Hello Everyone! Hope all is well. Things are going good here in Olivenhain. 2022 was my blackout year as a Missionary. Meaning, for the whole year of 2022 I was a missionary which is a weird thought. Since September I'm 16 months in as a missionary, which means I have about 7-8 months left. It also means I'm almost a complete sister mission done. I need to talk to President soon about when I will be going home because I won't have the full 24 months because of school. But I will be back sometime in August.
This week with Elder Roberts has been good. He's from Wyoming and he just hit a year in the field today. It's been nice because I feel like we're more equal in the work. It just feels like we're out and about more often which is good, even though it's sometimes hard. We've done a lot of Tracting + Member lessons. That's probably how we spend the majority of our time.
We have dropped a lot of people over the past little bit though. We were never necessarily teaching them, but they were on our potentials list. Our two most progressing friends were Jonathon and Sam.
- Jonathon is the father of a little family, and he's got a little 1 or 2 year old girl. We met him a few weeks ago via tracting and have been in contact since. He was really busy over the holidays so we were never able to meet, but on Thursday we went over to introduce Elder Roberts and we had a really awesome discussion with him! We started talking about the difference between the temple and the church and he mentioned that when he was in the military he went to a lds church and had a really good experience and he'd like to come again. He also asked what some of the differences were between the bible and the Book of Mormon, and after some discussion he asked "Where would I find a Book of Mormon?". It was awesome. He said he would come to church this past Sunday but unfortunately a family thing came up. But he's planning on it next week.
- I think I've mentioned Sam before as well. We met her around the same time we met Jonahton and she was working a lot in retail. We went by the same day, on Thursday and her sister answered. We had an ok conversation with her, mostly about the differences between Catholicism and the Church. it wasn't bad, but it definitely could've been better. She just kind of had a weird attitude towards us. Anyway, on Saturday we invited Sam to church and she said she would come! It would've been her first time. When, all of the sudden she changed her mind:
It was such a 180 from what she has said the past month or so. Elder Roberts and I think her Sister said something. Maybe she sent her some Anti. It was really quite sad. We tried stopping by too but she didn't answer. We think we might try to send her an uplifting message or something. She was so elect :(
The title this week refers to a series of unfortunate events that we experienced on Friday. Around 5pm we were biking to our dinner appointment while making visits to members or other people along the way. Eventually we arrive at our lesson, and upon setting up our bikes by the house, I realize that my keys are gone. The key to the apartment, church, bike lock, and an oil vile. Our lesson was about to start so we just went in and were going to figure it out later. After the dinner, the member offered to put our bikes in his truck and give us a ride back. We wouldn't say no, so we loaded up, and while I was closing the hatch, I slammed it onto Elder Roberts' finger. It could've been a lot worse because he just got part of his finger cut, not smashed. We washed that off and bandaged it up. When we went back out, we found out the truck battery was dead. Brother Dyer had a quick charger thing, but found out that it was dead too. We set it up to charge for 20ish minutes but it still wasn't starting. At that point, Brother Dyer said he would let it charge over night and bring us our bikes in the morning. He gave us a ride back in another car and it was good. The next morning we decided we would retrace our biking path with the Elders who have a car and see if we could find the key. Some parts were trails so we walked for some of it, but we didn't find anything. We got the bikes from Brother Dyer and then just decided to continue on with our day. We had an extra church and apartment key, so the only thing we were really missing was our bikes. We walked a lot that day but it was good because it gave us more contacting opportunities. Sunday night we found the keys. We went to the church and saw one of the other companionships in our district there. One of the Elders held up the keys and told us that their bishop found them. Where? In the freaking door of the church building. Turns out, when I went into the church on Friday, I left the keys in the door accidentally. It was disappointing. In other news, Elder Roberts finger is doing well. The cut sealed up that night and he is recovering well.
My spiritual thought is centered on this talk by Brad Wilcox that I listened to. I normally exercise in silence at the gym, but later in the day I often want to listen to a talk but don't have the time to sit or do anything. So I started listening to them while working out. Anyway, that's not important. The talk he gave was about Grace, and he shared a lot of the same things he did in his famous talk "His Grace is Sufficient". But, there was this one story I never heard before. He said one Sacrament meeting, a new priest was blessing the Sacrament. It was his first time, and he messed up a lot while giving the prayer. He would mess up, look over at the Bishop, and do it again. As many times as it takes, until he got it right. Brother Wilcox said that he thought that was a powerful message, and another symbol for the Atonement. Because of Christ's Atonement, we can try and try again when we mess up. Christ does not lower the expectation for us, but he lets us try and try again. As long as it takes. We just have to keep on trying. It also reminds me of this quote from a C.S. Lewis book. Hope it gives you a little bit to think about.
One last thing I forgot! After we tried visiting Sam, on our way back, we walked by this motorcycle with a little card in it.
The reason I noticed it was because it's one of our pass along cards, and it was one Elder Reinhart and I left on this motorcycle a while ago. We had just done a bunch of tracting and we got the idea to write on the card "God believes in you!" and leave it on the motorcycle seat. So we did and then we forgot about it. Until the next morning, when we got a text from him, saying thanks and that he got our card. We tried seeing if we could meet him or something, but he wouldn't respond and we haven't been able to contact him. But it is cool that he kept our card. We will see if there is any more to this development.
Here are some more pictures:
Anyway, that's all. Love each of you!
- Elder Wride
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