December 5, 2016

Like I promised, I said I'd share the spiritual thought I gave in my white handbook. But don't think too much of it, like I said, it was on the spot and I just opened it up and read a sentence... "Like all callings in the Church, each assignment has its own importance; an assistant to the president is no more important than any other missionary." Most of us (myself especially) look at people with leadership callings with the thought that they are more important or have a higher calling that we must achieve. The gospel isn't made up of promotions, you're not climbing a ladder to get to the "highest" ranked calling. The ladder we should climb is the one to salvation. We can't look at our sides and compare ourselves because we are all at the bottom of the ladder trying to achieve exaltation. We must look up. Like in a race, turning our heads to the sides and looking at the person next to us slows us down.  A leader is not a leader if he doesn't have anyone to lead. Leaders aren't in control, they are just called to set examples. I know that being a In a leadership calling means nothing when it comes to proving how "righteous" or "worthy" or "awesome" you are. Everyone is just as important as the leader, the leaders are just the ones that are seen.  **then I look up at the clock** It's like that clock. The leaders are the hands on the clock. That's the part everyone sees and uses, but that are completely useless without the gears behind them. If even one gear is missing then it deems the leader pointless. A leader is as strong as those he works with and needs every part to be working in order to be effective and as accurate as a clock is.  When all the parts don't work in unity there is no accuracy in the direction of the hands on the clock (leaders). Without every missionary or ward member doing their part there really is no point for leadership positions. A leader is no more important than everyone else. Just as the hands on the clock are no more important than the gears. Alma 1:26 ...the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers, for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner; and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength. Wednesday:  Holy moly. I was in heaven today. We had a cataclysmic storm. We were in a tornado warning A tornado touched down a few miles south of us. I drove for the first time again in months when it hit. First it was raining pretty heavy, then the wall came...it hit us so hard and it got so stinkin windy. Then another wall hit us and I felt like I was in a tornado. It was so rainy and windy that I couldn't see the road 30 feet ahead of me and there was just leaves and sticks flying all over the place. The road filled up with water in literally less than a minute and the wind was just wicked, I guess that's what happens when a tornado touches down a few mikes away. It was soooo awesooome. Then it just as fast as it came it stopped. It just rained pretty consistently for the rest of the day and was kinda windy. By the time the storm hit us it had already produced 9 tornadoes! I'm stoked for tornado season. I'm gonna put a picture of the warning on here just cuz I'm a nerd. And I also got my new companion today. He seems like a good guy, we get along well. He's from the factory and his name is Elder Wiecks. Another thing. We visited a lady today whose son died and was a "good kid but got into the wrong stuff." Her preacher as a child said that if you die and you're unrighteousness that you're going to hell and burning essentially. She said as a child she would be scared out of her mind and get nightmares about that stuff. It pathetic and sad that churches use that to scare people into staying. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ promotes good feelings of comfort. In the scriptures it says that what promotes fear is of the devil. So many of these churches are literally teaching the gospel of the devil for their gain and using Jesus' name for gain and justification. Anyways...She whole heartedly believes that her son is burning in hell. We told her that he's not and so have past missionaries. She said that even though she feels like he's not (even though the spirit is testifying that God isn't anxious to thrust us into torment) that she will never believe that he's being taught the gospel and can repent because he's already dead. So what'd we do? We gave her scriptures out of the Bible that blatantly say that the dead will receive the gospel and can repent. She said she found comfort in that but still will never believe it (even though she believes in the Bible). Her preacher traumatized her so much as a kid that she now thinks her own son is burning. That is called the devil at his finest. That is what is prophesied when it talks about false teachers and people who sneakily deceive you while talking about Christ. Apostasy! Blasphemy! Hypocrisy! Read 2 Nephi 28. It's a killer chapter. Thursday: Friday: Saturday: Sorry it's been such a dead week. But I've been leading out the area, pretty hard. My companion and I get along, he's just quiet and monotone and I am very not so it kills me a bit. It almost puts me down, he's just so unexcited so it makes me unexcited which has made this week a drag, but it's all good cuz we get along just fine and he cracks a joke here and there. I'll just have to learn how to crank up the charisma by the end of this six weeks to pick up the slack.  Sunday: WOWZA! Crazy day. It has been raining and heavy misting consistently all day long. It's also freezing cold (I'm sure it was near snowing), windy, and dark during prime proselyting time. So even through my gloves, hat and snow coat I was sopping wet with the cold wind blowing on me as I biked for the last 4 hours of the day trying to visit people. But! We went to a member's home for dinner that we go to every Sunday and they're the best. They are very loving and love missionaries to death, and they're recent converts of about a year and a half. Anyways, we go in and they realized we were biking. They gave us new shirts (and ultimately let us keep them), threw our coats in the dryer, fed us an awesome dinner, then gave us our warm cozy coats back. Lemme tell ya, when you're about to die of frostbite and you're soaked, that is an awesome welcoming. I feel blessed to have people like that. Also a cool little story. As we were biking in the dark, cold, lone and dreary world we stopped by a less active on the way that I just wanted to meet. They open the door and the kid was crying because he was sick. But only for a second, then he started eating some food. Seeing that we were dying the mom let us in but warned us that her kid is very sick and didn't want us to catch anything. But then he started getting energized. We offered to give him a blessing, but instead we said a prayer because he was getting way hyped. So I said the prayer and blessed him with a speedy recovery. By the end of our visit he ate all his food and was running around, playing with toys, and talking with us. The mom and dad said that the last couple days he hasn't been eating or doing anything. He was crying and refusing to eat until the second we walked in the door, then he just purked up. Pretty neat.

