"WHOA! Did you see that?!"
"What??"
"That crazy thing that just flew by!"
"You mean that blurr?"
"Yeah! What was that??"
"That was my first transfer!"
Holy COW! I'm through my first planner and don't even know how it happened! I only have one more left before I'm out of the training program and might be expected to train!! AAAAAHHH!! Time is FLYING!
Okay! So Potosi is the geographic center of our area, but the vast majority of people live in Desloge(where we ACTUALLY live) and Bonne Terre, with Potosi being the next largest town. We live RIGHT on the edge of our area, if you look, Park Hills is in Farmington(where we lived before) Ward. Our address is Bonne Terre because the mailing out here is really funky. The demographics are that this is the country, and there is not a variety at all except the 20 or so employees working at the two Chinese buffets all of whom came from China, and the same number working at the two fairly authentic Mexican(HALLELUJAH!) places. We have our own 2010 Chevy Malibu full-time, but we really don't use many miles because Potosi is a 50 mile round trip and we only go there twice a week or so and most of our work is in Desloge and Bonne Terre. Funny you mention it, I got my first in-field haircut yesterday with my comp at Sister Peters' house, she works at Penny's cutting hair and did it for free! She is very sweet and has already fed us once as well! The members aren't feeding us very often, but that has alot to do with the activity rate and the fact that we aren't allowed to pass around a calendar and have to schedule them on the fly. Our staple diet has been pancakes and eggs for breakfast, top ramen or a bagel and cream cheese for lunch, and pasta for dinner, but last night we threw together some old noodles we didn't finish, a can of green beans, baby carrots, italian sausage, and lots of butter and garlic into our new(to us) electric griddle a member gave us and had some GREAT stir-fry! Okay, missionary story time.
This week has been rough. We set some high goals and have been working really hard to achieve them, but appointments kept falling through, mostly because everyone out here is getting sick, and new appointments all got scheduled for this week. Finding was going well, but we wanted six new investigators, which means we had to teach them a lesson and set up a following appointment. We only had 2 new as of Saturday night at 8:15. We had an appointment fall through so we started tracting these low-income apartments, and the last two doors were tender mercies from the Lord. The first was a wonderful single mother who isn't into any religion but said it was only because she hadn'y found one, and Elder Marshall and I both saw the light in her eyes as we shared a brief message of the Restoration and set up an appopintment and decided she was the reason our appointment dropped. So we had one door left, it was 8:30, and we had 2 out of 6 investigators for the week. We knock the door, and a lady answers and laughs and tell someone inside it's "church people". The response comes "sorry, we're flat broke" and I call inside, "What we share is free" (that exchange can be found paralleled in Our Search For Happiness, you'll find it if you read it) and she called us in. There were four people and a young child, the woman calling to us has brain cancer, and we began teaching them the Plan of Salvation and getting to know and love all of them. We got a lesson scheduled for tonight with all four. We made our goal that the Lord wanted us to set, and He led us right to His children who needed us most. We got home at 9:40 glowing. We will also be teaching them the stop Smoking Workshop (three of them have been smoking since 7 or 8) at their request. I love this work. I am so excited for tonight. We could have stopped and gone home before we found those people, but 3 profound times now the Lord has blessed us at the end of our most difficult days.
Love,
Elder Marshall
"What??"
"That crazy thing that just flew by!"
"You mean that blurr?"
"Yeah! What was that??"
"That was my first transfer!"
Holy COW! I'm through my first planner and don't even know how it happened! I only have one more left before I'm out of the training program and might be expected to train!! AAAAAHHH!! Time is FLYING!
Okay! So Potosi is the geographic center of our area, but the vast majority of people live in Desloge(where we ACTUALLY live) and Bonne Terre, with Potosi being the next largest town. We live RIGHT on the edge of our area, if you look, Park Hills is in Farmington(where we lived before) Ward. Our address is Bonne Terre because the mailing out here is really funky. The demographics are that this is the country, and there is not a variety at all except the 20 or so employees working at the two Chinese buffets all of whom came from China, and the same number working at the two fairly authentic Mexican(HALLELUJAH!) places. We have our own 2010 Chevy Malibu full-time, but we really don't use many miles because Potosi is a 50 mile round trip and we only go there twice a week or so and most of our work is in Desloge and Bonne Terre. Funny you mention it, I got my first in-field haircut yesterday with my comp at Sister Peters' house, she works at Penny's cutting hair and did it for free! She is very sweet and has already fed us once as well! The members aren't feeding us very often, but that has alot to do with the activity rate and the fact that we aren't allowed to pass around a calendar and have to schedule them on the fly. Our staple diet has been pancakes and eggs for breakfast, top ramen or a bagel and cream cheese for lunch, and pasta for dinner, but last night we threw together some old noodles we didn't finish, a can of green beans, baby carrots, italian sausage, and lots of butter and garlic into our new(to us) electric griddle a member gave us and had some GREAT stir-fry! Okay, missionary story time.
This week has been rough. We set some high goals and have been working really hard to achieve them, but appointments kept falling through, mostly because everyone out here is getting sick, and new appointments all got scheduled for this week. Finding was going well, but we wanted six new investigators, which means we had to teach them a lesson and set up a following appointment. We only had 2 new as of Saturday night at 8:15. We had an appointment fall through so we started tracting these low-income apartments, and the last two doors were tender mercies from the Lord. The first was a wonderful single mother who isn't into any religion but said it was only because she hadn'y found one, and Elder Marshall and I both saw the light in her eyes as we shared a brief message of the Restoration and set up an appopintment and decided she was the reason our appointment dropped. So we had one door left, it was 8:30, and we had 2 out of 6 investigators for the week. We knock the door, and a lady answers and laughs and tell someone inside it's "church people". The response comes "sorry, we're flat broke" and I call inside, "What we share is free" (that exchange can be found paralleled in Our Search For Happiness, you'll find it if you read it) and she called us in. There were four people and a young child, the woman calling to us has brain cancer, and we began teaching them the Plan of Salvation and getting to know and love all of them. We got a lesson scheduled for tonight with all four. We made our goal that the Lord wanted us to set, and He led us right to His children who needed us most. We got home at 9:40 glowing. We will also be teaching them the stop Smoking Workshop (three of them have been smoking since 7 or 8) at their request. I love this work. I am so excited for tonight. We could have stopped and gone home before we found those people, but 3 profound times now the Lord has blessed us at the end of our most difficult days.
Love,
Elder Marshall
The view from our balcony. Walmart anyone?
What was an R8 doing in FARMINGTON, MO?!
Sister Peters cutting my hair on her front porch yesterday :)
What was an R8 doing in FARMINGTON, MO?!
Sister Peters cutting my hair on her front porch yesterday :)
No comments:
Post a Comment