Tuesday, June 23, 2015

May 18, 2015

Monday was great other than the fact that I hurt my knee that morning and couldn't really play anything that Zone P-day. We had a great dinner with a family in our ward that is housing another set of missionaries. So they joined us... So rude. :P We then road from there to the edge of our area to visit another family who had us come over for Family Home Evening. It was awesome to finally get to really sit down and get to know them. It was interesting to me that I "know" a lot of the members at least by name, but you can't really get to know them until you sit down with them for a FHE. I love being a missionary!
Tuesday was fun. Elder Castillo and I went over and helped a sister weed her garden. She then proceeded to make us a full dinner for lunch. Chicken and potatoes. It was awesome. I am seeing many different ways to cook potatoes. Maybe I will actually learn a recipe and make it myself. We then were able to stop by a sister who we hadn't seen in a while. She is a member, her husband is not and has quite a few illnesses. So she has been his full-time nurse helping him keep going. When we stopped by she said that he was now in a nursing home and would not be returning home. She was devastated. She let us pray for her and her husband as they were going through this hard time. It was great to see the way the Lord prepares people who are ready to come to him. We then had a great dinner from our Elder's Quorum President. Fried Chicken and potatoes. Hmmm felt familiar. :) The first time was just baked this time it was fried with a light breaded coating. IT WAS AWESOME! Then we met with some new move ins from Germany (not originally from there). He was called into active duty to help with training. Now they are back and happy to be here. We also, while we were talking, had a really good storm start to move in with thunder and lightning. That just made my day.
Wednesday we a little slow. We had a member take us out to lunch at this China Palace place here in Eagle. It is good. I am still not a huge fan of Chinese food. It makes my stomach yell at me. We were able to contact a few more people but, it ran pretty slow the rest of the night.
Thursday was FANTASTIC! ZONE CONFERENCE! I am not a huge fan of meetings, or at least I wasn't when I came out on my mission, but now there are almost this huge build up for me. It was a sad day in the mission as TIWI boxes were installed in all the vehicles. TIWI are little black boxes that track just about everything you do. How fast you are going, how hard you break or step on the gas, hit a bump, if your seat belt is buckled, etc... but, interestingly enough not if you run a red light. Well I really don't have to worry about that as I don't have a car. The rest of the meeting was great. We were able to ask questions on just about anything. So it was fun to hear the answers that were given to just about every question. "I don't know." Most of the questions were odd questions about doctrine that is not yet understood or at least that our Mission President didn't have the answer to off the top of his head. That ran us till dinner at the Blaine's. They raise pheasants. Mostly ornamental ones that are small and not really worth eating.
Friday was wet. It rained all night and into the afternoon. But, we pressed on!. We pulled more bamboo and poisoned it with as much weed killer as we had. We will see if that will get it. The truth is you can't get rid of it. There will always be a sprout showing up here or there and most poisons just won't kill the roots. Walked around for a bit and got to talk to a man with no arms or legs. His name is Kory. He is a member that has just decided that it isn't for him. But that is okay, he still wants to talk to us. We ended the day with some nonmembers who are not really interested/"we're not the church going type." But they love talking to us and getting to know what is going on and if there is anything they can do to help.
Saturday was good and bad. We started by doing some service for a family in the ward that is trying to keep their house nice so they can sell it. So we had a lot of huge weeds with all the rain we have gotten lately. The kids are awesome too. We played museum (one person is moving around looking at everyone and seeing if anyone moves, you move when they are not looking at you or can see you), we raced on our bikes (it was a little unbalanced), soccer, and then shared a lesson about Christ and the love that he has for each of us. We then proceeded to wait 3 hours for our ward mission leader to pick us up. He was at a flea market.  He said "I just kept seeing twenty dollar signs and it was hard to walk away." He sells antique clothing so that is where he goes to find new things to sell at his store, mostly because people don't know how much their stuff is worth and just want to get rid of it. He made up for it by taking us to a Mongolian grill place. We then had exchanges. So I need to back up to yesterday. We asked everyone in the district to help with pulling bamboo, and only the Sisters showed up. One of the other Elders called us and said "We will be there right after we go to the hospital." So we think, oh they are going to give a blessing and will be here soon. Well they didn't show. We then get a call Friday night from our district leader asking what we are doing Saturday. He then proceeded to tell us that his companion, Elder Folau was in the ICU at the hospital because he was having trouble breathing Thursday night. WHAT!!! Well, jumping forward (he is all good now) we had the weirdest exchanges ever. So I went with Elder Kennington and Peterson in their ward and Elder Castillo went with Elder Lee. Well we, Elder Kennington, Peterson, and I, tired to visit two people in their area and spent the rest of the time in our ward. As we had a dinner (chicken and steak kabobs) and a lesson set up for that night.
Sunday was depressing. We had two of our investigators drop us. Church was great. We just had a missionary return from the San Diego Mission Farsi speaking. It was so weird to hear it. It is not as guttural as Arabic and very flowy. Had a good dinner with the other Jamison's in the ward. No relation as far as I know. Burgers. Tried a few people, no answers until about 8 that night when we were able to get into contact with a sister who I guess is a snow bird. Also she said she is almost never home on a Sunday night. So, can you say tender mercy from the Lord. Her husband worked on the Cobra helicopters in Vietnam. He is not a member but maybe he will be interested?. We will see.
There are so many blessing just awaiting us. I just think every time that Heavenly Father answers our prayers. It may not always be a yes but he never says no. He always knows the big picture. It was hard for us to lose two of our investigators. I pray that they will continue to cultivate their relationship with their Heavenly Father and want to grow closer to him. I know that even though they may have lost their interest that Heavenly Father is calling his children and presenting ways and paths for them to return to him. I know that we can all grow closer to God if we read the scriptures and pray to know that they are true and look for way that we can use them in our lives.
 Love,
Elder McCallson

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