November 29, 2016

Spiritual thought: Tuesday. I crashed my bike...again. As usual, I turned it into a spiritual thing

Monday:

Tuesday:

Today in district meeting I was called up to give a quick spiritual thought on the spot. I got up there, opened up a page in our white handbooks, read a sentence, and gave a sweet 5 minute lesson on it. People said I sounded like I had been preparing. As I was talking I looked up and saw the clock and made an analogy from it. Not to be prideful, but it was a pretty sweet and applicable analogy. I impressed a lot of people apparently and Elder May said that it's something Jesus would say when he busts out his relatable and great parables. I felt pretty good XD. Maybe I'll share it's a spiritual thought next week.

________spiritual thought_________

Well. I thought my days of bike crashing were over. Nope. It's a good thing I did flips a lot because that means I fell a lot which means I fall pretty well. I was biking down this hill and I usually wait to brake and then brake hard when right before I stop. So right as I did that I realized that I was on a ton of water and mud on wet street from a leaking fire extinguisher. So I drifted and slid, but as I was sliding I wasn't worried because I thought, "oh it's ok, I've drifted before, I'll just hold it and snap back when I feel it." The snap back was unsuccessful, before I could do it I was already too low and knew it was over. So I hit the ground on the side of my back and gracefully slid 15 feet across the asphalt. In the second that I laid there all wet realizing that this is the fourth time I've hurt my dignity by crashing, I look over and there's a UPS truck right there and a few other people who witnessed my public display of humiliation. So the first thing I could think of to do is look over at Elder May (who was already laughing) and put a proud fist in the air exclaiming loudly, "Yeah!" in a deep and dramatic voice as if I had planned that whole stunt. Then he laughed some more and got out of the road and then died laughing. In the process I lost my shoe and my dignity. I also tore a hole in my sock, but not my clothes that matter. I also got pretty wet. So just like I procrastinated the usage of my brakes, many people procrastinate the day of their repentance. Quite a bit. 

Alma 34:33-34

33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

We have a mentality that we can do this now and repent later. First of all, that's not true repentance. Secondly, you never know when you'll hit that wet asphalt and hit rock bottom. You always need to be ready for the wet road, whether it be dying, trials that'll stump us, or even the coming of Christ. The brakes (Atonement) are there for a reason, use them (it) wisely. If we use our brakes when we hit that patch of water, we will fall. The same applies for repentance, if we use it later after we've had our kicks or when things get ugly, the brakes will not serve its purpose. So don't procrastinate! 

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Today was a good day. We played football in the morning with the members and I felt like a human again. It was super nice and quite fun. At night we went to eat at a super cool family's house which was really nice. Then we went about visiting someone who just had a heart attack. 

Friday:

Saturday:

Wow, we did service for about 6-7 hours today chopping up trees and whatnot. Then we went half an hour bike ride South for an appointment, they weren't there. So in a hurry we had to skip dinner and bike and hour North for an appointment with Deshawn (he's the one who just came back up from Florida). He flaked. To top it off with a cherry, my bike tire popped in Deshawn's apartment complex. Or should I say another Elder's bike that I was borrowing since my bike is messed up tire popped. But oh well, it was a great experience and we need to be thankful in our adversities.

