Week 8

Idk how it's week 8, I was going back and forth between that and 7 but Elder Walker said week 8 so we'll go with that.

Kinda weird I haven't seen my friends for like 7 weeks, they were in one of my dreams tho so that was cool. Elder Tucker said he only dreams about people in the mission and always has a companion in his dreams so he might be going crazy. (I ended up having a dream the next night where I was on exchanges and it was all missionaries, super weird)

Anyways pday was lit. It was super good to recharge and have fun, my golfing was pretty good so I think we're going to the course the day I send this out! We also were gonna have nobody show up to Bible study, but then one of our friends who was like I need a break decided to come . That was cool and he had a good time and was wondering why other churches diss on us so much cuz he told this other church he has Bible study at our Bible study and they were all like mad saying that our church sucks and stuff and not to go. But he came anyway and that is super cool and recognized the happiness and peace he feels meeting with us. 

Tuesday was pretty lit, we had exchanges again and I led my area with the other ZL who's a Spanish Elder and he forgot his card to sign in to drive. And his comp forgot to take his Sim card. And they were up in Anacortes so we had to wait for them to drive back to get us the card and switch Sim after district council and they took like an hour and a half to get here. But after that everything went well, haha. Elder Vance (the other zl) wanted to do a lot of knocking cuz he doesn't get to as a Spanish Elder, but we kind of ran out of time for all of that, and only had like 4 contacts but all of them were super good. Our first two lessons weren't there so we went to contact another lady and we set up a return appointment and prayed with her and had a good talk. Then we went to another guy and he wasn't home but a guy that lives with him was outside and he usually doesn't talk with us much, but we talked to him this time and he was wanting to come to church!! So fire. Then we were rushing to dinner, but I wanted to knock this info dot so we did and this guy answered and goes to another church, but wanted to read the BoM and tell his siblings about it when they get back, but he's leaving for college in a week. Bjt hopefully he's able to read and likes it and we're able to plant that seed. Dinner was so good too. The desert was turtle pie and it was gas. But ya definitely an uplifting day, and I think I have other days just like that, but with discouragement in-between so I just need to look for the miracles instead of dwelling on the negatives.

I had another exchange with Elder Johnson cuz there was MLC and it was a pretty good day with lots of nice people. A funny thing was we got the oil changed in our car and the people there should not be qualified. They check everything cuz why not do that if they can charge us more for something and said the coolant was low and they could fill it up for some price I don't remember, but I asked if it was below the minimum and they go ya.. oh wait no its above the min and like bro I don't need more it's already full. And they just did not report right either. I asked the one lady if she could check the tire tread depth and she asks other guys for a "tire tread checker" bruh. And then she proceeds to tell me that all the tires are at 12/32". New tires don't even have that much tread unless it's for a truck. what is she talking about bro. Our front tires are legit at like 3-4/32" so she's trippin and I don't think the vehicle coordinator believes me that they're low so we might be cooked when it rains. Anyways I think this is my calling to be the mission vehicle coordinator cuz the oil change also cost $140 that's crazy I could do like 4 oil changes for that price. Anyways the rest of the day was good, I just had to get that off my chest. Elder Johnson is the coolest district leader in this entire mission, maybe even the whole state. He did not know what was going on during the oil change, but knew that he wants to go to spirit Halloween on pday.

Alright next day we went to South Whidbey after lunch and did our weekly planning so we didn't do much contacting. We did meet with three people for lessons and one was brief, the other didn't really get too far cuz the dude wanted proof from us about things and we can only say our experience of learning the truth of the BoM and prophets words and he needs to ask in prayer for himself to know but he didn't seem to want to do that. Then the last was sad. The guy had relapsed and was beating himself up and just couldn't believe that there is someone like Jesus who can forgive him. It was hard cuz he's a sweet guy. As we were walking away after I had a youth album song play in my head and it went away when we got in the car and I was trying to find it and when I told Elder Tucker I had a song I was trying to find, even before I started to explain it, he said "Always". Which we have listened to like once and he had no idea how the song went but just thought of the name and it was the one I was thinking and is perfect for our friend so we're gonna send it tomorrow but anyone who wants to listen to it is "Always" by Jefferson Murdock? Idk it has a blue album cover.

Saturday was pretty good I was on exchanges with Elder Johnson again who I asked to be my godfather cuz he's basically helped train me too and has been to the same amount of training meetings as Elder Tucker haha. It was good though we had service with George and he recorded his testimony for our lesson after and it was super good! We also had another lesson that went well and I'm starting to teach probably 30-40% of lessons I feel like which is pretty good I think. Also I did teach basically the whole dinner lesson the day before this so that was sick. And we had basketball at night and I almost dunked during the game but it wasn't too crazy. The floor is pretty bad there the ball doesn't even bounce that well haha but I guess I gotta just work out more.

Sunday was good and we had some lessons, mostly just like unplanned ones and they were super good. We were able to give out 2 BoM so that is nice. It was pretty chill and we had lots of knocking. The Peacocks took us to Ihop for sister Peacock's birthday which might be apos, but idk she's old and Hispanic so we can't argue with her haha. It was good though and she made friends with the server and it was a great time!

This week has been really good. My attitude going in changed so that I could enjoy it more and I think it worked. One scripture that has stuck with me for a while even before my mission is alma 29:1-3

1 O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!

2 Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.

