Well here once again at the conclusion at one of the longest/shortest weeks
ever. Soooo many things happened but everything just flew by at the same time.
From a new mission president to baptisms it was packed full of
experiences!
Definitely the first momentous occasion of the
week was meeting the new president and his wife at their very first Zone
Conference Wednesday... no wait I digress. The day before, Tuesday, we set a
SAWEET new baptismal date with a new investigator and that was an awesome
lesson! But after that definitely ZoCo was epic. The new president is incredibly
different from the old one, but he´s going to be amazing! I´m excited for the
missionaries who will be getting to spend a large part of their mission with
him. We was a CES area director for East Europe, so essentially he´s a
seminary teacher who absolutely loves the youth and a good joke. He´s super
relaxed and just an amiable man, but has a massive testimony and love for the
Gospel. He was so happy to see us and talk with everybody that the zone
conference actually ran 2 hours longer than scheduled. It was nice to meet him
though. It´s still a little weird not having a mission president who´s been
there from the beginning and who knows your personal mission story and
everything you´ve been through, but the clean slate scenario is actually pretty
refreshing.
After that the next 2 days were filled with teaching and
finding. We had 8 appointments fall out this week which was super super
frustrating, but we used the time to find new people and this next week is
looking pretty busy. We had a pretty funny experience though one evening while
contacting people in front of the palace in the middle of the city. Some guy
broke up our approach and said we had 30 seconds to convince him why he should
read the Book of Mormon, and at the end he pointed to the sky and screamed at
the top of his lungs in the crowd "Ahhh the goldens plates... These are mormons-
help they´re trying to kill me!!!" repeating it multiple times while everyone
else looked at us, he then sprinted off at full speed screaming. Haha it shook
up my golden a bit I think, but he´ll get used to dealing with crazies. Another
crazy lady ran at us and said she needed help and then pulled us into a
building where people with addictions get paid counseling and she led us in
to "introduce us to the person who saved (her) life." Once we were in the room
surrounded by people she yelled, "I have brought the church to curse you crooks
for who you really are for taking our money!" haha That was an awkward one to get
out of, but it´s weird how normal it becomes to deal with such situations after
2 years. The fact is when you´re out roaming the streets looking for people all
day, you get to know the city crazies pretty well.
We also had a cool
experience with an investigator we were teaching who is dealing with the age old
question of, "If God is there, why do bad things happen to good people?" I´ve
thought long and hard about this and there´s tons of ways to answer it, but the
one that has most impressed me as of late is a little tiny scripture in 1 Nephi
11:17 where an angel asks Nephi a question and he responds "I know that God
loves His children, nevertheless I don't know the meaning of all things." I just
love that thought. We just need to know that God loves us and if we know that it
means everything. I also really like the scripture in 3 Nephi 13:32-33 when
people ask why they can´t seem to have everything they need. God really does
"know (we) have need of all these things" but if we "seek first the kingdom of
God" then "all these things shall be added unto (us)." I really like those
thoughts and we´ve used them a lot in our work lately.
Saturday was a
great conclusion to the week, we had the baptism of a family in the district and
the whole district came together to see it. It was a great moment of Espirit de
Corps. Afterwards we had a musical fireside, in which for the first time I didn't
have to sing a duet in a foreign language! :D I just had to say the opening
prayer. :) But we have a pro opera singer in the district, an organ player, and
a sister with a degree in oboe performance from LSU, and another missionary was
there to see the baptism who´s a concert pianist, so there was some real talent
there. It was a beautiful evening. Everything went smoothly and it was great to
be there.
Sunday was also a good day. We had a few investigators at church
and the meetings were really good. About 5 mins before the meeting the bishop
asked if I would give a 10 min talk on missionary work, haha but it was not
problem and went really really well. Also an old mission friend was back to
visit with his family who I went on lots of exchanges on so he and I got to
take one of our investigators in another room and teach together again which was
super fun. It was just a great day. Afterwards we ate with an awesome member who
was also a long time temple president in Frankfurt. I learned a lot from just
having some time with him and that was great. Overall it was an awesome week,
and I just hope the next one is great also. Transfers are one Saturday- I´m
pretty safe, but with a brand new president you never know what will happen. ;)
Have a wonderful week back home. Love you all tons!
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