March 25, 2013

Subject: Chronicles of Karinia

 

So,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

Karin did not get baptized yesterday (two days ago).  On Friday at district meeting we found out that the Pringle Ward sister missionaries had a baptism scheduled for 1:00, the same time as Karin's.  We called the baptismal font scheduler we had talked to before and we found out that she was the baptismal font coordinator for Monmouth Stake!  We live in the Salem Stake!  So we rescheduled the baptism for 2:15 and started calling everyone in the ward to tell them about the time change, then we thought that maybe we should call Karin herself.  When I told her what happened she said, "Actually, I was thinking we should call it off."  Sigh.

 

We went over there that night to talk to her about it.  We were really hoping that we could talk her into it, and the lesson was super spiritual.  Karin told us she knew that it was right and she really wants to be baptized, but she says she needs to talk to her son about it again to make sure he's okay with it.  I don't think that Laurence would really have a problem with it, I think that the adversary is just trying to make her afraid.  I believe that Karin will be baptized it might just take a while.  Sister Gyebi-Quarcoo in our ward was telling us that when she was being converted, she didn't cancel her baptism, she just didn't show up to it!  She did that three times!  Then one day she just decided to show up to church and she asked to be baptized then.  Everyone came out of sacrament meeting to watch her be baptized!  Haha I can only imagine how her poor elders felt.  Anyways, we'll continue to work with Karin.

 

MIRACLE(S) OF THE WEEK:  We have been having a hard time finding new investigators.  We set a goal to find two this last week, which is a fairly low goal.  Monday night after P-Day, we tried to visit an investigator but he wasn't home.  So we decided to knock on the doors around his house.  No one was really interested, and we were about to get in the car when Elder Tandy said he had seen a lady walking her dog and kids and that she had turned in to a house and that we should knock on it.  We went over there and a boy answered the door so we asked for a parent, he said hold on, then we heard this ferocious barking.  This tiny little monster (some kind of rottweiler-dachsund) came running out and we heard, "No don't touch him!"  As I was bending down to try to keep him from running away.  The woman of the house grabbed the dog so I fortuitously escaped mutilation, and we started out the door approach laughing which is a nice change.  We smoothly transitioned into introducing the Book of Mormon, what it is and why it's so important.  We said a prayer with her on her doorstep and she was happy to set up a return appointment.  After that, we visited a lady I had talked to with Elder Palmer who didn't seem really interested in religion, but that night she was very receptive, she said we had caught her at a good time because of spring break and we set up an appointment with her directly after the other lady's.  Their names are Tawnya and Laurie respectively, and we're visiting both of them tonight. :D

 

It has been spring for a while! (see attachments) but it's not real warm and the rain is super sporadic and annoying.  Not that I mind the rain, but you can never tell if it will be sunny or rainy because it will probably be both.   

March 18, 2013

Olo!  So guess what!  New worldwide missionary policy on e-mail is:

1. You may e-mail friends back home and

2. missionaries in other fields of labor but

3. not in your own mission however

4. you may e-mail converts of the same gender inside your missions.

Hooray!  So now anyone who receives these e-mails can e-mail me!

So Karin the greatest is now on date for this Saturday the 23rd at 1:00!  Laurence coming to visit seems to be a fluke of Karin's imagination and so now he isn't.  She came to church yesterday and loved it as usual.

Every time we meet with Doug and Autumn (less-active/nonmember) and their five kids they open up a ton more than they did the last time.  The kids are one by one getting a lot more friendly and talkative and Doug and Autumn are getting more and more involved in the lessons.  It's great.

We went dog-walking with the Ridderbusches on Saturday again and it was really awesome.  I was on exchanges with the Zone Leader, Elder Collins, and he's a real good teacher.  We taught them The Gospel of Jesus Christ and it really resonated with them.

March 11, 2013

Subject: Blisters but Bueno

 

Nice alliteration huh?  I'm glad you enjoyed that letter even though it got kind of messed up.  Life at home sounds fun.  It's spring here too!  Only it's been spring for quite a while already.

