Aha! I see I am writing another email,
This was a fun week!
Monday was super fun, we had a pancake breakfast in the morning in Texarkana. Then we hung out as a district and had a giant nerf war. Much to my dismay I lost. Sister Carr won overall multiple times tsk tsk. In the evening we went over to a member's house for hamburgers, hot dogs, and other foods. There were lots of flies, so almost everyone there was complaining about those the whole time. ("These darn flies, why won't they just leave?!" "Next rime we will have fly traps cause of these stupid flies." "I hate flies, back in my day there weren't this many flies.") We listened to all this conversation with much amusement, all while just chowing down on our food. Or at least I was chowing down--Elder Maisey has much to learn about eating obscene amounts of food! It was a fun dinner, after that we drove to the other side of town and as we drove through the middle of town there were tons and tons of cars lining the streets and parked everywhere. I have rarely seen so many cars and so many people-- there were tons of people in lawn chairs literally everywhere! I didn't know this many people lived in East Texas, let alone just New Boston!! It was crazy cause usually when driving through town it's super dead, I guess everyone climbs out of their holes for the 4th haha
We did some calls and Facebook at McDonald's, and then headed back to our apartment. Turns out our apartment is literally right in front of where the Fireworks are set off every year, so some members always come and park in our driveway and watch from there. We pulled out our couches and chairs and we had the best seat of the whole town. :) The fireworks were soo good! I've never been so close, it was super fun. Overall one of the better 4th of July's I've had!
Tuesday was also fun, we had a great district council and did service at the food bank afterwards. Elder Maisey and I took pictures by some wall art afterwards, and then got my bike fixed. In the evening we walked around and gave away 3 copies of the Book of Mormon and 6 restoration pamphlets. It was fun, I love giving away copies of The Book of Mormon because then I get to carry around a fresh one more often! We found a couple people also.
Wednesday we also did a lot of street contacting! We taught 7 lessons and found 3 new people to teach. One of the people we found said she was so glad we came by, and that it was just what she needed. She said she's been looking for a church family and so we invited her to church and she said she would come. We have been stopping by her apartment for the last 5 months and she has never answered so its a miracle she did today, cause we had felt like we should put her in our calendar when we were planning our day! We also had a phone lesson with Daphne (someone I found on Facebook). When it was time to call her we realized we were just walking the streets of a neighborhood and didn't have time to get somewhere we could sit. So we found an empty lot and stood there while we called. So there we were, just standing looking at a single phone teaching a 30 minute lesson, while befuddled cars drove by. It was fun, would recommend! The lesson went super well, and afterwards as we were walking to our car we saw another person, who we talked with and found!
On Thursday we finished teaching Mark everything he needs to know for Baptism. We also had a lot of meetings, we met with the other Zone Reps, the Social Media Specialists, and started doing our companionship calls. It was great to talk to everyone, we got lots of ideas on how we can improve. We were hopefully also able to help some companionships improve their Facebook efforts.
Friday was Elder Maisey's birthday, so our whole district sang him happy birthday over Zoom. Zoom is easily the best platform to sing over, fun fact, there is no lag and it works perfectly everytime! So go try it. In the afternoon the Watson's drove us to De Kalb and stopped by some formers and members with us. It was really fun to be driving with them, especially since it was 102⁰F and felt like we'll over 110--so an air-conditioned car was super nice.
Okay now I must pause for a second and just say, any complaints of heat I have been getting do not faze me. :) Most of the temperatures that yall have complained to me about I consider nice and cool 😎
One house we went to had a guy who was not interested, but his wife WAS so we just ignored him and taught her haha-- We found 3 new people to teach while we were with the Watson's, and they got us Sonic for dinner. I got a shake, a chicken sandwich, and two fries, so I was content. In the evening nobody answered their door. I think next time I'm going to bring battering ram, that way we can just answer the door for people! They'll understand once they realize how important our message is.
Saturday was a blast, we decided to bike since we need to save miles. We picked a hot day for it haha--it got up to 104⁰, but it was fine, we kind of just vibed. We taught a surprise Plan of Salvation lesson which was fun! The Plan of Salvation always impresses people, because no other church has this many answers. :) Then we stopped by this guy named Paul, and he didn't answer. As usual we left a card, and left. Then about 30 minutes later we got a call, and it was Paul! He told us to come back, and of course we obliged. It was great, cause nobody ever calls our cards haha--and now we have his number! We went over, and he invited us in. He is very intrigued with us, cause he says he sees nobody else biking and walking around in this "(swear word) heat." We talked about what we do, and taught him about the Book of Mormon. He says he loves us, and as we were leaving he gave us each a surprise hug and $20 haha--it was definitely a miracle that we got to talk with him. The rest of the afternoon we had a blast just biking around and skidding to a stop to talk with people who were out. I think this is the most sweaty I've ever been haha, we went to KFC, and the lady at the counter took one look at our drenched selves and immediately gave us each a free drink. I drank like 5 whole cups of soda and water in about 10 minutes.
In the evening it was overcast, so it cooled down to only 95⁰! It was super nice, we walked around and found 2 new people to teach. :) The key to having fun talking to random weird and new people is to just enjoy how weird and funny each interaction is. It's super fun! We gave out some more copies of the Book of Mormon, and I really need to stop giving them out so much cause we are almost out, but I can't help it haha--it's too much fun.
Sunday was great we had the monthly potluck which was great, I ate all the food. In the evening we found someone on Facebook which was great! We also did some calls, and taught a phone lesson. The lady we taught offered to say a prayer and then immediately started praying for like 5 minutes straight haha--We didn't even realize she was praying at first, so we tried to answer and then realized she was praying.
Overall we found 11 new people this week which was so cool, cause I've always had a goal to find that many in a week! We are now teaching 31 people :))
-Elder Nielson
No comments:
Post a Comment