Monday, December 18, 2017

Week 71 Missionary Training, a New Investigator, and a New Ward Mission Leader

Hello everyone. It's been another wonderful week here in Washington, and I'm having the time of my life. I forgot to tell you all, last week I hit 16 months of being out!! 8 months left of the mission. I can't tell you how fast that has gone. It's just crazy! I'll be honest with you. In my mind, nothing has clicked yet. I still have the mind set of Justin, just barely going through his second year of collage. I know he's married. It feels like Tyler is still a sophomore in high school, same with Kaela Brough still being in high school and Amiee Poll, and it still feels like, Eric is the little kid who was always so cute!! Haha jk jk. I still feel like nothing has changed. I have no clue why that hasn't clicked in my mind yet. Also the fact that I have 5 transfers left. That's crazy, and yet I still feel like that's so far away. Well, when I get home, things will start picking up in my mind. I hope everyone had a good week because here is mine:

Monday
We started the day by going to the church and emailing. We did that for at least 4 hours. Kinda sad. I think it's only because there's not many computers, and we were taking the Sholtes elders everywhere that day. Everyone needed to use the computers. So, after emailing, we then went to Walmart and did some shopping. After, we drove down to the 51st building and played basketball. I wish we could play something else every p-day, or do something else, but sadly Arlington doesn't have anything that fun to do, and no one is interested in figuring out something else to do. So I just follow my comps with this one. That's fine, I've done this for 3 transfers before, won't hurt to do some more. While we played basketball, Elder Hunter was kicking a soccer ball around, and he accidentally broke one of the lights. Kinda crazy! But the light was kinda broken anyway, so it's fine. After, we drove to Sholtes apartment and dropped them off. Then we took the drive back to Lakewood to go get changed and see people. Later that night, we had dinner, and we had a lesson with the Lauson family. They have a son that they want to help him understand the gospel more, so they asked us to come over and teach him the discussions. We taught Max the restoration. It went pretty well. After the lesson, we went home and ended the night.

Tuesday
While Elder Hunter did progressing, Elder Graff and I worked together on what we wanted to teach in our lessons with Ann and Jovan. After, we went to those two lessons. With Ann we talked about praying, and reading the scriptures daily, as well as following the prophet. For Jovan, we went over the Book of Mormon. Both lessons went well, and Jovan is starting to see and understand who we are and how we can help him. So that's important. After our lessons, we went home and had lunch, did some comp. study, and went into 12 weeks. Then we went and tried to have a lesson with Kayla Duff, a new investigator, but she canceled on us. So instead, we went home and planned out our lesson with Sister Schweigert. With her, we talked about conversion, and how that's important to her. we also helped set some Goals for her to get back to the temple, and to church. We also set some study goals with her as well. After our lesson with her, we went out and saw some more people. Then, we had dinner with the Sudweeks and a small lesson after. We just read 2 Nephi 31 with them. After, we went and had a meeting with Bishop, and that ended our day.

Wednesday
We had a lesson with Melissa in the morning. We taught her about praying, reading the scriptures daily, and obedience. After, we then went home, got changed, and went to district meeting. Elder Hunter instructed on why its important we let the mission change us and the difference between behavior modification and repentance. That stuck out to me a lot. Then we went to Costco and had lunch. After, we went back home, got changed, and picked up Blake Clapp, a priest, to take around with us to go see people. So we went to go see people, but nothing too big happen. Most of the people weren't home. After, we then took Blake home and had a conversation with the Clapps for a little bit. Then we went to the church to help set up lights and tables and chairs for the Christmas party later that night. After helping with that, we went home and did some comp study and some 12 weeks. Then we went to the party and had a good time there. At the end of the night, the zone leaders came to the church to do an exchange. I ended the night with Elder Smith in the Armar apartment. Just like old times, but with Elder Smith. 

Thursday
We started the day by doing comp. study. Then we had lunch. After, we went to go drop off some Light the World cards to the hermanas. Then we went and saw people from all over the zone. That took up almost the whole day, and no one was really home or interested. Armar is a very hard ward to work in. Later that evening, we had dinner back at the apartment. I watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas during it. Always a good show. After, I got packed, and then we went to see some people in the Stillaguamish ward area. That made me really happy to step foot back into my old stomping grounds. I'll admit, seeing the people from Stillaguamish is amazing, but going back to my old area, that got me way happy! From there, we then went to institute, and Brother Hammond talked about the refiner's fire. After, we exchanged back and ended the night by updating the teaching records.

Friday
We had new missionary training for Elder Graff. It went well. They had lots of instructions surrounding our purpose, and they also set up some role plays with real people for us to teach. We picked up and dropped off the Cavallaro elders. It was so fun to have them with us. On the way home, Elder Hunter, and Elder Graff dared them to do a Chinese fire drill on the freeway at the stoplight before we got to their neighborhood. They did it, and Elder Dusenberry tripped on the road because it was wet. Elder Fort, his companion, got confused on which way to go so he got stuck with him when he fell. It was so funny, we all were dying when they got back in the car. If you don't know what a Chinese fire drill is, you can probably look it up. After we dropped them off, we drove back to Lakewood to have dinner. Then we went and had a lesson with Patrick. We just read from where he was at in the Book of Mormon. Then we came home, did comp study and 12 weeks before the night was over, and that was it for Friday.

Saturday
We started the morning by doing some service for Brother Lauson. He wanted somethings to be moved around in his storage unit so we helped him with that. Then we went home and got changed before we went to have our lesson with Jovan, but that fell through. So, we went and had our meeting with Brother Allen. Then we had lunch with the Lausons and another lesson with Max. After our lesson, we went home and did 12 weeks. Then we went and saw some more people. Later that night, we had dinner. Then we did some weekly planning before the night was over.

Sunday
We had ward council in the morning. Then we went through church. Both Orion and Gabriella were at church yesterday, so that was great. As well, Brother Allen was released as our ward mission leader. Our new one I can't spell his name right, nor ever remember it, but that will come with time. During church, we had a lesson with Orion about the law of chastity, He had some struggles with it, and they're starting to show, so we had to tell him to stop and had a come to Jesus talk with him. He's a good kid by how he understands things, so he understood it well and told us he was going to change, but it would be a hard road. That's understandable. It's never easy. After church, we went home and had lunch. Then we went to Carols Creek and saw some people before we saw the Pauls. We read 3 Nephi 11 to try to help them get back into the scriptures. After, we then had a lesson with Sholon. We discussed the Light the World initiative with her and got her to start to do that. After, we went and had dinner. Then we came home, planned the rest of the night, and went out to find one new investigator, and we kinda did. His name is Tristan. We knocked on his door in the villas and gave him a pamphlet, talked about God, who He is, and how we can get closer to Him, as well as praying to Him. He seemed interested, so we were glad to finally get someone to teach. Later that night, we did weekly planning and comp study, along with personal study, and that all ended the night.

Well, that's my week for you. I had a pretty good one. I will see you all on our Face Time call in a week for Christmas. Until then, this is Elder Hammond signing off wishing those I don't see a Merry Christmas!!

Elder Hammond

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