I think one of the hardest thing to do in a weekly email home is figure out how you're going to start or open up that letter...luckily for me, I've already dont that by talking to myself...
HELLO :)
haha Ah man this past week was pretty crazy man! Low key though, probably the most successful and fastest week of my mission so far. I cant believe its already Tuesday of the following week! Nah but for real, this past week was jam packed with things. We taught a grip of lessons and people were giving us referrals left and right and feeding us every night! Ah man! ....I love this place :) haha Here was my week though
Tuesday November 6th: Happy Birthday to my Uce Deuce Caboose Elder Pj Inoke. Started the day off right with....a cancelled appointment haha It was all bad. But oh well. The guy we were supposed to go see had some things come up so we ended up Tracting round our neighborhood for a bit then had some lunch before we headed out to my Doctors appointment. Found out my knee is alright. Just gotta go get a knee brace for it (We'll get to awesome part 2 of this story in a minute :) ) After my appointment we headed to our first appointment of the day with Sister Hale. We read more from Mosiash and then discussed some other things. Expectations she wants from us and some of her concerns and wonders. It was very spiritual meeting for sure. After that we got into contact with a few Less-Active families then headed to dinner. I found out im not alone out here :) The family we had dinner with tonight were HUGE Ute Fans. The thought i was Matt haha "Well...I remember you from the 09 sugar bowl game...you've gotten a lot bigger since then.." .___. dangg....hahahaha No sir...that was not me. That was the one who actually had ball handling skills haha. After dinner we went and met a recent convert family; The Giffords. Went over planning on starting their new member lessons and ended up with a new investigator; Sister Giffords Mom Debbie! She had a lot of questions about the gospel and the after life (spirit world) all that jazz so we talked about the Plan of Salvation. That one is always the lesson that strikes close and personal to everyone. It was a very spiritual meeting.
Wednesday November 7th: District Meeting Wedneday. Feels good to be in a new zone. See new faces and such. Except that theres only 2 other Elders in our distict and they live with us and the other 2 are Sisters so....Small district. Ha. We talked about "How to Begin Teaching" from Preach My Gospel and all that good stuff. Then we got some instruction from our Zone Leaders about Faith and instilling faith in your investigators. Good times. After that we all went out for lunch and apparently, If you pay for the Sister Missionaries lunch, you're automatically flirting and you get chewed out from your Zone Leaders...Oh im sorry, My Mom just raised me right and I call that being a Gentleman. Haha Shout out to my Mom for raising me right haha. Anyways, Spent the vast majority of the day finishing up weekly planning from the past week and contacting Less Active families.
Thursday November 8th: A pretty packed day. Began another sesh of Weekly Planning for the next week, mix that in with some lunch and that was our morning. That afternoon we met with Sister Hale again and read some more out of the Book of Mormon. We've pretty much read the entire book of Mosiash with her haha She loves it. We invited her to a relief society party that was going on at the church that night and she was soooo excited! We've been trying to get all the Siters in our ward to fellowship her. Just so she knows other Sisters in the ward. After that we had dinner with the Giffords and met with her mom again and watched The Restoration movie. Not the super awesome long one but the super awesome short one. Regardless, she loved it. Her daughter invited her to go to the relieft society party too and she went! We out they enjoyed it ALOT. After we met with them we headed over to this Part Member families house; The Sosi's. They are from Pompei and everyone is baptized and members of the church except for 2 of his youngest. LJ, 9 and Sue Ann turns 10 this month. We taught them The Restoration but Elder Smith and I threw a twist in there and made it an object lesson using a Rubix Cube. Yes, i have aquired the anchient Asian Technique of the Rubix Cube haha It was pretty sweet. Im sure if you think about it long enough, you could get the jist of why it works so good haha
Friday November 9th: Service Day today. Headed over to this awesome families house to help rake leaves and mow their lawn. Really really nice less active family that we're working with to get them back to church every sunday. Good times though. That took up the majority of our day though. After that the Sisters asked for a blessing so we gave them one and then headed to dinner. Had some pizza and felt so great about our newly self created Restoration lesson that we shared it with the family we had dinner with haha Found out from them that a less active family that lived down the street were die hard Ute fans!!! Went to go meet them after dinner and they werent home (Found out that they flew to Utah for the Utah vs Washington game) but they had a huge Ute flag flying in their front yard. :) Utes in Arkansas, Love it.
Saturday November 10th: Pretty dece Saturday for sure. We had some lunch with members and then hit our afternoon appointments. Headed over to see Sister Hale and Invited her to be baptized!!! She said she needs to pray about it but feels its right :) yeyyyyy buddy! haha. After that we went and saw a bunch of less active families and some other ward members. Had an appointment with the Sosi's but somethings came up and they rescheudle for a different time. Ended the night off with an amazing lessong with Debbie. Wont go into too much dets but we had a member there with us and he was goooood haha He is one spiritually in tune man thats for sure.
Sunday November 11th: Best Sunday EVER. Haha We had 4 Investigators come to Sacrament and they all loved it! After sacrament we had a Ward Mission Meeting with everyone who is in charge of the Ward Mission effort. Discussed a few things. I love how organized and how helpful our ward it! they do such a good job with making sure we as missionaries are taken care off on EVERY level. Food, Housing, Exchanges with Members, Rides. All that good stuff, they're on top of their game! That evening we had a special youth fireside with President and Sister Shumway. I think its the first Fireside i've been too in years...haha Oh well. They did a great job! Talked about missionary work and addressed all of youth tell them to prepare now for their missions. They're both amazing people!
Well...thats my week I guess. It was a lot better than i typed it up. I dont do it justice. haha
Before i end this i wanted to talk about a little bit of the fireside last night and something that Presiden Shumway said that really struck me. He was talking about how Satan wants to drag all of us down with him and wants us to be sad and do all that he can to make us miserable like him. He Said
"There are only 2 teams in this ball game. The Saviors and Satans. We're already in this game pretty far. But I'll tell you something, this ball game is already one. You are all on the Saviors team right now so congrats; You're winning. The only question that remians, is whos team will you be on in the final inning?"
So much can be drawn from that question. Thats a question I invite you all to think about. My sorry attempt at a spiritual thought i guess :) haha
Take Care
-Elder Isaac Asiata