29 April 2013

Things went pretty well this week for the most part.  We spent a lot of time setting up this ward activity called Friendship night which Sister Jung had set up.  She did some kind of Korean dance activity.  The attendance went well and a few non-members attended the activity.  The one things that I wish they did better though was that she had communicated what was going on in the activity and given us more than a week to get it ready.  But it still went well.

The weather this past week has been so nice.  It was about 70 degrees and blue sky for several days in a row which was nice.  Last Monday we went golfing again and got some photos this time.  As for other things that happened this week nothing much did except for visiting the same less actives.  Back in Freedom, though, Mason Roche, who me and Elder Allen taught a little bit, just got baptized last Saturday.  Also I found out that a family that me and Elder Allen tracted into the week before I left got baptized also.  So that's pretty exciting.  Hopefully, this week will go well and I really hope and pray that Bishop will please meet with us next Sunday.  That would really help us out in knowing which people we should put a focus on seeing.

Elders Westwood, Jones and Bird

Spiritual thought

 I highly recommend to everyone to read your patriarchal blessings pretty frequently. For me it gives me a lot of guidance and direction when I have questions about things.

Movin' right along.......

22 April 2013

This week for me went pretty well. Last Sunday our ward mission leader stepped up his game and actually wants us to call him when we teach people now. Also we will hopefully meet with the bishop next week as well as it's been like 11 weeks since I've been here and we still haven't met with him. What's also weird is that we aren't allowed to attend the ward council meeting before sacrament meeting which is really strange.  So it's like we are working on our own and not with the members which is really frustrating as members are essential for reactivating less actives and for getting new members. But yea hopefully now we will be able to attend that too. Oh how I miss branches where everyone gets involved with everything lol. But yea as for things that happened this week our less active Dean Mcqueen and his mom finally made it out to church this week. Also a family where the father was reactivited and the mother was baptized in February just baptized their 8 year old son yesterday which is really awesome. They are doing so well and have a come along way. Also we helped a family move last Saturday and they were appreciative of the help that we offered them. We also found a new investigator called Lucy. We were actually trying to go and see someone that we found in the area book that lived where she lives now. When we found that out we asked if she would like to be taught by us and she said she was interested. We also found through our tracting efforts a person called Deborah who said in the past that she requested a Book of Mormon but was never given one so we gave her one and set up a follow up appointment for Friday. This area is very slowly but surely picking up a little bit. Anyways that's all for this week.


15 April 2013

We did a lot of street contacting and tracting this week which was fun. We did service for a disabled less active guy called Brother Pennar. He's a pretty cool guy but can't get around very easily as he can't walk so we helped clean up his yard for him. We also went and finally got to meet with Brandon again which is awesome. He had his two friends Freddy and Danielle there so we just taught the restoration lesson again and it went well. We also got his number so we can finally set up  appointments with him which makes things easier. We are also trying to meet with this other recent convert family too who haven't come to church now for like 4 weeks which is worrying. They also won't return anyone's phone calls or texts. So hopefully we will be able to meet with them this up coming week. 

Serving Brother Pennar

8 April 2013

We had a ton of appointments this week and we were always pretty busy throughout the week. I read this tracting guide book thing and I decided to implement some of the suggestions that it recommend in it. One thing that it recommend that we do was that we both look at the map, pick a few streets that we felt prompted to chose and then whatever streets that we both felt prompted to tract we would go and tract. When we did go tract those streets it seemed that tracting those streets was more successful than most regular tracting. 

We didn't get to meet with Brandon again which really sucks. Mike also dropped us which really sucks because we were hoping to go and watch conference with him since when we last met with him he seemed really into the idea of prophets and apostles. But everyone has their agency.  Conference was awesome this week. I watched for the first time ever the Saturday conferences which were pretty good. We got invited over to members homes to watch the conferences so that was pretty awesome. I can’t believe that we have 65,000 missionaries now. Our mission has already gone from 90 to 150 missionaries which is pretty crazy and they’re scrambling to open up new areas and get vehicles to everyone. My first area Freedom was split into two areas. I also noticed that they are going to open 52 missions one of which was the Richmond Mission which is pretty exciting. I'm not sure how many more missionaries are going to keep coming to our mission as I think that there's a cap on how many can come. But things are going good up here in New York.

Today I went golfing for the first time ever and even though I realize I need quite a bit of practice, I was actually getting some pretty good hits and I actually liked playing it quite a bit. The weather up here has been gorgeous too. We've had a few sunny blue sky days in a row and it finally got above 60 degrees. I really hope that this snow is all gone. 

Spiritual Thought

Revelation 21:4

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."   

1 April 2013

We weren't able to meet with Brandon or Mike again this week which really sucks as they were both so awesome to teach when we taught them the restoration. People never seem to be home.   Hopefully we will be able to meet with them this week and teach them the Plan of Salvation to both of them. We also met with this long term investigator called Eddie and he told us that he was going to quit drinking which was really awesome. What was cool is that we went back again in the same week and he was completely hung over which means that he was going off of it for sure. He's a really awesome guy that loves talking to us.  It’s just really sad how addicted he is to alcohol. He was drinking about 10 beers a day but now has it reduced to 3 which is a big improvement. We met with our lesser active Andrew Mohney again this week and talked about the importance of serving a mission with him and he seemed interested to learn more. And so we will meet with him a few more times this week and go over Preach my Gospel with him and continue to keep answering his questions he has about serving a mission. Last Tuesday we went over to the Grandon Building for the anniversary of the printing of the Book of Mormon which was pretty cool. Also on Friday we went to the Palmyra Stake Center and assisted in a Stake youth activity that was all about missionary work which was pretty fun.

I am so glad that it’s a new month. We ran out of miles on our truck so we had to end up walking a lot this week.  On Wednesday we walked for about 10 miles. At first it was supper sunny and warm so I was like I can wear a short sleeve shirt today. So after our first five miles we arrived at our appointment with a less active taught him a less and then when we were done we walked back. But when we got outside after the lesson the weather had completely changed and it was sleeting the whole time back. So that was pretty crazy.  I was cold.  I'm just glad that it remained above freezing.  Easter was pretty awesome too. We had this really cool family from the ward feed us this fantastic meal.  Fairport does really feed some of the best meals. 

 Spiritual Thought

Alma 7:11-13

These verses are really good in defining the atonement the Jesus did for us all and that we remember on Easter.  I really love that it says that he did the atonement in order to know how to succor his people.  I'm eternally grateful for the sacrifice that Jesus did this Easter and I encourage all of us to really think about the enormity of the task that the atonement was.