 

So about the blisters, there's a less-active guy in our ward by the name of Bro. Struckman who likes to have us come over and make us split his wood.  He just got a ton of green wood from somewhere and he had these nice big axes we were using but I had never done it before!  Why didn't you teach me, Father??!  Haha no but it was harder than it looks.  At first I had no idea what I was doing so nothing much was happening when I hit the wood, but after a bit (and after Bro. Struckman started a few for me) I got the hang of it and it's actually pretty fun!  I'm sore now and I've got a few blisters but it's all good.  Hopefully by splitting his wood we can get him to come to church eventually....

 

Last night we had dinner with the Gunns.  They have an 18 yr. old son, a 16 or so yr. old daughter  and two younger sons around 12 and 10.  Dinner started out pretty normal, but as it progressed the kids' stories got crazier and they were doing ridiculous things and all their inside jokes were flying around and they were all just laughing hysterically.  The parents were somewhat mortified but they reminded me so much of our own family and how we ridiculous we can get and it was nice.  We were never that crazy around the missionaries but you know....  It's actually very difficult for me to view myself the same way I viewed other missionaries, even right before I left.

 

So now to the actual important things of thew week: Karin is back on date for baptism!!!  March 30th!  I'm not really sure how it happened, but after coming to church, then having a great lesson with the Pilobellos present, Elder Tandy just asked her and she just said yes.  Woot!  Now the challenge:  Her son Laurence is coming to visit within the next few weeks.    He was opposed to her baptism before and so now we'll have to follow the Spirit in how to deal with this because I've got no ideas.  Best-case scenario: Karin, Laurence, his wife and son all get baptized.  We won't discuss the other cases.  Prayers would be very appreciated.

 

I really wish I had more time to write stuff, but I'm trying to keep up the Journal writing so we'll have a lot to talk about when I get back.  I should go now!

 

Love you!

Elder Georgia

February 25, 2013

It's transfers!  And Elder Palmer is going to go away........  He's going to go train again in Medford.  My new companion's name is Elder Tandy-Trammel.  I haven't met him yet though, that will happen at 1:30.  I'll be staying in Salem.  Transfers are happy and sad.  Exciting and scary.  Yeah.

Answers to questions from Mom:

I'm great!  I did have a good week!

The new missions will be created in July sometime and whoever is in the Oregon Salem Mission boundaries  at that point will remain in that mission.  It will probably take from both the Portland and Eugene missions because Salem is split up between those.  It would be weird to start out in the Oregon Eugene and finish in the Oregon Salem but it's not that uncommon.  I would miss President Young, but I love Salem and the Salem mission's initials will spell OSM -> awesome which would be kind of cool....

The cello in the picture belongs to a ward member.  Salem is pretty much the most musical place ever which I hear is because of the phenomenal music program at Sprague Highschool.  Last night Elder Palmer had his cello and I had borrowed a violin and we played hymns for an old guy in the ward.  then we went over to Joel's house so he could play his viola with us and we jammed for a while.  Yeah that was in our apartment which was recently inspected and we were informed that it was terrible! > x <  We had actually cleaned it up a lot but missionaries have been living in that apartment for a loooooong time and it's really hard to get the dirt out of all the corners and the people inspecting the apartment were super strict.

Richard who found the burned B o M is currently being hard to contact but even if he doesn't continue the lessons right now he had contact with the restored gospel and hopefully he'll be drawn back to it soon.

My area is quite large but we spend most of our time in a very small suburban portion where everyone lives.  We had gone tracting in the far reaches when I took that picture.  Most of the mountains are short but there's the occasional really tall one like Mt. Hood and Mt. Angel and there's another one that I can't remember.  I think they may be volcanoes.  You should find that out for me.  The frosty pics are actually outside of my area.  We were doing a service project with some other elders.

