Hey Mom!
Conference was so awesome. I received a lot of information for how I can go about doing better on my mission, and it was super cool to see those three new apostles called! Elder Renlund's testimony really helped me to understand how we have to see our investigators through the eyes of a parent. Because only then can we see their full potential. I loved that. And I loved how Thomas S. Monson pushed through right to the end of his talk. I was getting really scared because he looked like he was really struggling to stand up there for so long, but he did it and just that one little thing gives me the courage to keep on trying no matter how hard it gets. I also loved Jeffrey R. Holland's talk because it really made me think about how much you do for me. Thank you for all your support in everything. Oh and I decided to start "ponderizing" like what Elder Durrant said to do. My scripture is Mosiah 4:8. Speaking of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, King Benjamin says, "And this is the means whereby salvation cometh. And there is none other salvation save this which hath been spoken of; neither are there any conditions whereby man can be saved except the conditions which I have told you."
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| Happy!!! |
We had one investigator at conference! She's 12, her mom is a less active member, and her cousin is a recently returned missionary. She really wants to be baptized and her cousin takes her to church when she can. But her dad does not want her to be baptized because he has read some anti stuff about Joseph Smith. Recently when we go by to see her, her Dad tells us to go away. We're hoping that we can give him the pamphlet with the testimony of Joseph Smith, and we are going to bear our testimonies as well. But we saw her in the back of the chapel, but as soon as it was over she was gone, so we didn't get to talk to her.
The hornet stings are pretty much gone now. I have been getting headaches a lot since it happened though, but I just take motrin and they go away after a while. I've also started to take naps during lunch and that helps.
I did get the box you sent, thank you so much! The nesquick kind of exploded though... haha I have a picture. I ended up saving it! But I had already bought a big thing of nesquick, so now I just won't run out! And I got Autumn's package, she sent me a book called "Missionary Companion" which is kind of a study book. It's kind of like True to the Faith. It was super nice of her to send that.
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| Nesquik... Not such a great idea! |
Hopefully the auditions go well! You'll probably end up sending a lot of kids this year just like last year! And I'm glad to hear everything is going well for you all. I will be praying for Skyla. Tell her I love her!
I'm getting along with my companion pretty well! The hardest thing is just that sometimes he goes into automatic teaching mode and doesn't really follow the spirit. So we're trying to work on that. But otherwise things are going well. I do get along better with the other two missionaries though but that's probably just because I don't live with them 24/7. You know me, I like my alone time. So it's hard for me to get that now but I'm getting used to it. At night I just like rarely talk haha.
Nothing much happened on Monday. We played monopoly and I'm pretty sure that I won because I had the most money, but we had to end early so we didn't have an "official winner." But all our appointments canceled that night so we went out street contacting. We talked to a lot of people, and they're nice to us most of the time, but never interested.
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| Of course Jonny won... He ALWAYS wins! |
I went on another exchange on Tuesday. But it was only to the south end of our ward, so I only spent the night down the street in our apartment complex. But that was fun, I was with Elder Rice, who is also training. He went in to the MTC the same time Jordan did! But anyway, that day our appointments didn't answer the door so we went out tracting. And it was like 90% humidity that day so it was super hot, and then all of a sudden it started to pour down rain. I was so soaked. Then we had to ride our bikes back, while cars were splashing puddles at us when they drove by. I was just so happy though. I had absolutely no reason to be other than I knew that I was supposed to be out there and I was working hard. It was actually pretty fun out in the rain, I got a picture but you can't really tell how wet I was. Then that night we went and saw two of their investigators, a mom and her son. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they really seemed to like the Atonement, so I talked a little bit more about that, and I was able to bear my testimony about how because of the Atonement, He can give us strength when we need it. That was super cool that night.
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| Soaked from the storm... but happy! |
Wednesday we went to Fort Eustice for FHE. They have one at 11 in the morning and one at 6. It was nice because we were fed lunch and dinner that day, but we didn't end up having any lessons. The time when we were home in between FHEs we tried to stop by 5 of our investigators houses, but none of them were home, or they just didn't answer the door. But that's when we first heard about the hurricane. I got the package this day as well!
Thursday we could tell that a storm was coming because it dropped like 15 degrees that day. We went to get water and other emergency supplies at the Food Lion near our apartment which is pretty much a Safeway. We also had to pack a bag of 5 days of clothes just in case we were evacuated. But before we did all of that we went tracting in a neighborhood and met some people that told us to come back later in the week! And we also helped a man move into our apartment complex because he had two big mattresses. We talked to him and he said that he'd be willing to talk with us so we have been talking with him as much as possible. His name is Edward, and we haven't had an official lesson with him yet, but he was at general Conference for a little bit and he said he enjoyed it. We have a lesson scheduled for Wednesday.
Friday we had Zone Meeting and that was pretty good! I played the piano, and I think I'm getting better at it because I've had the opportunity to play a lot. Then when we got back we went to see this man that we met named Tramane, but he prefers to go by Holy Teacher Nowawesome. We call him Tramane. I didn't feel like that lesson went well at all because he was not really listening at all. Afterward I felt really discouraged and kind of annoyed. But we went to go stop by a potential's house that we talked to on Thursday, and her dad answered the door. At first we were a little nervous, because he didn't look like he wanted us to be here. But he said, "We're gonna have some fun" and went back inside, and then came back outside with a beer can and said that we should talk to him. So we started with a prayer, and then started to teach him the Restoration. We didn't get very far, when we started talking about how Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father love each of us, he burst into tears. These were like genuine tears and I was honestly very surprised. We ended up testifying of how he was feeling the spirit and he agreed to let us come back after we said a closing prayer. Crazy how we got a new investigator there.
Then Saturday and Sunday were general Conference and we weren't able to do much during that time. But on Sunday we tried to talk to a lot of people that didn't show up to the church to watch it, but they weren't home or didn't answer the door. It's been a little hard to have so many "investigators" but have none of them be progressing at all. But I'm just gonna keep working hard and have faith that it will bet better.
I can't wait to hear from you next week, and let you know how the week went! I'm not gonna lie and say time's flying by, cause it really isn't, but I love it. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else!
Love you,
Elder Collier
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