Sunday:

Monday:

Wow this wraps up our week and we have had every single lesson fall through, plenty of tracting, and one potential investigator. So it's been a lame week. But! Elder May got called to be a zone leader. But also! Kayli got her mission call to Georgia's good neighbor Florida Spanish speaking! I'm jealous, they get way more storms there...but she gets to learn how to deal with many of the same things I deal with. Exciting! Shortly after that a big ol' rainstorm rolled through. I tried hard not to go outside to watch it, I failed. Needless to say I got very very little sleep. 

November 21, 2016

We all know it, us Mormons are the butt end of the joke, we're always the punch line. We also get teased more than most religions. And it's true, there's more anti-Mormon stuff people try to gather on us than any other religion (and all of it can be explained). Not to mention the pioneers were forced from place to place. Then there's the missionaries, yeah we get bashed with, spit on (luckily I haven't yet), yelled at, and torn apart. The member's get some heat too for being Mormon. People love us at the same time, but hey think we're weird with our lack of coffee intake etc. We get lots of love, but we also get a whole lot of crap! But it makes sense... The longer time goes on, the further and further the world gets from the gospel and God. It's obvious. So us Mormons who are trying our hardest to push against the worldly norms and staying close with God are weird in the sight of those who are of the world because we act differently. That's why we're the punch line, why we're persecuted, why we are 'weird.' Yet people still just love us, and it's because they feel our closeness with God and see our light.  Deuteronomy 14:2 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. This was said right before the Israelites were given their "word of wisdom" in which they are supposed to withhold from certain meats and whatnot. Heavenly Father knew they'd be teased for it and explained to them that his chosen ones are a "peculiar people." Well guess what? Are we not a peculiar people in the eyes of the world? Titus 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. 1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light So the moral of the story is, don't be ashamed when you're mocked, the Lord raises up his people and they're a peculiar people. If you weren't a peculiar people than you'd just be a worldly person. If you're worldly than you aren't spiritual. If you aren't spiritual than you aren't of God.  Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: Sorry, it's been the same ol' stuff this week so I haven't written much. Don't wanna bore y'all. But today we just committed our only investigator to baptism and man is he solid. I've never been so sure of someone getting getting baptized, I know for a fact he is going to. He's asking questions, reading the Book of Mormon (he even invited someone on the train to read it with an open heart and meet with missionaries because it's changing his life!!), he loves it, he believes everything we do without us even teaching him about (like there was an apostasy, there needs to be someone with authority, there needs to be more than just the Bible to clear up confusion, no s*x before marriage, word of wisdom, Commandments, everything! Before we even teach him them!) There's just one issue. We have to give him to other missionaries because he lives outside the mission barely We meet him at work, he has a friend he works with that goes to our ward. And he loves us too so it's gonna be hard letting him go, I'm pretty stinkin' upset about that... We also were knocking doors for the first time in a while and a lady opened the door to yell, "Hail Satan!" and slammed it. Interesting people you meet down here. People think we're of the devil and we worship Joseph Smith. Idk why, especially since we have the name tag and the church title "Church of JESUS CHRIST of LDS." One of the only churches with his name actually in it, but oh well. It doesn't bother me, it's just funny and fulfilling much much much hardcore prophesy.  Friday: Saturday: Sunday: Wow guys, sorry. This email was lame. Nothing special happened this week and I don't want to bore y'all with the same ol' stuff.

November 14, 2016

Sorry guys I don't have a spiritual thought this week, hopefully I can have one next week. It's just hard when you don't have tons of time and whatnot. But I'll try in the future!

Monday:

Today got exhausting quickly. For some reason people poor out their entire life story and problems on us and there's obviously not much we can do. Idk why, they trust us or something. We had lots of it tonight.

Tueseday:

Well I'm obviously not following the election, but the election year of 2016 will forever be imprinted in my mind with a seriously negative connotation. I don't care who wins tomorrow, I just want this to be done. It's like getting a shot, it's not pleasant either way, but it's better to just be done with it...

Wednesday:

Donald Trump eh? Let the games begin. Now let's focus on things that don't raise contention. Cool little miracle. So my oblivious self left my iPad on the back bumper of a member's suburban and Elder May's iPad on the little step on the side of the suburban. Both ledges are less wide than our iPads and slippery. So the member went to go pick something up at the church real quick and I didn't even think about the iPads on the car. He took a windee road and the highway and then all the way back. Both our iPads stayed on! The funny part is that we had them on the bumper earlier and the breeze was enough to knock both our iPads off multiple times, but not the highway wind or the G force of turning the windee roads and speed bumps.

