Sorry for the late email. We have been away from WiFi all
day...
Hello Everyone!
I hope you all are having a wonderful day
and I hope its week as been great. As for me it has been very crazy.
On Monday
we had our Arlington trip with President and Sister Cooke. It was a pretty
amazing experience. I have been to Arlington before, but it was pretty cool
being able to go with a bunch of fellow missionaries. We also were able to do a
couple of things that we would usual not have been able to do, without
President Cooke. One of those things was being able to into a chapel they have
and sing our mission song. This chapel is off limits to the public for a couple
of reasons. One of those reasons is that the actual chapel is located inside
the compound where all the military personnel live. During our visit were also
able to go to the tomb of the unknown soldier. We watched the changing of the
guard which is always great. Another awesome thing that we were able to watch
was a reef laying ceremony. President and Sister Cooke had bought one and they
were able to lay it on to the tomb. It was chilling experience. Unfortunately
as of right now I do not have the video of that, but I will be getting
hopefully sometime this week. After Arlington I stayed on an exchange with some other
missionaries for the rest of the day.
On
Tuesday I met my companions, Elder Schank, and Brimhall at the new missionary
training meeting. This meeting was an all day thing. It started at 9 and we
didn't get out till 4. And unfortunately the drive back into our area is a long
trip so it took up almost all of our day. On our way we got stuck in the nasty DC traffic and on
top of that we got caught in a massive rain and lightning storm which caused
even more delays. We had to move our dinner back an hour just so we could have
some time with them...
Wednesday was
a pretty interesting day. We got to go into Virginia for an appointment. We
showed up a little early so we decided to take a nice drive through DC.
Unfortunately there is no such thing as a nice drive through DC and I was also the one driving. What we thought was going to be just a nice smooth drive turned into me aging 5 years. Once it was time to head to our appointment we maid our way back over to the Virginia side of Potomac. After the appointment had finished we headed out and traffic was already starting to get bad. We had a pretty hard time trying to get back home. The traffic plus the Virginia road system makes it for a long day. We did finally make it home. Wednesday we spent a total of 5 hours in the car.
Thursday is
our meeting day. We had our district meeting which went really well and for
after distinct meeting the senior couple who is serving where I am took me up
to the Kentland's chapel for our departing dinner with President and Sister
Cooke. It was a really fun night with lots of great missionaries who I have
been able to share a lot of time with. During this dinner each missionary (about 30) took 60 seconds to share a story from there mission. I shared
the story about Igor. Towards the end of the dinner President Cooke presented
us with our coins. It was an awesome night.
Friday we
had our final interview with President Cooke. It was a pretty surreal
experience. It brought back some memories of when I first met him. After
interviews we worked on scrapbook pages for the Cooke's. Friday was also the day
that Elder Brimhall headed home. He had been dealing with anxiety for the past
few years and it had gotten really bad on the mission and so he decide to get
it taken care of at home. It was really sad to see him go, but I know that he
will get some much needed help. After interviews, we headed to lunch/dinner
with this single lady. She took us out to Texas Road House and it was awesome!
After we had finished with that we were able to meet with one of our
investigators! Yay! His name is Steve
Berry. He is an awesome guy who is very interested in the gospel. When we first
showed up he pulled up this Word document that looked like research paper he
had been working on for months. It was all his notes and questions that he had
been taking down since he had been meeting with missionaries. He had a bunch of
random questions about the Book of Mormon that he asked us. After he had
discussed that we told him to do his studying from the Preach My Gospel manual
and to study the 5 lessons that are found inside. It was awesome! He pulled up Preach My Gospel on lds.org and started reading through the first lesson.
One of the first things it has in that lesson is a list of baptismal
requirements and he had a little self evaluation moment and we now know what we
need to focus with him on. He then told us that he will read through the lesson
and come up with some question that he has about it for the next time we meet. I have
not taught anyone this way before and I don't necessarily recommend it, but it
seems like it is going to work for Steve.
Saturday was
one of our very first days that we have been able to spend the entire day in our
area. We spent some time checking on referrals. We also had a bible study with
three people which was awesome! When we showed up, we found out that we were
kinda in charge of leading this class. So Elder Schank and I taught a 45 min
class and it actually went really well. We then spent some more time trying to
get a hold of people to set up appointments for the rest of the week.
Sunday we had
our church service and it was the first time we were introduced to the ward. So
far everyone that we have met has been awesome. They are very excited to have
Elders back in the ward. The members have been loading us up with names of
people to check on, so that should keep us busy for good while. After church we
had dinner and then we once again set out trying to contact our referrals.
Love
you all have a great week!
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