Gone Down with the Sun

I first have to mention that daylight savings time sucks in fall here. It gets dark at like 5 so then we knock on a door and they get mad at us for being out so late waking everyone up. Then you look down at your watch and it says 6:30.... is it normal to go to sleep at that time? I feel like the only ones up are members ha! Anyways it isn’t new news from last year. Everyone just goes to sleep when the sun goes down.

This week was full of stuff! I had something different everyday. On Halloween we did a split with a returned missionary because he keeps saying he doesn’t know what to do at home. He is super awesome and I bet he served a very faithful mission. Anyways we ended up eating at BWs in honor of the baptism this last weekend. Then we had to be in by 6 and from then on we just called peeps and did comp study. 

The next morning we had Zone Conference and that was awesome! We discussed the “convert” part in Teach repentance and baptize converts. A lot was on how we need to be the vessel that the Holy Ghost can work through to bless the lives of others. We don’t do the converting the Holy Ghost does. I love these two verses Mosiah 3:19 and John 14:26. It has made me have a greater appreciation for the sacrament and the amazing gift that we can have always wit us. That same day we did our exchange with Pulaski. We did the old school way and Elder Sanders came up here with Elder Melville and I. We had amazing lesson with Patti’s husband so he might even be on baptismal date soon.

The rest of the week was the normal teaching repentance. We had a solid lesson with this family that pretty much acted like members ha! Oh and when tracting we ran into this guy who needed a little extra prays so we prayed with him. I feel like only in the south can we stop what we are doing, talk about Jesus, and say a prayer all while in public. I love this place!

Love y’all have a blessed week! Oh P.S. fasting with 8 hours of church is probably one of the hardest things. I am glad I have a testimony on it or it would be brutal! 

Love, Elder Q

Pray for the Fish

There wasn’t like some “ah ha!” moment this week but it was a good one. We did 2 splits, the first one I went with Elder Newey all day and we had a good time. He has changed a lot in the short time that I have seen him come out until now. He will be a really good missionary. The second one I went on was with Elder Brown. He is the District leader for the Spring Hill District and he is so cool! He is a stellar missionary and has a good personality to help people. I wish I could have more wisdom to impart on him because he wants to improve but I didn’t know how to help him. We had 6 elders in one apartment that night and that was insane!

Crazy news happened in church! One thing is that the lady getting baptized this week is so converted! She has so much faith and is on fire! Other than that, we got a new bishopric in the 2nd ward! That was pretty insane but it will be interesting to have a new one.

I did have a ghost pepper this week. That was a fun experience! Elder Craig could not take it! If I keep trying hot things I might end up losing all my taste buds ha! Speaking about food, I have been fed every night this month except for the 3rd ha! I am trying not to gain weight but I think that is impossible. We also ate at this place called Cook Out and it is my new favorite!

There really isn’t much else that happened this week. The weather is starting to cool off so that has been nice. Still in high 60 but we will get there. Have a blessed week y’all!

Love, Elder Q

 

 

 

Field Goal

Where do I start? I absolutely love this trio! We have so much fun and I am laughing everyday. Elder Craig is super chill and has the most patience in the world. He is from California so the makes 3 companions for Cali now. He likes to have a good time and work. Elder Melville is just so funny! He is very good at making people feel their worth and good at complementing people. He teaches powerfully and man when we all tract of teach, it is so good. We all jive really well together! I absolutely love this.

Since we are now taking over the other ward and covering the ward I am now, we have to close an apartment. We spent a good chunk of our time cleaning this week. Mom you would be proud of me how well I cleaned up the kitchen. The whole time I could hear my momma’s voice in my head telling me what I need to clean and where to look to clean. Also since we combined, we have to combine our meal calendar. That was a hoot trying to schedule everything but we now have a dinner every night for like 3 weeks. Not only that but Sunday we had a full shift. We get to church  at 7:30 am and leave at 4:30 pm. It was a weird feeling starting third hour then having to go to a meeting and start all over. We had a lot of people at church so that was awesome! I have to learn like 300 more names though.

