Week 9

I made a BOMB burger this week so I'm sending a pic of it.

On Monday night, we went out to proselyte.  We thought we found a former to talk to, but instead we found a contractor who was redoing the former's floor.  He was a pretty fit dude in his twenties, had a nice truck, and was pretty impressed we rode our bikes everywhere.  He said cardio and Jesus were a good combo, and told us that "house mamas gonna give us that lunch" so that is now in my vocabulary.

Our member friend Nichols came home from  a visit to the Philippines, he brought back some cool stuff.  Like Filipino fedoras and Gucci bags.  We went to dinner at Five Guys to celebrate his and Elder Pasikala's birthdays, I need to eat less burgers.

We did service almost every morning this week for a guy in our ward, on Monday we gave his daughter a blessing, she was sick, and threw up during the blessing.  It was gross, but they're really cool so we didn't care.  Lol.  We dug out stumps for him and cleaned the outside of his house before painting it.  They're doing some serious renovations.  

Wednesday night we went to a 7/11, when we stepped inside, a tweaker pointed at us and said, "Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith!  He found those gold tablets, he was a great man, greater than Moses!"  He proceeded to ask for a Pearl of Wisdom, so we told him about church resources and pointed out what building we go to.

Thursday morning we took Elder Scheel to a doctors appointment, and on the way back stopped by a recent convert's restaurant, we talked and she gave us some ballin' horchata.  Later, while studying at our apartment, a big, tatted guy knocked on our door.  I answered, and he said, "the last guys said if I needed help with anything, they could do it", I was like boo yah he wants to get baptized but he just needed a couch and mattress moved into a Uhaul, I was still happy to help.  His name is Carlos, he had just bought a house and was moving south.

The next couple days were pretty regular, Elder Scheel's phone has been broken forever but his fixed one is coming next week.  It's still too soon to see what exactly I'm learning while being out here.  My companion and I try to get along but we don't have a lot in common so when we're not teaching or studying we don't have anything to talk about.  I'm learning to endure well, right now.  I think about enduring as an adult whose raised a family and just riding it out.  A lot of converts out here don't understand enduring, most have gone inactive.  The only thing that can help us endure is to remember the Spirit and the happiness we've felt from the gospel.  Without those steps, it's easy to fall away.  It's easy to forget what you're not trying to remember.  I hope everyone has had a good week, I love y'all.

Elder Gneiting

  

  

 

Week 8

Whatup all

Its been a good week, not too much has happened, but we keep pushing forward.  Every opportunity we get to talk to people is really cool, there's lots of places to visit and we've been having a little more success in an area we just started visiting.  We're hoping to make good progress there.  We watched president Nelson's birthday celebration, that was fun, I gotta haircut, a friend of ours who is getting married and baptized in the next couple months showed us videos of himself racing jeeps and stuff on YouTube, that was cool, he says he's gonna take us for a ride sometime, that'd be a good preparation day.  We're helping a recent convert family work on their family history so we can take them to the temple.  I've been thinking a lot about temples this last week and studied a ton the last few nights.  I realized that the temple is the greatest blessing we have in mortality, second only to the Savior's atonement.  We have the opportunity to repent and be worthy to enter the Lord's house to better understand our relationship with Jesus Christ, to learn more about our life and journey in God's plan, and are given strength to combat the struggles and opposition of mortality.  While I am on a mission, almost 3 hours from the nearest temple, my job is to invite souls on our side of the veil to come unto Christ, but those on the other side are waiting for us to go to temples for them.  Not everyone will accept our message on either side, but the Lord asks we share His gospel to all the earth, that every person may have the chance to be brought into His kingdom.  I'm grateful for the opportunities I have to find and teach, it's hard when no one is willing, when people don't know what they're missing, where the members are few and falling away, but we are asked to grab as many as will reach back.  I know Jesus lives , I know God lives and liberally gives to each of His children, and that He is always waiting with His hand outstretched for when we are ready to grab on.  Take advantage of your situation, there are people everywhere to be nice to, to be an example for.  Life is as good as you will let it be. 

Love,

Elder Gneiting

  

 

Week 7

Whatuppp 

Another week, nice.  We had zone conference this week which was wild, we heard the testimonies of the departing missionaries.  That was weird.  Each day is a day long but looking back it seems like the time flies, which is strange being at the beginning of my mission.

This week was cool, we got to know a lot of cool members, and hangout with the other missionaries in our zone.  Saturday morning we played whackoball, which is baseball with a tennis racket and ball.  We helped a member build a bird cage, we helped him bottle his fish to hand out while he's on vacation, and he let me play his guitar which was WAY nice, I missed it.  We went to dinner with a member and a less active friend to Fuddruckers, which is a dope burger place.  It was way good, I had a bacon burger with a fried egg on it.  That is how all burgers should be.  That member is way into game hunting, and his house has a ton of taxidermy, including mountain lions, gazelles, water buffalo, grizzly bears, and he had some elephant tusks in his living room.  They're DNA imprinted or something so they're illegal to sell or to even leave his house.  He's hunted everywhere from Alaska to Africa to Australia, even in the Himalayas.  He has a wearhouse with over 500 mounts and a full elephant is being sent in from South Africa.  That was cool member visit.  I ate way good Mexican food twice this week, once at a local taqueria and another at a taco truck.  They didnt speak English so you know that food was good.  There's so many fruit stands and flea markets around here, but it's cheaper than lots of other places.  My companion and I ride our bikes everywhere, it gets way hot but we're so close to sea level I never get sunburned.

This week, in preparation for fast Sunday, I studied a lot about the natural man and our reliance on our Savior and His atonement for more than just sin.  We learn from Paul that the carnal man can be overcome, the carnal man meaning natural impulses.  In Elder Bednar's talk We Believe in Being Chaste, he testifies that, "[e]very appetite, desire, propensity, and impulse of the natural man may be overcome" through Christ.  If our faith is sufficient, we could spiritually overcome the human need of eating, if it be God's will.  While the fast offered isn't much, it's still a strong form of worship, it draws the Spirit immensely, and the sacrifice is great in God's eyes.  I'm so thankful for the opportunity to fast and to rely more heavily on our Savior.  I love and miss you all and hope to hear from you, thank you for your motivating emails and your prayers. 

Love

Elder Gneiting