Dear frenchmen and frenchwomen,
How was Christmas eve? I hope everyone went to our annual butterscotch roll party! That's the true reason for the season is a worldly party :)
We had a good week although much of Magnolia was out of town. Everyone our age especially was gone. But Elder Stroud and I ate a lot of hot cocoa and hot cider so it was fun nonetheless.
On Monday we caught up on everything we keep putting off. We spent 1.5 (one point five) hours washing our car with boiling water at 5000 PSI and we still weren't able to get everything off. Some of that mud just becomes rock. We also played some Frisbee Golf at the campus course which was fun! We were both super sore after from so much throwing. And we had the campus all to ourselves! Monday evening we ran around all over town visiting out teaching pool. We went and had a lesson with Becky which went well! We've been trying to get in her house the entire time I've been here, cause she usually comes out and has us teach her as she and her kids sit on the steps. So we devised a plan to look super cold and shiver, and then say we wanted to watch an 18 minute video called the Christ Child with them and look in concern around us for another screen bigger than my phone screen. Then after looking around wildly to no avail we planned to have a stroke of genius where it occurs to us that she may have a bigger screen in her house that might be just the thing! (A TV perhaps!) Then since it would be silly to still stand outside and watch from outside through the window, we would naturally get invited in. We fully implemented this plan, and when we got to the part where we were musing that she may have a bigger screen inside aloud, she quickly jumped on the bait and said "I think I have a tablet I can go get!" We had almost lost the battle when finally Farod said, "We could just watch it on the TV..." So we got to go inside FINALLY and watch it with them! Becky fell asleep mid video but Farod and Fatima loved it and had all sorts of intelligent questions after that showed it really made an impression in them!
Tuesday was really fun! We woke up at 5 am and drove 3.5 hours to Bullard, TX (of all places) for Zone Conference at their big church building there. Because it was Christmas zone conference we had 5 zones all together in one building, and the conference went from 9 am to 5 pm haha
It was really good though overall, I LOVE Christmas zone conference. We started with some more talking about not limiting ourselves which had its good parts but as I explained last week I think they go way to far on it. I feel like telling missionaries to raise their vision to what the Lord will do and stuff is valuable and helpful, but when taken too far it has the opposite effect and makes missionaries think that they must be without faith or doing something wrong because they aren't seeing the huge things happen that their leaders are saying will happen. And so they miss all the small and tender mercies that God does. Sometimes God's will is tons of baptisms and sometimes it's not a single baptism but he's giving you small and amazing miracles either way! And you can MISS those miracles when your leaders are trying to make missionaries think too big. They will learn though. One more thing I disagreed with at Zone Conference before I get on to all the stuff I loved. For accountability they put all the zones up on this big screen and put all the stats of each zone in each of the KIs calculated to finds per missionary, baptisms per missionary, etc. In each zone. They then said the most ridiculous thing (this is the APs speaking in case I forgot to mention it. I'm sure you are as unsurprised as I was). They said, "Now this isn't supposed to be a leaderboard but..." and then gestured to each LEADING zone on the giant BOARD and talked about how each of should see whos LEADING in each category shown on the BOARD and ask them for advice on how to improve. They also talked about how it's interesting to see what those who are LEADING are doing based on the BOARD stats. I added the emphasis. So what do you think of that? A giant board that shows clear leaders depending on numbers but it ISNT a leaderboard? Most ridiculous notion I've ever heard. Leaders love stuff like this and I will never understand it. Did Christ use leaderboards??? No! Those are not part of the Gospel. Accountability is important and I understand that but we are told SPECIFICALLY IN PREACH MY GOSPEL many times over to NOT COMPARE OURSELVES to other missionaries. We compare to ourselves, we try to always be improving, and we are accountable to God. There is also value in analyzing trends with intentions of improving and problem-solving. But comparing to others is bad. There are some things that missionary leaders do that I may disagree with but tht doesn't mean I'm right. But for something so explicitly forbidden by our church leaders even in the Handbook they have made FOR missionary work I feel pretty justified in this tirade.
