Sunday, 8 December 2013

Week 12: Exchanges & Educating the Multitudes

 
So here is my weekly report! 
This week unfortunately has been super slow. I will not lie but missionary work can come to almost a stand still! We need find more people to teach! This week we are going to find and destroy our area and find a bunch of new people to teach! Our bus passes expired and my bike was broken due to Elder Ward on exchanges this past week. So we are back to walking everywhere until we get a new tire tube. 
 
So last week monday was the first snowish type of storm haha We had to wait in the cold for 45 mins for the bus to come and get us because our appointment bombed! It was awesome. So Tuesday we had our District meeting on Tuesday that was awesome! We learned a lot and we are doing this Living Christmas Card in our Mission. There is four scriptures which we are to memorize and then we come to people doors and carol and recite to them and then ask to come in to bless their home! We are so excited to start to do this Christmas Card. 
 
 
 
After our meeting we did an exchange with Leamington! Elder Trost another seasoned missionary who leaves this transfer was with me in my area for the day. He is awesome and we read from Songs of Solomon together during our comp studies! Here is another question haha Why is the Songs of Solomon in our bible haha? He read it in this hilarious voice. Our exchange constituted of riding our bikes all over the place and looking for houses that don't exist because people like to give us false address! Those are the best haha. But there was this one address that Elder Koceja stopped by and set up an appointment, but Elder Trost and I could not find it so we continued on our way. We also had dinner with some members! It was sooooo good! I love eating at members I swear if I keep eating at members I will gain 20 pounds haha. But I have actually lost 10 pounds being out on my mission so far. I have been keeping to my goal of being exactly obedient and working out in the morning! On Wednesday we exchanged back but when the West Elders went to drop us off we found out Elder Koceja left his bag in the Leamington's car! So we spent out afternoon driving around to pick it up. So our day was pretty shot. That evening we went to visit a single sister in the ward! She is so awesome! She is trying to overcome smoking and come back to church more! She has been praying again and reading! She has been clean for 2 weeks now thanks to the help and strength from God. It was an awesome lesson we had because after she said her testimony is defiantly coming back! So we saw success with that! On Thursday We got invited to go over to the Ogdons place for American Thanksgiving since we are just across the river from Detroit. We came over and met their family and friends and partook of a meal fit for a king and 50 people! It was crazy they had so many different types of food and it was just all delicious! It was awesome after the dinner we had dessert which consisted of two pies and cakes, flon, and much more! For the lesson after that we were privileged to teach we taught about thanksgiving and showed the mormon message "in the spirit of thanksgiving". It was really awesome! 
 
I am so grateful for everything that I have been blessed with! This awesome mission, the wonderful people of windsor, my amazing lovely family, my marvelous friends, my amazing strong home ward! I miss you all very much btw! I thank God everyday for all that I am given. I am so blessed. My invitation to you all whom read, pray tonight and just thank your Lord thy God for all you have been blessed with or even write a list out and just remember all the things you are grateful for!
 
 Friday rolled around and we went on more exchanges I went with Elder Ganowsky into a car area. Man i love car areas compared to our bike, bus, walk area haha. So we went tracking all day and had lost of fun talking to people who did not like us too much. Elder Ganowsky turned to me when we started tracting a street and was like I have never once but able to go inside at first contact and teach someone! Lo and behold that was exactly what happened! We met a pastor from another church who was super nice and kind. He did not know too much which was nice but we taught him the first lesson and he loved the idea of it! He accept to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! It was such a cool experience! Elder G. and I had a good laugh about that one! As we walked out and he said wow God does hear our conversations haha. So Sunday was our next big day! We went to church to partake of the Sacrament which was nice and is the main reason for  church. But we also got to teach the 11 year old class! It was so much fun we taught the lesson about when they were building the Salt Lake Temple and how they had to bury it to hide it from the American Govt. After the army left who was sent to destroy it they uncovered it and build it up from scratch because the foundation had cracked! It was an awesome lesson and got to use cold objects like a stone for building our foundation upon the rock of our Redeemer. Also a tub of water and a lid to float and then dump money into it representing sin and how it will sink us into Satan's grasp as we continue to sin and do not repent. After teaching the class which was successful we went and sat in Elder Quorum and Elder Cowley and Bullock taught the lesson about lesson 3 The Gospel of Jesus Christ! It was pretty awesome! After Church Elder Koceja and I had a nice healthy break- the- fast haha it was so delicious eating the yummy ham sandwiches we made for ourselves! That evening we had two really cool experiences though! We got to teach Becky today! We got Bro. Hanna, our ward mission leader, to come over with us and help us teach Becky. He was so awesome he is being her fellowshipper! His wife and her are going to start hanging out too! It was such an awesome match for Becky to befriend! They are going to take her to church this Sunday too! They invited us and Becky over for dinner sometime! They are being such awesome helpers. You know fellowshippers are  key to retaining investigators coming to church and helping them stay active. If they did not have friends in the church and were still struggling with learning about the Gospel as it would be all new they would most likely leave and be discouraged. This way by having friends they can always be there for them and help them and encourage them to continue to learn about the gospel and grow their testimony. During the lesson which was filled with the Spirit, we came to know that Becky does believe in God and Jesus Christ through her prayers she feels like she is now talking to someone on the other end when she prays! She loves praying and reading scriptures! She also loved coming to Church. We have set her to get baptized on December 29 i think haha so we hope she will be ready by then and are praying for it! She will be an awesome member! 
 
 After the lesson we went over to visit our Jamaican friends the 13 of them living in the house! We met this new guy who we started to teach! It was awesome then Karl came and talked to us and taught and testified to the message we shared! He even started to resolve concerns he had! It was awesome Karl was doing that! So we know that he knows what we share is true! He said he was going to met with the missionaries in Jamaica! So hopefully they can baptize him! It was sad to leave and said good bye to all our Jamaican friends. We prayed with them all and then we left! It was super sad to leave them go! But Karl said we would met again! In this life or the next so I believe him! I love all the people we met and teach! I do not even know why I love them I just do! This was my week and next week we are going to slay the num nums and find some new people to teach! 
 
Spiritual Thought:
 
For Zone Conference, we were asked to study the Principle of Repentance.  We studied a bunch of passages.  Here is my favorite passage:  Mosiah 3:17, 19, 4:1-3, 10, 26, 5:2, 5.
These scriptures help us understand some of the steps of repentance and how we can use the full atonement.   You can read the others for yourself but I will reference a few of them.  
From Mosiah 3:17 we learned that salvation is only through and in the name of Christ which means that we must believe in him but we know that we also must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling as it states in Phil 2:12.
We must have works as well to follow and find salvation.  Then comes the awesome scripture that I really do like!  It's 19!  We know that no one can truly repent unless they yield to the enticings of the Spirit.  We all have the Light of Christ which is given to all men - good or evil.  That Light of Christ or conscience leads us to follow through and we then repent through the atonement. We can truly see the atonement work if we become like a child.  Submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him.  If we acquire these attributes, we can become a better example and disciple of Christ.  I invite you all to read those scriptures and apply them.  They are awesome!


 
I love you all and have a great week! 
 
 

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