Hehehe so a while ago you sent me two stickers of a bat and I have been faithfully saving them these many weeks until the Halloween season approached and I could appropriately place them on an Octobery Fun day. Hahaha-but then I got your package!!!!! Fully off Halloween goodies and plenty of festive stickers to go around. Heheheh it was so much fun to open the packages with Sister Gandolph. We both love you so much and I don't think there is any mistaking that you live in North Carolina and so does she :) We are still planning on get togethers.
The family book was so cute! Very thoughtful and a great memior to that time of my mission! :) and as always it was so good to hear your continual support. You have a way of gathering the family all together. yay! OH! and Benjamins note said that I am his missionary. Sweetest thing ever! I am so happy that I can be an example to him!
Ok so my daily routine!
P-days start at 10 am after our normal morning routine. We go email at the library that is about 15 min away and then get groceries and then I like to come home and journal and have time to write letters or organize my desk or get some extra studying in. Then at 5 we start our tracting (which happens everyday at 5) and go until 7. We invite people to come on church tours and offer any service. No one really takes us up on the service opportunity and when we see miracles! We are able to give an INSTA tour! (meaning they come down to the church building right then) The rest of the evening is spent in teaching appointments with investigators or less active members of the ward. At 9 we hope to be home and plan for our day tomorrow for 30 min...which usually is like 40+ We update records for who we saw that day. Then we can get ready for bed! Unwind! and retire by 10:30.
Tuesday morning! 6:30 we get up and exercise for 30 minutes. Then I shower first and get ready have breakfast. Missionaries are supposed to study from 8-10 but our Zone Mettings on Tuesday cut into this and We have to leave our house by 8 30 to get to the building on time. so then we have 3 hour meeting. then we have lunch with ward members at the building who have met there for service/humanitarian projects. then we continue on our day with teaching appointments, less active stop bys, or preferably church tours! then from 5-7 we tract. At 7 we meet two relief society sisters for spilts. I leave Sister Gandolph :( :( hahaha until the end of the night. and then the normal things happen from 9-10:30.
Wednesday we go to an old folks home for about and hour and a half and help them do group exercises and talk to them (hehehhe I picked out this weekly service and ... it's my favorite!) then we visit, make phone calls (arranging splits, appointments, getting fellowship for investigator lessons) while we drive around all day. we usually have a meal appointment with a member for about an hour, visits, church tours! and home.
Thursday from 10-12 we have weekly planning (go over the progress made on our goals, update records, make records) and have companionship inventory to discuss any needs, problems, etc. then the normal routine continues until 7 when we go on spilts with two of the ward missionaries.
Friday is completely normal.
Saturday our study time is interrupted with a Missionary meeting attended by the Bishop and all the ward missionaries at 8 usually at Bishop's home. then things are normal except our 5-7 tracting can be anytime during the day and we try to use saturdays to do outside street contacting (not door to door) its pretty awkward, difficult to make productive, but fun with sister Gandolph beside me helping, and being awesome!
Sunday we leave our house by 7 30 to get to the church for our meeting with Ward Council at 8. then Church at 9. then a meal appt somewhere in the day and tracting for 2 hours somewhere in the day.
That's my week! and the best day is when we give church tours. Chruch tours take precendence over anything else! yay! we do everything we can to have members present at every lesson with investigators. it is such an important thing: to have them have a friend and give us someone else to call on for answers or testimonies etc.
So hilarious thing!!!!!!!!! In Silverdale Gandi and I came up with a great idea to go to the park in a huge book of mormon suit and give away Book of Mormons/invite church tours! We didn't get around to that but now that we're here in the Harbor for HALLOWEEN!!! Perfect time right!
Well. So after telling our meal appointment that we were thinking of dressing up for Haloween as the Bible and the Book of Mormon with a sign saying "Why can't we be friends" (hehehehe) they told us that the harbor does this huge city trick-or-treat thing and thousands of people go around the shops in downtown. Perfect opportunity! Let's go down there an hand out candy/pass along cards in our costumes!
Hahha so...........our plans eventually arrived at getting the approval of our Mission President. So I called him. (aghh!) and asked if we could carry out our plan for outside finding. He told me that didn't seem fitting for the dignified representatives we were. mm ok. so no dress up:(
But then! Later that night we were calling him to tell him we had found 2 New (investigators) by the end of that week {as he had instructed sister Gandolph in her personal interview at R+R on Friday} -oh r and r is Return and Report...happens every 3 months- and after we told him of the miracles:
1 Chase* the woodcarver- was outside having a really hard time because his German sheperd friend he'd had for 18+ years was dying. He ASKED US TO PRAY before we said anything about God (other than mentioned our names+tags) we set up a church tour with him! He came on the church tour 3 days later and told us on the tour that he recognized that we were sent from God and said he wouldn't have anything against being baptized. He would trust any of us to baptize him.
2 Mary*- we said where we were from and she came right out of the door and said oh! oh! I've been meaning to come to your church for over a year! Her boss is LDS and she promised him that she would. She wants a church where she can ask questions and learn. She came on a church tour and she said she would read the Book of Mormon before coming to church the next day!
YAY! So President was very happy and said "we are celebrating" and then handed the phone to Sister Bowen so we could tell her too. hahha. Then we asked President about our amended Haloween plan: still pass out candy and cards just not dressed up. He approved and said to dress warm and tell him how it goes.
WOOt Woot! hehehe I am so excited. Sister Gandolph and I are still going to dress up for the ward party though. YAY! It's a chili cook-off competition. I love chili and really am craving it. Silly I know and who would have guessed but I really like chili. (well obviously not grease-fest chili with meat oozing out everywhere..but hearty beans..yummo!)
*Names have been changed for privacy
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We ate with Sarah* and her family on Thursday and she died on Saturday morning. She is the mother of 4 children under the age of 12. Her husband was away, and her son found her. The ward has done so much to step in for comfort and mourn with those that mourn. I have been blessed with fullness to share with those who have an emptiness.
Eccl 3:1-8
Another miracle: Hannah* is extremely impressionable. We are teaching her and she was going to go ask her preacher about prophets and His authority. So on the day she was supposed to go, we prayed so hard and so much for her. Every prayer asked for something, anything to get in the way of her going to see her preacher. and she got Sick! Yep! and now she is scheduled for baptism on the 17th! She needs the Holy Ghost, for he is the comforter and the director. He speaks truly.