Okay thats enough, now for the things I loved.
▪︎ We all got an early Christmas present of the new Preach My Gospels in print! Everyone got one and we've been waiting for them for 6 months now! It was cool to get our own copies so we can now set them on our desks and continue to use the one online but feel more accomplished! :)
▪︎ after the Mediocre trainings we had an amazing Christmas program!! There's so many numbers and practices and analyzing of behavior at missionary meetings that I am sad Christ isn't included more. So this program was amazing. They turned the lights off in the chapel and had a lit up nativity scene on the projector as our only light and President Taylor narrated the Christmas story. There were so many great musical numbers. Elder Oliver played the organ or piano for almost every one as the accompanist and he was fantastic. He's extremely talented and manages to be amazing at piano, organ, guitar, AND singing haha
I especially liked his rendition of O Holy Night where he managed to one-up Elder Stroud's and my version of it by singing, accompanying for himself, improvising the accompaniment, and singing some verses in French hahaha-- there was also an amazing organ + choir O Come All Ye Faithful and a fantastic jazzy version of Mary Did You Know on treble saxophone. The organ was so rich and assertive also for the Congregational Hymns which I always like too. One of the best Christmas programs I've ever seen.
▪︎ We had some fun activities and opportunities to hang out with other missionaries which I liked. We had a white elephant gift exchange and Elder Stroud ended up with a gold bust of Jospeh Smith hahaha--and I kept having things stolen but finally ended up with a kimono and a blanket. We had a fun scripture chase with President Taylor, a Christmas bingo, and a hot cocoa bar and clothing swap too. Elder Stroud and I had a goal to talk to some certain Sisters that had been mentioned by his mom as well and we completed that a well. :)
Overall Christmas zone conference was fantastic, these are always the best ones. Then we made the long journey back. We stopped in Shreveport on the way and dropped off a present for my counselor down there and had a good visit with him. We didn't get home until 9:40 :)
On Wednesday we did some service at thrift store and also met a less-active member named Billy Ogle who we've been looking for. He was cordial enough and told us "no-promises but I will try to come to church" or inother words "I won't be coming to church but I am saying I am to be nice but making sure I dont commit myself to it." Met a lady named Letha who has a sister who is a member and we gave her a Book of Mormon! We also encountered a guy with the most bloodshot eyes I have ever seen! We had a lesson with Chris Rose on the Restoration which was great! He has one leg and is very lonely it seems, just lives alone. He reluctantly let us in at first but then by the end he had cheered up and said he was glad we came! He's interested and said we can come back literally any day we want. He also is excited to watch the Book of Mormon videos. We also taught Glenda and read 1 Nephi 1 with her. She had a far-off look lots of the time though even when we asked her questions so we will probably need to re-read it with her.
Thursday we walked the dogs and they kept climbing on top of each other so we had to keep them sepparate. The one Elder Stroud was walking especially wanted the one I was walking to lick her and kept trying to make it happen haha
We had planned a whole evening of Christmas visits with the Millers but one by one things cancelled, including the Millers themselves pushing our departure time back. So we went and visited Mike Jones in the hospital who just barely fell cause his walker collapsed and broke his leg. He was recovering from skin grafts and surgeries and knee replacenents and a previous fall already so this was not a good time to break his leg. We gave him a blessing and shared a Christmas scripture with him which seemed to help. Then in the evening we did get to go and watch the Christ Child with Brother Crye which was so good as usual. Also the Millers took us to the Corner Clubhouse for dinner which is known for its potatoes but guess what they were all out of potatoes! So bad. We also practiced O Holy Night with sister Miller who will be accompanying us.
