I had the same kind of meal at a members house the next day cause I guess its a southern tradition to have collard greens black eyed peas and that stuff on new years. Oh and I do like collard greens! but only if they are cooked right cause I've had them 3 times this week and one time they were so nasty but, then on Saturday. Tyrus took us out to breakfast to Ryans which is just like golden corral and we ate there! ha its cause everybody knows him there he goes there all the time! Later that day he took us to one of his friends house cause he told us if we really want to see a true southern crazy house we had to meet these people and oh how right he was! haha I think these people were more southern than the duck dynasty people no joke their house was a disaster, So messy, trash everywhere in the yard and stuff and it was gross but that's not even the worst part this place was a zoo!! In there small house they have 12 dogs, 12 cats, 6 birds, 3 cows, 3-600 pound pigs outside! and a peacock and deer living in the basement!!!!!! It was insane hahahah It was so funny and they were sooooo redneck like you couldn't understand a word coming out of their mouth and just swearing all the time it was hilarious. I was loving my life. When we first got there they were like do you wanna see our guns and they took out their 12 gauge shotgun their  22-250's, double barrell shotguns there rifles and they were shooting them in the back yard, all of them!! hahah it was so awesome the double barrel was sick cause it was an older one and so loud but ya that was my adventerous Saturday! I bet you are loving this long letter right now, holy crap I feel like I've been writing forever.  Anyways so on Sunday we didn;t have any investigators there but the sisters had 2 there and they were both black ladies. but the cool thing was it being fast and testimony meeting they both got up and bore there testimonies!! it was so cool. So the first one was amazing cause shes a younger girl and has gone through a lot. She lost her baby and stuff and just said that Jesus has been protecting her and teaching her a lesson and then the second one is an older black lady and man was I having a blast when she was speaking!! it was like we were in a baptist church and she was just preaching away saying thank you Lord Jesus at the top of her lungs and praising Jesus and saying halealujah!! hahaha it was awesome she spoke for like 10 min  and the ward was loving it it was great. but that was my week!"

6 month celebration!

Welcome to the ZOO!

January 13, 2014.....

"not too much went on this week except for zone conference which is always good we had a lot of good workshops and stuff where we learned some great stuff and the temple of course is always amazing and whenever we get the opportunity to go its great that's one thing i hope I can maintain when I get home I would love to go to the temple at least once a week. But we'll see how that goes and speaking of temples how is doing dads side of the family work going?? But ya not to much happened this week. As far as Gabby goes no she didn't make it to church cause she had to take her son to the hospital cause he has the flu but on friday we had like a heart to heart with her and she just is ready and she told us that she needs to know for sure that this church is true and that it needs to resinate with her. She feels like its just to rote and robotic kind of and she's still having a hard time with Joseph Smith but she is still reading and we haven't and wont officially dropped her but we will be focusing our efforts more on other people. But one of our investigators Evaline Boykin a 50 yr old black lady who is on date for Feb. 1 came to church! So that was great she stayed for all 3 hours and she enjoyed it. she was tired afterward though haha it was funny but what was cool is Melanie Parker. that less active I told you about last week came to church again this week!! and a family named the Kincades came to church and we have been working with them since I got here and they haven't been to church in about 7 months and they came and like 6 other less actives came! it was awesome.  It was the biggest turnout I've seen on my mission we had 224 people in sacrament! It was awesome. So that was the best part of the week for me. but we are starting to get more and more trust in the ward and getting a lot more referrals from them which is great! It was a pretty slow week nobody really wanted to talk with us and we got shut down a lot but its all good being here in Georgia its getting fun to see who can get shut down the worst! haha It's sad but true but as far as mission wide we are progressing very well with finding and baptizing so its awesome to see and ya I think I will be that elder that goes to all the bad wards and tries to pick them back up. Things are starting to get better. as far as less actives. things are going great we are having quite a bit of success with that. We had about 7 less actives that we work with that came to church this week and the sisters had 5 but that has been one of our huge focuses here I have found so much joy in bringing people back into the fold. More than my investigators coming back to church its weird but great! And we found 3 super super lost sheep this week and they were all nice. One let come in and he made us pancakes and we talked for like an hour and a half and he was so cool but all of them kinda are set in there ways and don/t want to come back yet but they all said we could come back. but thats been my week."

January 20, 2014.... 

"It was a pretty slow week nobody really wanted to talk with us and we got shut down a lot but its all good being here in Georgia. Its getting fun to see who can get shut down the worst! haha its sad but true. But as far as mission wide we are progressing very well with finding and baptizing so its awesome to see and ya I think I will be that elder that goes to all the bad wards and tries to pick them back up. things are starting to get better, as far as less actives things are going great  We are having quite a bit of success with that. We had about 7 less actives that we work with that came to church this week and the sisters had 5 but that has been one of our huge focuses here.  I have found so much joy in bringing people back into the fold. More than my investigators coming back to church. Its weird but great! and we found 3 super super lost sheep this week and they were all nice one let come in and he made us pancakes and we talked for like an hour and a half and he was so cool but all of them kinda are set in there ways and dont want to come back yet but they all said we could come back. but thats been my week."

January 27, 2014....

yes its great to be accountable for things. This world would be a lot nicer if more people would try and be accountable for their actions to Heavenly Father. But I'm glad to hear everything is going good back home with jobs and stuff like that I never realized how much of a blessing it can be to go through hard times and being able to push through things and come out for the better! I think tha'ts why doctrine and covenants sections 121 and 122 is like my favorite passage of scripture! But a member in my last ward said a quote that I loved and I shared it with dad once but its " a set back is just a set up for a comeback!" I loved it. But this week was pretty good. It went by so fast I felt like I couldn't get a handle of it before it started. But it was good for some reason. I just feel like we have hit a wall and we're trying to push through it or climb over it right now, but its all good! I feel like I have learned and still learning so much. On wed we had a lady that wanted to sit down and ask us some questions. It turned out being like a 2 hour Q and A of her trying to ask all these questions and it was crazy cause I was just coming back with these answers that I didnt even knew that I had! And it was awesome to see the spirit work through me and answer the questions and for her to accept them all, then to accept to read the book of mormon! And on Sunday we had a big general stake conference. It involved all the stakes in Georgia, Florida and part of South Carolina and had a satelite broadcast and it was great! We got hear from Elder Gay and Elder Kipiskche from the 70, Sister Carole F McConkie and Russel M Nelson!! So that was awesome, the highlight of my week! But something cool just happend. A  lady came up to us and started talking to us saying she knew who we were and shes met with us before and she wants to talk to us after we are done emailing to talk about how we can help some people out that she knows! a pretty cool miracle I think! but thats what has happened this week!