stories I thought this week I would do a 'week in the life of
missionary' type email. So this past Monday was P day. On this day of
the week we normally do our cleaning, groceries, laundry, and
emailing. Most weeks we also go to the church with the other elders
and play basketball or volleyball. Last week was no different.
At 5 o'clock we went to dinner with our bishop and his wife at their
home. A recently reactivated man also joined us. After dinner that man
took us out to visit a couple people. We visited a couple that we're
teaching, and talked about the plan of salvation. They're really nice
people but they're kind of stagnant as investigators. After that
appointment we were supposed to go visit a less active family and their
nonmember children, but that appointment fell through. So we went to
visit a recent convert instead. He dropped us off at the church after
that teaching appointment, we put our lessons into the area book, and
went home to plan.
Tuesday morning we went and volunteered at Habitat for Humanity. We
usually help them with moving around furniture and cleaning. We also
help stock the show room with different things that people donate. We
usually volunteer there for about an hour, after which we go home for
lunch. After lunch we met a recent convert lady in our ward who
followed us to go visit a man that we're teaching named N. It was
the first visit we had with him since finding him last Saturday and it
went wonderfully! We taught the restoration, invited him to be
baptized, and he accepted a baptismal date. After that
lesson we went back to her house, and sat outside and taught her.
We then called an older, less active lady. Usually visit her about
every week and a half. She was available for us to meet so we went to
her house and sat outside, enjoying the beautiful weather, and
teaching a lesson including singing some Christmas songs. She always
enjoys our visits.
After that we tried finding some new people without any success. Our
dinner that night canceled so we went home and made it ourselves. I
don't remember exactly what we ate it probably wasn't anything good. After
dinner we went out with a member of our ward to try and teach. The the
first appointment we had initially set up didn't work out, but we
were able to go visit the Washington family afterwards. They are
moving so its pretty sad.
Funny side story. We ended up getting there half an hour earlier than we were
supposed to. They weren't home so we called them to see when they
would be. She said that they would be home in about 20 minutes and at
the back door was unlocked so we could just break into her house. So
we did! We killed some time by playing some Rock'em Sock'em robots. It
was fun.
Wednesday was a district meeting. This is one of the most fun times
you get as a missionary, because you get to spend time around other
missionaries than those you are used to. Our district consists of the
two sets of elders in Albemarle, the set of sisters in Concord, and
one of the senior couples who works in the office staff, the
Garlick's. They come to our ward on Sunday so they come to our
district meetings as well. They are wonderful people.
District meetings are usually an hour and a half long. There's an
opening song, opening prayer, and then we do accountability. That's
when we put up our key indicators from the previous week and say a
bunch of cliché blah blah blah about how were going to improve and all that
other stuff. Then there's usually a couple trainings followed by some
role plays. This week I gave the training on a section in the
missionary handbook.
After district meeting was over we went on exchange with the other
elders. I stayed in our proselyting area and Elder Skinner, our
district leader, came with me. We went back to our apartment for lunch
and to set the criteria for the exchange. It's basically where we just
talk about things you want to work on and improve over the 24 hour
period.
That afternoon we spent the majority of time trying to find new people
to teach. We were able to show the new Christmas video to a few people
and hand out some cards. One of our appointments that we had that
afternoon didn't end up happening, he never showed up or answered his
phone. We left him a note. We did see a recently reactivated man in
our ward. That's always a fun visit. We help to move some of the heavy
boxes from upstairs downstairs since he's moving soon.
Yet another dinner appointment canceled on us that night so Elder
Skinner took us out to Wendy's for dinner. After dinner we went to a
town called Troy to drop off a book of Mormon that someone had
requested. We got there and the person who requested the Book of
Mormon said that it was their niece would actually requested it. There
were a lot of people in the home so we seized the opportunity to
gather everyone in and teach. We shared the video, A Savior is born,
they really enjoyed it. We briefly introduced the book of Mormon and
the restoration. We're going back to teach all of them tonight.
We didn't have any set appointments after that so we tried to see a few
people in Troy. We ended up teaching a less active Laotian couple and
we got them to commit to come to church. They weren't able to make it
this past Sunday but they should be there this upcoming Sunday. They
enjoyed the visit and sent us home with a bunch of packages of fancy
ramen noodles and sticky rice.
After teaching a couple we went to Walmart to purchase some Christmas
presents for one of the missionaries. Elder Simpkin and I wanted to
put a little package together for him since he probably won't be
getting to town this Christmas. I also bought myself a pizza onesie.