On Friday we did some more organizing at the Thrift store. Some busy-body fellow volunteer keeps putting up signs trying to micromanage how things are done and so we keep ignoring them and each time we come back we see either more signs or previous ones re-placed to be more visible as if they thought we didn't see it haha--its hilarious this time we hid the sign and we are going to see if they find it and put it up again. In the afternoon it was drizzling so we went out with umbrellas and went down some new streets. Met a girl named Jordyn who is interested, and some street wanderers as well. We also ran into someone who was speed-walking to their destination and when they saw us they stopped, gave us her address, told us to drop off a book of Mormon there with her friend who would give it to her, and then resumed speed-walking. We talked to a very Christian family as well who tried to show-off how Christian they were by telling us about their Christian schools their kids go to and how their kids asked for bibles for Christmas so they could give them to others and then the mom even had her daughter recite a memorized verse for us hahaha--they were very nice and talkative, just show-offs. They gave us some Penny's with cross-shaped holes punched through them as well!
In the evening we met a lady named Dell who wasn't interested at first cause she thought black people weren't allowed in our church until the 70s. We corrected her mistake and now she's interested! We also took lots of pictures at Christmas lights and got a lot of different poses because we are going to make some masterpiece edits. Then we also had another little lesson with Chris Rose
Saturday was a wild day. We started by walking the dogs and started filming a Christmas video as well. We did a lot of contacting and felt inspired to knock a certain door. So we did and met a lady named Debbie who is Baptist but mildly interested in the Book of Mormon! She said "what could it hurt?" Her daughter Brooklyn also came out with her and her mom exposed her saying Brooklyn has been hoping we would knock on their door and talk to them forever haha--and that she has been waiting for us and is REALLY interested. much to Brooklyn's dismay and embarrassment her mom also kept explaining that she had told her daughter that she couldn't just run us over to talk to us and so on and so forth. Luckily I difused the situation and they are both willing to read the Book of Mormon! We also had a great Restoration lesson with Vonn. He was engaged and contributing really well the whole lesson and we gave him a Book of Mormon! He said he'd come to church too and would love to learn more.
In the evening we went to the New Life Community Church Christmas Eve Eve Candlelight Service haha-- I'm trying to get more connected with the fellow community leaders so that requires me to go to their stuff. It was very interesting seeing their service and hearing their weird pseudo-rock worship music haha--but fun! Also they had everyone hold lit candles at one point in the service, and they turned off the lights. So that was fun. The pastor was very mid though, even I could have done better and I don't get payed haha--it was the most generic drivel on being saved through grace and John 3:16, and so forth that I've ever heard. And it was weird cause usually at church I can feel the spirit the whole time and I just constantly have thoughts and ideas coming to mind, but at this meeting it was just dry and lifeless. The pastor was increasing volume and trying to be dynamic but it all just fell flat. Very interesting.
On Sunday we had a very small turn out at church! Only 18 came. (And 4 on zoom). But it went well nonetheless. I did a piano musical number, a Duet of O Holy Night with Elder Stroud, and spoke to close the meeting as well so I was very involved just like last week. We also heard some other cool experiences from speakers! And Brooklyn and Debbie who we just met yesterday and talked to for 5 minutes came to church!! And they loved it. They've been looking for a different church because they don't feel welcome at their current one and are looking for a church to get baptized in too! It was really cool. We also visited Wade and Mike and shared Christmas messages with them Sunday afternoon.
Thank you to everyone who contributed messages to that nice video from my home ward! It was really nice to see everyone and hear from them. It's more meaningful than you know to get things like that so thank you again.
-Abe
P.S. since it's Christmas you get some additional commentary of what has been on my mind recently:
▪︎ how do I take down a blasted bulletin board that is so outdated and dry without offending anyone
▪︎ pizza and hamburgers
▪︎ Why are there squids why can't octopuses take care of all the squid duties
▪︎ good goal setting
▪︎ learning from people I don't like
▪︎ how to improve at making conversation
▪︎ how can I help the Branch be more in tune with the Spirit
▪︎ what should I focus on with the branch this last month or two
▪︎ why do people like dogs
▪︎ temple attendance is more important than may think
▪︎ what is the best meme ever made
▪︎ a certain couple of girls
▪︎ what is the best car for the price
▪︎ how to best manage hobbies for better well-roundedness
▪︎ what gift can I get for the millers??
So there you go those are a few things Ive been wondering about. By the time I send this email though there will be new things
No comments:
Post a Comment