The work is coming great!  We've been having problems helping people make and keep commitments but we are teaching people.  MIRACLE OF THE WEEK:  Do you remember Ryan?  Well one miracle, the last time we saw him he told us he had stopped drinking.  We haven't even taught him the Word of Wisdom!  Cha-ching!  But then we hadn't seen him for quite a while when we stopped by and his teenage daughter answered the door.  She told us he wasn't home and we talked about his schedule for a bit.  Then out of nowhere she said, "Actually I've been wanting to talk to you guys too.  My best friend from Colorado gave me a Book of Mormon, I'm halfway through first Nephi and I have some questions."  We were somewhat blown away and we eagerly agreed to start teaching her along with her dad.  We haven't taught them yet but she's going to be way easier to keep in contact with than Ryan so hopefully that will start soon.  Her name is Hyatt.  We've taught the Ridderbusches two dog-walking lessons now-not lessons on how to walk their dogs but gospel lessons while walking with them with their dogs-and they're going great.  They're making small changes in their lives that are helping them to come back to the Gospel.  Meeting with them has really reminded me that we all need to continue to re-apply gospel principles in our lives and rediscover our testimonies again and again.  That's why we go to church every week and why we read the scriptures over and over.  Because we all need to constantly be reminded to improve ourselves.  So we keep track of how many lessons we teach, specifically the number of lessons taught to investigators with a member present, other lessons taught to investigators, and lessons taught to less-actives and recent converts.  All those combined from last week were the highest weekly numbers we've had.  Yay.

Getting cd's approved is quite easy.  My call packet did say only MOTAB and EFY but all you have to do is call up Sis. Young and say hey, can I listen to this?  And she'll say, is it uplifting?  And I'll say, yes, and she'll say, ok.  I know Limbs and Branches has good Christian values but it can't be as rocking as the Switchfoot stuff.  I also don't want music that teaches false doctrines.  We've been listening to a lot of terrible mormon 80's music that Elder Palmer's mom sent him.  And you know EFY music it's kind of pop musical so it's not that it needs to be motab or classical, what really matters is if you think it's "consistent with the sacred spirit of my calling" (paraphrased from the Missionary Handbook pg. 25)

February 18, 2013

So I titled this e-mail this because there's a really good teriyaki place in our area called Love Love Teriyaki AND because it was just Valentine's Day AND because I love love you.

I did feel very loved on Valentine's Day!  I got packages from Mom and from the Nelsons-which contained an extremely rare Adrianne letter!!!  Thanks so much for the love and sugar!

Last night at 6:30 we got to go to a fireside presented by Walter Rane! It was amazing.  I really want to spend the rest of my life painting now.  He's my favorite gospel artist, not just because he's in my ward, he's just the best.  However every time I look at a Walter Rane painting I will remember my first mission area.  Not only does the painter live here, but I'll be able to find the faces of the members of my ward throughout his amazing works. :D

I've learned that missionaries are to deep doctrine like flies are to honey.  Myself included.  We spend all day thinking about doctrine, we study the scriptures and PMG every day, then when we meet a knowledgeable ward member who starts talking about the deepest of the deepness, we can't pull ourselves away.  Haha it's the best.

In case anyone is interested this last week we taught the highest combined number of lessons ever!  Disclaimer: this only applies to lessons taught by me and my comp within the last two transfers.

People in Oregon are really good cooks....

Well this e-mail is about as random as it's going to get!  I better go!

Love love Elder Georgia

p.s. I don't really appreciate all the pictures of Seth that I can't see his face in....  Luke and the Ariases are cute though.  The one of Seth running away IS pretty great too.  Here's some pictures from me!  This is that Book of Mormon I told you about.

February 11, 2013

It looks like I have a lot of congratulitudes to give!  Goooooooo Brittany!  Serving the Lord is the best!  It'll be fun for you and Hailey to be able to see each other in the MTC.  Neither of you are going to the BEST mission in the world, which is the Oregon Eugene, but you're both going to great places.  You'll love the east coast!  When's the report date and what's the actual mission name?

However fam, the white handbook states that, "Visits from family members, friends, and acquaintances are against Church policy."  So you won't be able to visit either of these lovely sister-missionaries-to-be, but it's cool that they're nearby.

Then I can hardly believe that there's another Arias!  That's crazy!  Congregations Nenna and Juan!  I can't wait to meet Ada (will she be at all like Eden???).  Keep me updated on the two distant Arias children.  In fact, Nenna you should e-mail sometime.  And mom you should have all the Arias children write me letters!

I'm glad you're involved in so many fun homeschooley things.  It sounds fun.

