Hello everyone,
It was a crazy last week of the transfer--by the end of this email you will know where I'm getting transfered to. Or maybe I won't tell you ;)
On Monday we had a lot of fun playing basketball as a district, or I shouldn't say basketball, more like there was a basketball that we just threw across the room trying to make impossible shots all while we talked. In the late afternoon we went thrifting, and then to Texas Roadhouse as a district. It was really fun, and the food was surprisingly great. My companion and I were very pleased because we had gift cards and didn't have to pay--the rest of our district did :)
Tuesday was so much fun, we had the last district council of the transfer. It was really sad cause Elder Nelson is going home, so we held a funeral for him. I gave a Eulogy, and then we had a brief moment of silence. After the funeral we did an ancient ceremony which can't be spoken of, but suffice it to say we had a lot of fun!
After district council we went on exchanges. We decided to stay and double-work Texarkana. Elder Rainey and I filmed a video, and did a lot of stopbys. Nobody answered but it was fun to talk about all sorts of things while we went. We talked a lot about our missions so far and also about board games.
In the evening we came back to the apartment and Elder Nelson gave us each a back massage. He's a licensed masseuse, and you can tell cause afterwards you feel completely loosened up.
On Wednesday we headed back to New Boston cause of apartment inspections and Elder and Sister Scott (the inspectors of our apartment) were very impressed. They said we get first place for cleanest apartment. :)) Which was no surprise since we hire maids and servants to keep it clean.
In the evening we taught one of our people who is on date, who's name I will keep private. (His name is Stephen.) The lesson went really well, we have taught him everything required for baptism so our last several lessons have been us teaching for personalized to his needs. He's been waiting on an answer about if thus church is true for a long time, so we have been fasting and praying as a district for him to get that answer. In our lesson we shared the first vision video, and then talked about blessings we've seen in our lives because of church. We ended by asking him if he'd gotten an answer and he said, "I'm not sure, but I do feel like this is where I need to be, and this is the church I need to join." So in other words he DID get an answer, we told him. We set up his Baptismal interview.
Thursday we had another lesson with Mark, and we got a member to come with us! It went pretty well, we taught about modern prophets. I love teaching about Modern Prophets cause God would literally be dumb if he didn't still call prophets, and you can see the same thing going on in the minds of those you teach. Despite what their pastor told them at The Mighty Holy Spirit Baptist On the Rock In the Rock of The Rock Dwayne the Rock On the Hill Of the Hill Light Under a Bushel Holy Tabernacle of The LAMB Sacrificial Lamb Eat the Lamb Temple Church of Texarkana.
Mark said, "It would make sense if we had modern prophets" and he's right.
After teaching Mark we had comp study, lunch, and then weekly planning. After weekly planning we went out and did some street contacting, in this so-called heat wave. Ha! I've felt worse, this was just a brisk summer heat. Anyway it was super fun, we found 4 new people to teach! One of these people we have been trying to get in contact with for a while now, and when we stopped by a different person, there she was! We taught her and set up a lesson right then and there! It was crazy cause the spirit had told us to put that stopby in our schedule when we planned that morning.
On Friday we did a lot of Facebook work and had a meeting with the Social Media Specialists. I love Elder Esplin and Elder Gammet, they are a good mix of hilarious and serious. After our meeting we did a bunch more street contacting. In the evening we were stopping by a dude we are teaching, and after we'd knocked a lady told us he was gone. So we walked away and then started talking to these other people who were out on their porch. We asked if they would like to hear a scripture and they said no. Then we heard a voice behind us saying "I would!" And sure enough we turned around and there was Anthony, the guy we were looking for! He said he wanted to walk around and to follow him, so we did just that. We read basically all of 2 Nephi 2 with him as we walked and discussed it to. It was probably a sight to see, a black dude and two white dudes just walking the streets of New Boston reading the scriptures haha
We also found a dude named Marcus Friday evening. We were talking with him and shared a scripture and then he said, "To be honest I'm high so you should come back another day." We happily obliged, and got a return appointment.
Saturday was also great, in the morning we headed for the Church building for Stephen's Baptismal interview. Elder Nelson got there to interview him and we just waited, hoping everything would go well. When they got out Elder Nelson said he's good to get baptized! He told us how Stephen basically testified how he knows and loves the fact that we have modern prophets, and he bore his testimony about this church. He said he's very ready. So Stephen will definitely be getting Baptized!
After that we did some comp study, and then headed for a lesson at a Mexican sit-down restaurant. The person we were teaching was super cool he bought us both lunch and we talked about all of our main beliefs with him. It was really fun, I like eating food.
In the afternoon we did some street contacting and met with ZLs to talk about how the transfer went and how to improve next transfer. We also watched an awesome broadcast on missionary work, and learned a lot! In the evening we talked with Stephen and figured out the entire program for His Baptism. We also had some free time, so we found someone new to teach :)
Sunday was good, we finally had ward council for the first time in forever! They keep pushing it off. After church nothing too interesting happened until the evening. As we were doing Facebook from 8-9 a big storm started coming in, so we got very distracting taking pictures of it, but it was really cool! It finally hit and started raining and there was a LOT of lightning and Thunder. Then we headed home and started to wait for transfer news. Because of the storm, we decided to set up in the main room in the dark so we could watch the storm. So we got a bunch of snacks and got on a call with our district while we waited for transfer news. It was super fun, and when transfer news finally came, turns out I am staying in New Boston with Elder Maisey for another! So that will be really fun. Sister Sharp and Elder Nelson are leaving, but other than that our whole district is staying! Who knows what will happen next transfer, we will have a new District Leader.
-Elder Nielson