Well this week was... mehhhh. It went by pretty quickly, which I was actually pretty happy about. We just had a lot of appoitments fall through (mostly with the people in the sisters' area), and the sun was just awful, so I got pretty downhearted a few times. BUT! There's nothing that a little hard work can't fix, so we went out, kept knocking doors, and found some pretty neat people. It's rather interesting, I can be feeling pretty terrible during the day, but when I knock a door and have the chance to talk to someone (other than my companion... No offense, Elder Gonzalez), I almost always leave the door feeling a little bit better. There have been a few times where they just reject us super hard, but those occasions only happen like once a week. If I can get a really good, solid contact--one that's more than just "Hey, can we give you a card of Jesus Christ? No? Oh... have a good day"--I always feel good inside. I get that feeling of "At least we left them with a good impression of us missionaries/Mormons". Elder Gonzalez is learning really fast; he says he doesn't know any English, but he got a 39/40 on his first English test. Needless to say, he's very humble. Our similarities are actually a little frightening at times. Like me, he needs to be shown an example or two before he can do it on his own, so during week one, I took the initiative a lot and showed him the example. This week, we've been transitioning to the point where he takes the initiative when we teach, and he's been doing awesome. I can't wait to see what he'll be like when we hit the second cycle. His biggest challenge right now is just knowing where in the area we are, but he's getting that down as well. As soon as he figures it out for sure, we'll be able to do divisions and get tons of lessons and investigators and stuff! :D I'm so excited for these coming weeks with him! Life as a district leader has been fine so far. We had the zone capacitation last week, so I didn't have to give a class. All I've had to do at this point is check up on the two other missionaries in my district every other day or so to make sure they're still alive and take their numbers. Just kidding, they're champs, so I pretty much just call to see if there's anything they need from us as elders (go with an investigator to a Priesthood thing or anything like that). I'll be giving my 2nd class on Wednesday, so hopefully that goes pretty well. In terms of investigators, I have found myself at times (especially on Sunday when Sacrament meeting starts) losing faith in our investigators. We had invited 5 different investigators to church this past week, and every single one of them said they would go... Not a single one showed up... We even went to the home of one of them Sunday morning to walk to church with her, and she didn't wake up -_- On the bright side, we had our two recent converts and a couple of the less-active families we've been teaching show up. Basically, we just need to find more investigators. If we can invite 20 different investigators, we're bound to get at least one show up! The other big news of the week is that we got everything moved into our new house. I felt like it was like changes, but worse; We not only had to pack up and move all of our stuff, we also had to take inventory of what we needed to bring with us from the old house and what we were going to put in storage. We got everything moved in about 3 hours, though, so I feel like that wasn't too bad in terms of time. Their house is slightly roomier (which I really like), but I absolutely hate the shower head. It just has a few little tiny streams of water that shoot out of it, so it takes a full minute and a half to wash all of the shampoo out of my hair as opposed to 20 seconds. Ugh. It's a hard knock life. And that's pretty much been this week. Nothing super crazy/dangerous. It rained pretty intense last night, but that's about it. I lied; the power went out as I was writing this post because a hurricane came out of nowhere... Obviously, I'm still alive and well, and the added responsibility hasn't killed me... yet. I'm really just excited right now to get out and work some more. We'd been talking about a talk called The 4th Missionary for these past few weeks in our district class, and it talks about the 4 different types of missionaries and how we should all strive to be the fourth missionary, who gives his entire heart, might, mind, and strength to the Lord as he serves for his two years (or her 18 months) and his very nature is inevitably changed by the mission; I believe I mentioned this in my last week's blog post. Anyways, in the first district class that I taught, we discussed the last 6 pages of this talk, which focused solely on the attributes of the fourth missionary. There was something that came to my mind as I was teaching, and taking it to be a prompting of the Spirit, I acted on it. The thought was a little something like this: "No fourth missionary has ever said, 'I want to be a district leader' or 'I want to be a zone leader' and yet, normally they become said leaders. My question is why? If they never ask for these positions nor want them, why do they always get them?" My answer is simple: Fourth missionaries area willing to give absolutely everything they've got and then some. They will serve with every fiber of their very being whether they're an assistant to the Mission President or a junior companion, they will serve. The interesting thing about fourth missionaries is that everyone knows is when someone is or becomes one. Investigators, members, fellow missionaries, the Lord (obviously), and the Mission President. It is for this reason that the fourth missionary receives these assignments to be a leader. The only things he will change in these leadership positions will be in accordance to what he needs to do to better serve the missionaries in his district/zone/mission. He will not gloat in his new responsibility nor ask for anything more. He will serve siltently and humbly for as long as he is called to do so, and he will continue to do so even after his mission. I mentioned last week that we need to be fourth members of the church, whether we are an apostle, a bishop, or the sacrament meeting chair coordinator (thanks, Dad, for the idea). We need to give all of our heart, might, mind, and strength in this gospel. It is through this and this alone that we can achieve exhaultation. We may not wake up tomorrow and be able to make a drastic change of effort such as this, but little by little, as we magnify our callings and assignments, we can change ourselves and make our work in the church second nature. I may not feel adequate at times for the responsibilities that have been placed on my shoulders, but I will serve humbly and bit by bit give everything I have until my work is finished. I love missionary work; I love serving the people of Mexico, I love serving my fellow missionaries, and I love serving the Lord.Iré y haré. Elder Groesbeck There are no questions this week
1 Comment
4/17/2015 09:07:47 am
In Korea we ran into shower heads that were clogged with calcium deposits. Take a baggie and put vinegar in it. Attach the baggie with a rubber band to the shower head so that it is submerged in the vinegar. Soak over night.
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