Thursday:

There's this lady we met last week that we've been visiting named Pamilla. Super awesome super sweet lady. She loves the church and the people. There's one issue, she's had a successful life and one thing after another happened and long story short she's now a widow with a hacked bank account and her life is now upside down. She just needs to get started back up and to do so she needs a place to live other than a hotel. We're trying to help her but there's so much we can do and she's thinking that us 19 year olds who can barely write a check can help her in the snap of a finger. We are trying really hard but we don't have much time or resources. So it sucks. She has lots and lots of faith in us and loves us to death. So we are hoping and praying.

Friday:

Well Pamilla thinks she found a place. Super cool, but I'm pretty bummed because she's one of our two solid investigators, but she's moving out of our area so we have to hand her off. Our other investigator also lives outside of our mission so we'll probably have to hand him off too. And man, he texted us today saying that since we met with him on Wednesday he's read 14 chapters and he explained who was in it and what was happening and loves it. That has never happened, he's golden on gold. But alas, we'll have to pass him on most likely as well...

Saturday:

Sunday:

Jeez man it's freezing, I wasn't expecting it to get cold here but it does! The humidity just pierces you. It's rough on a bike with the wind. Doesn't help that our heating doesn't work half the time either.

November 7, 2016

Many of us take baptism for granted, we don't truly know the importance of it. Sometimes we focus too much on the fact that we're washed clean from our sins. And that's great! But we're going to sin again, and yes there's repentance, but that's not the sole reason for baptism, it's kinda like a side bonus.

One of the most important reasons for baptism is being able to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost will comfort you, warn you, and bring to your attention when you're about to sin. I'll touch more on why that's important later.

Something a lot of us overlook or push aside is how vital baptism is. We can't enter into the kingdom of God without it. This is why we do baptisms in proxy for those in the spirit world who passed on without being baptized. Everyone gets equal opportunity.

The most important thing I think is the covenant made at baptism. We overthink it way too much. Could you tell me right now what covenants you made at baptism? Think about it for a sec...Even I overthought it until just this last week. It's so simple!

Read Alma 7:15-16

15 ...and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.

16 And whosoever doeth this, and keepeth the commandments of God from thenceforth, the same will remember that I say unto him, yea, he will remember that I have said unto him, he shall have eternal life...

Boom, there it is! It's to keep the Commandments, that's it! All of them, and not just the classic ten, but the word of wisdom, law of chastity, tithing, pray, etc... And of course a covenant is a two-way promise. His end of the deal is that you will have eternal life. That's a bargain.

It's funny how much we overthink things. It was said that the gospel is simple enough so that even a child could understand it. Yes, there's more depth than we can ever imagine, I've learned that since I've been out here. It applies to everything. But that's not what's important. The important thing is the foundation, then we can worry about the rest later, then we can overthink things. We gain that foundation by keeping the covenants that we made in the first place. You know what you need to do, so do it, and the rest will come. We all have discernment and the light of Christ, we deep down know what is and isn't true. As long as we live in accordance to the gospel and do the simple things then it's been promised that you willnever do something bad without first getting that prompting from the Holy Ghost. It's just a matter of whether or not we ignore it, and we ignore it all too much, myself included, I'm 100% guilty of it. And the more we ignore it, the less we will have the promptings of the Holy Ghost which includes warning us of danger, helping us in difficult situations or when seeking for an answer. He's not going to help us out if we are always ignoring him. If you gave someone advice and all they did was ignore it, are you going to keep giving them advice or let them try to figure it out on their own?

I went a little off topic. But you made a covenant to Heavenly Father at baptism that you'd keep his Commandments, you were given the gift of the Holy Ghost and one of those reasons was to help you keep that covenant with him. He wants you to return with him, therefore we were given the spirit to be with us always to help us keep that covenant by letting you know when it's about to be broken. So use it. Obviously, we being imperfect beings will and have broken that covenant many times. Thank heavens for the Atonement. But if we continue to break it then we truly have no remorse, meaning the Atonement won't apply. 

To wrap all this up in a bite-sized package, at baptism you made a covenant with God to keep the Commandments and He promised eternal life. To help you achieve that he gave you the Holy Ghost. Use that important gift to come closer to him and achieve that ultimate goal. 