3 But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me.

If only I had the glory and brightness of an angel I could teach so many people and they would all believe, but I'm just me and I'm in a uniform that some people even avoid looking at. But my body is a wonderful gift and this opportunity is the least I can do for God after all he's given me here on earth and I will use all I have to help people in any way I can.

Side note: I bought a gallon of icecream on Monday and it might be like half empty... but I've been eating them with blackberries and blueberries so thats good right? And I've been working out so I feel like that's a balance. I mean I don't wanna get too buff yk.

Also no real golf today cuz I did more research and it costs more and it might be on base? Idk but we'll find out today.

Also I was lowkey slacking on the car pics so sorry for that. I did see a Lambo, Ferrari and McLaren but they were going by too fast so that sucks

Week 7

 Pday was pretty lit. We went golfing and I'm a little rusty, but had some nasty iron hits and almost a chip in (it rimmed out). Then we went shopping and thrifting and I got the most fire golf fit so I'm ready in two weeks for the course, I still gotta practice but it's a par 3 course so I thankfully won't need a driver. We also played some volleyball and some people are very uncoordinated but we did chair soccer and that was fun. Then we had Bible study and that was good. We taught it that time and it was about when Jesus and Peter walked on water and we had an old couple we're teaching come and the guy said maybe the water was shallow. 

Next day we had district council which was good then had 3 lessons which was great. One of them was with the old couple who feed a bunch of animals and in the middle of the lesson Elder Tucker goes "do you normally have raccoons on your porch?" And there was one peeking inside the house and we went out there and I tried feeding the deer but it wouldn't eat out of the cup, but it like put it's nose in there so that was cool. There was also a family of raccoons so that was wild.

Next day was exchanges and it was a rough day, not many people answering doors, but we had one lesson with this guy who paints cars and showed us his side hustle project thing so that was cool, but not a lot of people we could talk to. I went on my family tree while Elder Johnson was doing language study though and found someone from 1300 BC so that was cool.

Then it was a normal day that went pretty good. We started our day with service for this one guy that got surgery on his neck and he also talked about getting his lipomas taken out and stuff and how he's awake while they do it, it was gross. But he was funny and we loaded up cut down bushes onto the back of his Ford f-550 that he got for 3 grand, but doesn't have a bed... so we hauled all the wood on the frame and gas tank in the back hoping something wouldn't fall down to the driveshaft but nothing broke or burnt down from his exhaust so that was good. He also had a diesel Porsche cayenne in the garage that gets like 30mpg so that was cool. Oh and he has a 8 wheeler crane. But then we had a lesson at the church with this cool dude that had been stopped teaching cuz he was gone but apparently he just got back from a mission from his church, but admires the young men from our church and kind of like the community around our faith. So that was really cool and he had some deep questions. I think he's gonna come to church, but we won't be at that ward this week. We also met Brian towards the end of our day and I was kinda cooking. I did like the whole first part of the contact and he said he goes to a catholic church at home but hasn't gone to one here so we invited him and he said he'd go and has gone to things with his LDS cousin so shout out to his cousin. We also gave him a BoM so that's fire. 

Then I had exchanges with my roommate Elder Staheli which I was a little worried about cuz I was leading my area too, but it ended up OK. There were some things that he does like weird idk how to explain it, but we made 2 friends so that was cool and im meeting with one of them Saturday with his mom who is interested too so maybe she'll be a friend too hopefully. One thing I sold on was a lesson we had. I was supposed to pull up the bishops voicemail of him bearing his testimony in one of our lessons and I completely forgot so our lessons with members is a little rough. But I think a lot of people might come to church and that's always great. The only sad thing is they're like all from Oak Harbour haha and we're gonna be at south Whidbey so ig we'll see how that goes. We also ran into a Spanish lady that I was able to kind of talk to (I understood like 3 things she said) but it was enough to send her over to the Spanish Elders and give background info.

The next day was good, I had one lesson I wanted to teach but the people were sleeping so we didn't get to teach them. When we went out finding, we talked to quite a few people and they were really nice but none of them were interested except we did find a member who had just moved in and she gave us rice crispy and banana bread so that was hype. The highlight was dinner with the viking family who are the people who don't want their like information anywhere, but it was good food and we played a game then when we tried to teach the lesson the dad just went on about some wild stuff. Some of it was good but then he would go into like masonry I think is what it's called and a lot of viking stuff like Valhalla and reincarnation so that was something. His wife seems super normal so idk what's going on there. But all in all great people and super loving, just a lot of superstitions and interesting beliefs. Also we met with Alex again and he was super happy to see us and felt the spirit when Elder Tucker shared Mosiah 4:9 and that was great and even wanted to try praying after we did a closing prayer. So that was super cool and he was super happy.

Sunday was something. Church was good and idk if we had too many friends at church I think maybe 2. It's hard cuz nobody goes to South Whidbey and we couldn't follow up with like 3 of the people in Oak Harbor cuz we don't have their number.  But I hope they were able to go and if not they better come while we're there so we can talk to them. Knocking in South Whidbey is just sad. Lots of people are not interested in anything and even people we try to go back to just aren't there. It's super discouraging and it's just such a drag. The only thing that was keeping me going is pday tomorrow haha. This week was super good I'm just pretty burnt out and it'll probably only get worse so I guess I'll try to get used to it.