So about me, no Gale and Larry aren't true investigators.  They mostly just came to church because they're nice.  But two days ago we talked to Martha who is an investigator we had been really excited about teaching in the past, but she sent us a text saying she was really busy and we needed to let her contact us when she was ready.  So we hadn't talked to her for like four weeks, and we just decided to stop by.  She was there and we set up a time to meet with her like nothing had happened!  It was a nice little miracle.  President Young came and met Karin, which was pretty nice of him.  He says she just needs time and some strong friends in the ward and she'll choose to be baptized herself.  It's too bad that we haven't had any baptisms yet, but good things are happening and we'll be doing all we can to help our investigators to progress to baptism.  There's also a less-active couple, the Ridderbusches,  we've been visiting who are pretty awesome.  We hadn't really broached the will-you-let-us-teach-you-the-lessons question with them, but they had us over for dinner last week and Bro. Ridderbusch out of nowhere asked us if we could walk with them and their dogs every saturday morning and teach them the lessons.  Did I mention that everyone and their dog has dogs in Oregon?  Everyone.  But we were pretty super happy about that.

As to progressing investigators, we actually didn't count anyone as progressing this week because no one came to church!  But Karin is still strong, we're meeting with Autumn still, Stephanie too, Martha came back, there's another lady by the name of Linda we're teaching, Ryan is sort of non-existent but one of these days we'll get in contact with him, teach him the first three lessons and commit him to baptism, we've been sort of teaching a woman named Rachael but her and her house have been sick, We found a new lady named Laury(?) who we haven't been able to teach yet, oh and there's a 13 yr. old girl named Ashley who's been attending church with a family in the ward and her mother has given us her consent to teach Ashley and her sisters the lessons and her and her husband may sit in too.  Right now we're trying to see how much of the family we'll be able to meet with, but there are five or six families in our ward who are somehow connected to this family so there will be a lot of support in bringing them into the fold. :D  That's pretty much it.

Yeah my life is pretty great right now.  I'm still coughing up a storm but I feel all better aside from that.  The ward members take good care of us, and we've been teaching quite a few people.  Oregon is beauteous and it's really nice now that it's gotten warmer, I can't wait for summer. :3  I hope you all have a happy Valentine's day, remember that my love fer all'yall is truer than stuff.

Lovely,

Elder Georgia

February 4, 2013

 

So it looks like the whole nation is ill.  I've been sick for about two days now.  Yesterday I was able to drag myself out of bed for sacrament, but we left after that so I could sleep more.  I'm fine, I'm just coughing and have a bit of a headache.  It's lucky that today is p-day so I'm not wasting too much time.  Hopefully I'll be better by tomorrow!

 

Miracle of the week!  So on Saturday I went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders.  One of them, Elder Thompson, came with me into my area which made me nervous because I'm still trying to figure out how to get around.  But we taught some lessons and then we were tracting a street and Elder Thompson was a really good example of talking to everyone we saw.  So we got e few return appointments and we were thinking of heading back when Elder Thompson started citing a statistic that one in a thousand people we talked to would join the church but if we used the name of a member they knew it went up to eighty in a thousand.  We were near the house of the Relief Society President who had just gotten released and we made a decision to talk to the house next door to her.  We were walking down the sidewalk and right as we were going past the front door a girl in her twenties opened the door and came out talking to us excitedly.  Neither I nor my companion understood her at first.  We were probably in shock.  But we went up to her and she was saying, "I was just about to leave but we can talk if you want to."  We couldn't go inside because her parents weren't there, but we agreed wholeheartedly and began to teach her about The Book of Mormon and The Restoration.  Her name's Cassie.  It turned out that she was taking an American religions class in college that talked about Mormonism.  She had heard good things and bad things about Mormons but she said she had never met a Mormon she didn't like.  Her parents knew their mormon neighbors and she knew they had always been nice.  She was very interested in learning from us so we set up a return appointment for thursday.  So we had an investigator come running to our arms, which is something that doesn't happen very often!  Unfortunately she's twenty and single, so we have to turn her over to the singles ward elders.....  It's okay though!  The spirit is what converts anyways!  Not us.  And as long as she can come into the fold of God I'm happy.

 

Well I can't really remember anything else that happened right now...  But it was a great week and I'm sure I'll get better soon so I can continue to serve!

 

Au Revoir!  I love you all!

Elder Georgia.