I wish I could record my time in this trio because it is so funny! We have already created our own mini culture. We obviously follow the mission culture but we have little inside jokes and it is the best! The hardest thing with a trio is trying to say prayers together. I am such a giggly person so if one cracks a joke before we pray I can’t make it! I am working on it but take this for example. We were calling people on the phones because we are cleaning up our contact lists to go down to one phone. Anyways, I was calling a guy and his voicemail come on. I start doing the little shpeel and someone cracked a joke and giggled. I tried to keep it together but half way through I just hung up and started crying in laughter. They all started to die because they were laughing at me for rage (laugh) quitting the call ha!

I love y’all and hope y’all have a blessed week! 

Love, Elder Q

 

 

 

Book of Mormon Baseball

First thing is first! We got transfer calls and I will be staying here but now be combining with T-stat 2. I am losing Elder Maxfield and getting Elder Melville and Elder Craig. Trio here I come! I am super excited for this because of two things. First, Elder Craig has been in my district for 7 transfers and he was there for my birth so I will be there for his death. Second thing is Elder Melville is at least top 3 of the funniest missionaries in the TNM! I will miss the work with Elder Maxfield but I am super stoked for what is to come.

Another awesome thing happened this week. We got a bappy date! I will now have one in T-stat 1 and T-stat 2 and I am super stoked for that. We also had a non member family just walk into church yesterday so we went over and taught them and man are they ready! I have never seen someone just walk into church. She was invited by a member a little bit ago and she decided to come and try it out. Funny thing is, she lives right down the street from me! Sadly I will be moving apartments to the T-stat 2 area because they have more showers.

Another amazing thing happened and that was we got to go to the temple! I learned so much this time around and I have a ambitious goal to go every week when I get home. The temple is such a spiritual place and it gives me such a good recharge for life. It also really helps keep things in an eternal perspective. I get caught up in the day to day things and forget that there is so much more to life. I hope everyone who can go to the temple, will at least once a month. There is not a schedule to busy not to go to the temple at least once a month. I wish I could go so much more as a missionary so I better start baptizing more so I can go more ha!

I love y’all and can’t wait to tell you all about the trio experience! I have always wanted to be in a trio. Have a blessed week!

Love, Elder Q

 

 

 

Russian Peasant

Howdy folks! Can I say that this weekend was very spiritual. My mom has asked me to focus on something from general conference that I can apply into my life. There was so much that I need to work on! The main thing I felt like God wanted me to get in my head was to be humble and submit to His will. What I am going to do is pray every morning for the opportunity to help/serve someone. I will also, in my nightly prayers, give an account on how I helped someone. I am going to more focus on serving my companion and then other missionaries because I serve other people all the time so I need to challenge myself in helping people close to me.

Other things I grabbed from general Conference is that I need to be prepared. They gave a lot of talks on enduring to the end. A lot of things will happen before the second coming of the Messiah but I know that if I follow the council of his ordained servants then I will be just fine. Make sure y’all are reading and pondering the Book of Mormon everyday! I have done so since last General Conference and I have felt a spiritual protection and energy throughout my whole day. The world is covered in darkness, if you are not reading and pondering the Book of Mormon everyday then you will be overcome by that darkness. Might I add that Satan works very gradually to lead people away. I have seen way to much falling away in my own life and in the life of others. No one will fall away if they will read the Book of Mormon. Ok, I will get off my soap box now.

We had a baptism this weekend too! The service was good but when she was baptized and given the gift of the Holy Ghost, she was absolutely beaming! You could literally tell between her and others how much light she was giving off. It was super cool to see that. Her dad baptized her and it was just so cool because he just got sealed to his wife in the temple. It was a very awesome experience.

This week was a pretty normal week except going on splits with the APs. I stayed with one in my area and he said something very funny. When we were tracting he said “I like this place because everyone knows me.” I was confused so I asked him to explain. He explained that since this area has been tracted so many times that we don’t even have to introduce ourselves at the door. It is so true! My area is pretty small and we have had a lot of good missionaries here for over a year. We also got cops called on us and people getting really mad for us even going around talking to people. All is well in the Bible Belt. Love y’all have a blessed week!

