June 8, 2015
Hola mi amigos! It’s been a pretty good week here for myself
down in Lubbock, Texas!
Anyway, my new comp is Elder Parkin, like I said last week.
He has been out for 6 months and is from Ogden (go figure). I am now at 3 Utah
companions and 1 California companion. So I am doing good so far. Only 75%!
He's a good kid and came ready to work, so we've been going to work and I've
already seen a jolt in the area in just the first week!
So, when I went to the mission office for transfers on Tuesday, all the new missionaries were there
and were all starting to get shipped off. I saw this new Elder who looked
familiar. I looked at his name tag and it read "Elder Kempe". It took
me no time at all to recognize him as a kid from either my kindergarten or
first grade class. He moved right after whatever grade we were together, so its
been a solid dozen plus years since I had seen him. Oh man, am I good or what?!
I said, "Elder Kempe!" (and I knew how to pronounce Kempe because I
specifically remember asking him how to say his last name all those years
back). He looked over and I asked, "Are you Braden?" (somehow I
remembered his first name). He responded with a "yeah" and I
proceeded to tell him that we were in the same class in elementary school one
year. He was pretty blown away that I made the connection... I was too! He had
moved to Pocatello and grew up the rest of his years there. He asked me if I
knew Brogan Moore and said that he went to his farewell in Poky. So I told him
that we were in the same ward and that was just another crazy connection that I
have made in the TLM! They are everywhere!
We went to the temple on
Saturday! It was wonderful! I hadn't been since I got out so it was
wonderful to go and feel the spirit within its walls! It was a good reminder of
the covenants that I have made and just a nice opportunity to get away from all
the worries of the world. I was thankful to just sit in the Celestial Room and
clear my mind and just have some peace and quiet with no distractions (besides
the whispering couple who were quite annoying).We have a rule we can go once a
transfer to the temple, but we didn't go last transfer so we went the first
week of this transfer and are counting it as last transfers trip. I felt good
about doing that and still keeping the option open of going again. Usually you
try to get someone to the temple with you, obviously, but if you don't get
anyone you can just go at the end of the transfer. So we are working with some
people to help them get to the temple this transfer and will hopefully be able
to go with them! You cannot drive to the temple in your mission car, however,
but luckily we live like two blocks from it so we were able to get there!
We had interviews this week with Pres Heap. It went super
well for myself. We talked about a lot of good stuff. He said right at the
beginning, "This is your interview. What do you want to talk about?"
So it was a very personal interview and we were able to talk about what really
needs to be talked about and not just talk about stuff because that is what he
is talking to everyone about that round of interviews. On the way out of his
office he told me that he was very impressed with my 5K and told me that I am
an "impressive physical specimen." hahaha! YES!
We have done a lot more walking this week trying to find
people. We haven't had too much success. This area is rich, and the percentage
of people that are active church goers is absolutely insane. This is definitely
one of the harder areas around. We did have one miracle though. We were
knocking this county road yesterday (I haven't knocked in 6 whole weeks btw) and
we were approaching this trailer and a lady saw us walking up and opened the
door and came out and stood there waiting for us. I did a more typical approach
when I started talking to her but then I decided to just bust out a Resto on
the spot. She wasn't very talkative, but you could tell that this was
definitely an inspired run-in. We gave her a BoM and she said she'd read and
pray about it. We'll see how it goes. I am hopeful! She seems to be going
through some interesting stuff right now, so that’s always good when it comes
to missionary work!
We also taught a less-active/part-member family on Monday. I mentioned them a couple weeks ago.
The husband (non-member) made mention of the 3 kingdoms one night and was
pretty taken back when his wife told him that is what her church teaches. So we
went for Elder Jones to say goodbye (we do service for them so we know them
pretty good) and talked about the Plan of Salvation for a while. Pretty solid
potential there. We just need to be careful because Mark is just now opening up
to missionaries more so we can't become pushy at all and drive him away.
Also, we go and visit the Luna family every Sunday night. The missionaries met them a few
weeks before I got here. They are an awesome family and we always have really
good visits with them. At this point we have an incredible relationship with
them. When we go over we usually visit for a while and talk about what they
talked about at church that day (they are Catholic) and what we talked about at
church that day. We usually get into the scriptures a little bit as well. We
use the Book of Mormon sometimes and they now have a few copies in their home.
It’s another situation where we have to be careful not to push anything on
them. We have to really follow the spirit and make the right moves at the right
time. They will get baptized someday, that’s for sure, but it is going to be an
intricate process! I love them so much though, they are wonderful people and
just love the crap out of us!
Oh yeah, I caught my first turkey this week! It was actually
pretty easy. The chickens were the hard ones to catch. They are fast and are
smaller and harder to grab. But with the turkey you just walk up behind it and
pin it to the ground and pick it up. It tries to get away and flap its wings
but you just have to hold on really tight! It got away from me once because it
went berserk in my arms but I got a good strong hold on him the second time and
he wasn't getting away! I felt pretty accomplished!
Anyway, that's all for this week! I hope y'all have a good
week and I keep praying for many of y'all specifically every day! Keep it real.
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