Yes you heard me correctly. A pizza onesie, it's amazing! The
Washington's inspired me to purchase it. We also had an interesting
conversation with a man who turned out to be a less active member of
the church. He said he joined the church back in Colorado but fell
away after awhile. He wants a triple combination so
we're going to give his information to the other set of elders in our
area so they can go contact him. He lives just down the street from a
man they're teaching.
That night we went home, planned, and talked until about one in the
morning. I know, rebellious missionaries but that's the purpose of an
exchange. You spend the whole night talking. The next morning we were
really tired which is to be expected. We exchanged back that morning
and Elder Simpkin and I discussed what we learned on exchange. After
lunch we met a man in our ward at the church and he took us out
teaching. We visited N again and taught him the first half of the
plan of salvation. It was a wonderful visit and he was really
impressed by what he read in the book Mormon. The things that stuck
out to him were baptism and the Holy Ghost. Exactly what we wanted him to pick
up on!
After teaching N we drove down to Norwood. There we taught P and
a less active lady. The Less active lady sent us home with a box of
tangerines. Our member had to go home to take care of his
grandkids so he dropped us off at the church. After which we went to
an appointment with a less active lady in our ward. It's always a fun
visit there and we stood outside her apartment and chatted for a
while. She's been coming back to church pretty frequently but we're
trying to get her into the chapel for Sacrament Meeting.
After that lesson we went to dinner with Chuck and Artie. We had
tacos! It was a tasty year mark dinner. That evening we try to see
some people with no success. We didn't have any set appointments we
weren't expecting much anyways.
Friday morning we did weekly planning. Normally that's done on
Thursday but we didn't have enough time after exchanging back and
going out with our member to do it on Thursday. Weekly planning is
exactly that. You plan for the following week. You talk about
different people you're working with and how to best help them
progress. We set a bunch of goals and and make plans and it's pretty awful.
It's important, but awful.
We didn't have a time of success that afternoon. We did try and find
some people and it was pretty similar to previous efforts this week.
We showed the video a couple of times passed out some cards. We did
meet a nice lady and we're going back to see her and her husband
tomorrow night. They have a 18 month older daughter. Should be a fun
little family that we can hopefully get into the church.
Friday night, as usual, we had dinner with the Cummens family! That's
always a good time. I really love that family. After dinner with them
we drove down to Norwood to visit a less active family. We helped them
decorate their Christmas tree, and were able to teach a lesson.
They'll commit to come to church but never show up. Oh well. Maybe
one day.
Saturday morning we went and dropped off a Bible to a lady who had
requested it. She wished she had more time to speak with us so we set up an
appointment for this week where we are going to go back and see her.
That afternoon we saw N again. We were able to teach him in
a members home which is always the ideal situation in missionary work.
We had a great lesson discussing the second half of the plan of
salvation, the necessity of the priesthood, and the Book of Mormon. He
has prayed and received a witness that the book of Mormon is true. Now
it's just a matter of filling in his knowledge, and he should be ready
for baptism!
We didn't really feel like going tracting that afternoon so we called
up an investigator to see if we could go over and see them. They were home!
After we went home to cut our hair. We were having a good
week of teaching so we felt like we deserved an hour of non-diligence.
After dinner that night we went on teams with a member. He drove us
all the way down to Wadesboro. This is a town that's 45 minutes from
Albemarle. A lady down there wanted a Bible so we went to drop it
off to her. As soon as we pulled up in front of the house and got out of the
car some man yelled "the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints"! This man was quite the interesting character. He chewed our
ear off for about 15 minutes while slobbering drunk. He told us all
about his very "interesting past". He turned out to be the sister of the lady
were trying to see you so he took the Bible and told us that he'd give it to her!
Afterwords he decided that he wanted to say a closing prayer so we all held
hands and he said the prayer. It was an interesting experience even though
my hand reeked of alcohol afterwards.
We went home and updated our area book. The next day was Sunday! We
had church, our coordination meeting, lunch, and then got picked up
and taken to our dinner appointment. Sundays are always a hard time
for doing proselyting. It's usually because we have meetings that
stretch far into the afternoon. Plus this Sunday our dinner appointment was
pretty early. After dinner one of the YSA that was hanging out with the
family drove us down and we visited P again. After that visit which
went well, he dropped us off at the church. We then went home teaching
with a man in our ward to see the Cummens family. We did this all
before eight so we had enough time to go to the church and type up
our accountability email for the week. At the end of each week we total
up our key indicators and send them in to the mission office. We had a really
good week this week! We taught 10 member presents and 28 total lessons. We also
were happy to see N come to church! Overall this week was really good.
Hope you enjoyed the email. And I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!
Send me pictures, read your scriptures,
Love you!
Elder Galvin
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| Have to show off the Pizza Onsie!!! |
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