Remember the (Elder) Gong

We had a member of the presidency of the 70 come and tour our mission. It was super good! We discussed so much things but my biggest take away was that we learn in layers. It is like the scripture in 2 Nephi 28:30. Here is a little analogy, when you are a freshman in high school you feel so mature. Then when you are a senior and you look at the freshman you think they are babies. I am sure that concept works when a parent looks at their child but the idea is the same. Over time we gain experiences as we go through trials or just learning things as we grow. I am pretty impatience to the whole growing process but I know that God will give me things when I need it.

Some notable things this week. I went on an exchange with the T-stat 2 Elders. That was pretty good but we just beat doors all day. Found a lady who has fainted before when the missionaries knocked last time ha! We have. A baptism coming up this Saturday and it is General Conference!! Man I am so stocked for that. Saturday is going to be so cool! Every get ready to be spiritually blasted from general conference and make sure to set goals on what the spirit tells you to do. 

We had a super spiritual fast and testimony meeting. I have been praying on how I can deepen my faith in Christ and man was I answered. There was like five testimonies in a row that brought tears to my eyes. People were testifying that Christ will always be with you no matter what. I have learned that to start with deepening your testimony of Christ you first can recognize what He did for you. I have so much gratitude that He gave his life so then I can repent and brake the chains of sin. I love that he taught me how to be happy in this life through his example. I read this story a couple of days ago and it didn’t hit me until yesterday how awesome it is. (The two pictures with the story of the cowboy) I can tell you that He is always with you even when you don’t think you deserve it or mad at him for the crap you go through. He just wants your heart and everything will work out the way it needs too.

I can’t remember anything else that happened this week so I will talk with y’all next week. Have a blessed week!

Love, Elder Q

 

 

Triple Threat

I have to give a shout out to our ward mission leader because he is so good! He has four boys (just like my family) and just moved in. He
works hard with us to do missionary work and man things go so well when you have someone that works just as hard as us to get the missionary effort going.

Other than that I went on two exchanges this week. I went down Monday night to Columbia and we had a great day Tuesday with Elder Persons! It was just raining all day and it was a bit cold. We rode around on bikes and tracted and found some people. We met a pretty cool blind guy. Elder Persons is a really good hard working missionary. Then right when I go back in Tuesday night we had more exchanges on
Wednesday. I had Elder Lytle for the morning tracting and then had the trio of elder Lytle and his trainee Elder Grover, by the way they are from Linden. We saw this awesome truck! Then I was with Elder Grover the rest of the night. I want to train so bad again! Things just happen
with new missionaries. We taught our baptismal date and the spirit was so strong! One of our members bore his testimony on the Book of Mormon and how he got it. Then another member bore his testimony on priesthood blessings. Tears were shed.

We also got to teach this new family that we found. They are a young couple who are not married but super open to the gospel. They both
grew up catholic and when we got done teaching about the apostasy. He said it made sense! I have never heard a catholic say that. We gave them the Book of Mormon and invited them to church. They were going to come but got sick. :( We did, however; get two investigators to sacrament and that was awesome! The lessons were perfect for both of them. Revelation through church attendance is a real thing. Oh and we had a good Zone conference this week. We won the golden plates (cleanest car)!  We did something no other missionaries have done. We rode up on a trailer! Man when we hit the parking lot everyone stopped and stared with mouths open..... ha!

Last part of the week we taught a mission preparation class with President Stone. He is our mission president and as always, it was super spiritual. We discussed for an hour about the why to come on a mission. Whatever gets you on a mission is good especially if it is based on the Savior. He said if you read the Book of Mormon then you will want to repent and you will have a desire to serve. I can tell you that is so true! You will find things that are not in line with what the Lord wants and you will change.

That is about it. Love y'all! Have a blessed week!