Monday:

Halloween. Everyone's partying and I'm planning the week. Bright side, I drove for the first time today! It's been a while.

Tuesday:

Wednesday

Friday:

Sorry I've had a pretty bland past couple days. Normal stuff. But today we had a good three people not want to talk to us or accept anything from us because they believe Jesus is black. Cuz that's important to our salvation. He was born in Bethlehem! He's a Middle Eastern, that's a tan white. Goodness. We get that from time to time but especially today for some reason.

Saturday:

Knocking doors as usual. So far this week we've gotten 19 potential investigators. We also had someone a couple months ago kinda rebuke us for doing missionary work because it's "not of God" to have us leave home and have minimal contact (even though that's exactly what Jesus asked his apostles to do and even rebuked one of them when they asked to go say bye). Well anyways, we left her with a card and headed our ways. She called us this week and wanted to set something up. What the crap??? That doesn't happen too often at all. Like ever. So work hard and you'll be blessed in many ways. This week has been extraordinarily odd because people have been much nicer and accepting of us.

Sunday:

I had two dinners. And I ate ribs for the first time, and yes I ate with my hands, and yes I ate off the bone. I eat like a man now. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

11 When I was a child, I [ate] as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

I'm a man now.

I took almost no pictures, but I saw a park and Elder May dared me to do a flip off the park. Phhh. I'm not gonna let that down, so I said, "film me." And I still have it. 

October 31, 2016

I don't really have a spiritual thought because I only had time to write a talk for Lisette's baptism. But if you read Saturday, that whole day is a spiritual thought.

Tuesday:

So get this. There's a hill ("mountain") called Fort Mountain in Georgia that has a giant ancient wall built around it with fire pits in it that was clearly made by ancient people. The historical site there says that there's a legend which has been passed down through the Native Americans involving that structure. The legend that's been passed down is that there was a war and a white-skinned people built it there to take refuge before later being utterly destroyed. Sound familiar? If it doesn't than y'all need to read the Book of Mormon, or at least the intro. It's funny too because it baffles historians as to why there'd be white people here with the natives. There's plenty more evidence of the Book of Mormon, but that's not what matters right? We also taught Lisette the infamous word of wisdom and the fun one, the law of chastity. All we need to work on is coffee, thank heavens, that's the least I've had to worry about thus far with investigators.

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Yes! Deshawn is back in town. He's the guy who wanted to be baptized and was originally going to shove us out the door but then felt he needed to listen. But he moved to Florida. Well he was meeting with missionaries who we sent his way down there and now he's back. And he said he likes us more *smirk*. So we can start meeting him next week. Now we just need to help him overcome everything in the book.

Friday:

We just bought a couch. We've been volunteering at the local habitat for Humanity restore and a couch has been sitting there for $15 that just hasn't been bought. Everything was 50% off today, so we put in $4 each and bought that sucka.

Saturday:

Ooooooh man, up until about 8:00 pm today was a sweet day! I'll sum it up as much as possible. At 8:00 we just had a lesson with someone trying to bash us but was kinda not making any good points, but thought she was destroying us. It's just hard to bite your tongue with ignorant people. On to the good stuff. Lisette got baptized!! There were some loops we had to swing through that may have pushed it back, but we worked it out! Now this is the cool part. The past three days she's been having really bad tooth pains and last night it got really bad. She couldn't eat or talk and she'd taken 5 different pain medications. She also hadn't been able to sleep very well at all lately. So with the pain and exhaustion the baptism would've been hard. So we offered to come and give her a blessing. I gave it and said her tooth pain would go away soon and that she will be well rested for tomorrow. Today she said that she slept like a baby, her brother tried waking her up and she even slept through that. To make it cooler, she said her tooth hasn't been hurting her since we left at all, and she didn't take any medicine. What an awesome way to lead into a baptism! We've explained to her that baptism has to be done with someone holding the priesthood authority, now she really understands what power the priesthood has, even with something as little as that. At the baptism I gave a talk. It was ok. Our mission president showed up so I choked a little bit. After the baptism Nella gave a talk. And Nella is awesome, she has the faith of an ox. She's done soooo many crazy miracles with her faith. I'll give one of many examples, there was a lady who hadn't walked in 7 years and wasn't ever supposed to. Long story short, she was about to be fired because that lady accused her of something falsely. So she said to the bosses that because she touched the woman she will walk again. The next day, she was walking. Needless to say, she got her job back. And there's lots more like it. It's crazy!!I've seen her faith do cool things myself, and so have many others. Faith is real. Look up Mosiah 8:18. Also look up Mathew 17:20. Good ones. Anyways! So she went up and talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost and blew me away. I'm pretty sure she had Lisette in tears. So good good day. And if you read this whole thing, well then that's impressive. 

Sunday:

Lisette got the gift of the Holy Ghost. She said during the blessing she felt like a weight coming down on her head. A good weight though. And something about fire (I couldn't understand exactly, there were lots of people talking around us). A good feeling fire and weight. She doesn't have the highest English vocabulary, but she was explaining pretty much the "burning in your bosom." Pretty sweet!! We take for granted the things we have. You wouldn't believe the changes I've seen in Lisette these past two months. This past week has been tremendous, her whole countenance is different and he's there is a light about her now. I know...cliche. But trust me, it's real!

No pictures of the baptism yet...I will have to send them next week. But until then, here's these.

October 24, 2016

I sincerely apologize, but I don't have much of a spiritual thought this week. Usually something just pops in my head sometime randomly during the week and I write it down. But this week the only thing I felt I should share is this simple paragraph.

Read the Book of Mormon. I've seen it change lives and change mine. When I don't read it I feel much less in tune with the spirit, and when you're on a mission it's obvious when it's not there. I used to justify reading New Era articles now and then as reading the scriptures, in a sense it is, but nothing will impact you're life like the Book of Mormon when you really really read and try to understand it. Read it in the morning. Read it on your free time. Read it as a family. I could've written three and a half pages long as to why you should read it and loaded it up with scripture, but I didn't feel it. All I felt I should say is to just read it with an open heart and mind. 

Tuesday:

Lisette, our investigator getting baptized, met with us today and was super excited because she'd been praying that we'd both stay. Apparently so have a few other people, and it was on the plans that I was supposed to get a new companion all week, up until the last second. So that's pretty cool.

Wednesday:

Kind of the same ol' rice and beans. Just a meeting, service and a lesson with a less active. Nothing different, except I went in a taxi for the first time, it wasn't as exhilarating as I imagined it would be...

Thursday:

Remember I said Georgia drivers are horrible? I almost got hit four times today. I almost get hit just about every day, but two of these were exceptionally close. One I had to skid and the car pulling out slammed pretty hard and I missed it by half a second. The second one I was turning in somewhere and a car cut me off. I slammed so so hard on my brakes that I flew over my handle bars and my bike literally did a flip in the air. But don't worry, I caught myself on my feet...barely. The only injury was my wrist from the flying spinning bike. Elder May and I had to skid pretty hard to avoid getting hit at one point, Elder May was almost nailed. The fourth time was just the normal almost get hit, it wasn't exceptionally close. The best part is, from the dozens of times one of us almost gets hit, the person just looks at us and keeps going, not once has anyone been concerned. I'm 98.5% certain that it's totally legal to text and drive here. People even play games on their phones here while driving! I'm sick of it. Missionaries get hit all the time here.

Friday:

Just the normal gravyless potatoes today. Service, knocking, and lessons.

Saturday:

We had the Trunk or Treat today, that's my favorite church event so I've been pretty stoked. But then I went and it kinda sucked. It just brought back memories and now I'm pretty dang sad. All I want to do today and tomorrow is sit at home and sleep. But I can't. 

Sunday:

Today was...very interesting. Lisette came to church for the full three hours today and had us over for dinner! So that's excellent, now here's the issue. In the class we had a teacher today that doesn't teach doctrine on a base level and half the time isn't even true. Every time she talks she brings up her divorce, every single time-and the lesson was on eternal marriage. I can't even explain. It was one of the worst lessons ever for an investigator, thankfully the members in the class recognized it and took over the class, but still, it got ugly. But then it got into baptisms for the dead for some reason, not something an investigator likes to hear without explanation. So when we went to dinner we had a member with us and we intended to clear up the confusion she got from the class. The member we were with (and he's awesome, love him to death) but he started going off topic and eventually started skimming deep doctrine, lineages, temple ordinances (nothing it doesn't say in the scriptures but still a little far), and a hundred other things. The poor girl, she is so lost and probably thinks we're crazy. I'm kinda scared now. We explained to her that we will explain everything later, answer any questions and that we can get to the other stuff later. So she's still good for baptism this Saturday!