April 8, 2013

What's up!? well it's been a fan freakin tastic week here in petoskey! :) haha. Conference was awesome! we had a different investigator at every session! it was sooo good. Everyone of the investigators felt the spirit was strong too. Elder Nelson's talk on how the church is important too was perfect for one of my investigators. he's a 60 year old man that is a baptist and he doesn't really think there is a difference in any of the churches all that is important is faith. so he and i were discussing that a couple nights ago and now i'm just gonna print out that talk and let elder nelson teach him. haha. it was frustrating trying to teach this guy authority though. he doesn't think authority matters even though we talked about at least 5 places where christ gives people authority in the bible. but that's alright. we'll get through to him sooner or later. haha. we were really blessed with our finding this week. we knocked into a family that are just seekers of truth. they go to a church but they only go to that one because they know they need to. they don't beleive everything that it teaches. they let us in, fed us, and let us teach them our beliefs. haha. it was AMAZING!! it was such a good lesson. the mom didn't beleive that god would damn someone that didn't have the chance to hear the gospel. so we were able to share part of the plan of salvation with her on how we know that god doesnt do that. how god gives everyone the chance to hear the gospel. then at the end we were told to come back soon! and the best part, the daughter is the girlfriend of a priest in the ward. he is going on a missino soon and we said, ya we'll have adam come by and teach you the lessons for practice. so they are going to let us teach them all the lessons! we're pumped about them. we also found a less accountable man to teach. he's 23 years old and he's kinda slow. but we're goign to go by when he and his dad are there and teach them both at the same time. Elder wright went to the sault and so i got to run the area. i was in cheboygan with elder ballard and we were teaching kory! the black guy that loves the book of mormon. well there was a guy there that sat in and he is the husband of the woman who owns the home. well this guy started saying a bunch of stuff about how he burns crosses and all this stuff. well he's like, "i can't see, feel, or touch faith." so i asked if he could see feel or touch air. and he said no but that's not how air works. so then i said, well don't you think that's how faith works? and then he was like well i'm just not a faithful person i don't beleive in faith. i beleive in science. so then i ask him if he realizes that his argument is based on the faith that there isn't a god. cuz science doesn't disprove god. well then he says, now your switching my words on me and he stopped saying dumb comments. haha. but kory got his two scents in too! haha. he started telling this guy how faith is like a building on a firm foundation and without it it would just fall. haha. kory made me proud. haha. kory is a champ, i wish you guys could meet him. he tried to give us front row tickets to his first cage fight that is in a week, but we told him we probably couldn't go since we are missionaries. haha. but it really has been such a great week! we've gotten lots of work done and we're doing work out here in petoskey! i love being a missionary! it's the most rewarding work in the world. seeing peoples lives change drastically from keeping the simple commandments of god is amazing. i've never really realized how valuable what we have is until seeing people add it into their lives. i love it! i love being a missionary! well, my people, have a great week!

April 1, 2013

Another great week in Petoskey! We saw a couple signs of spring the last couple days, but it's snowing again today. . . haha. maybe eventually the sun will stay here. This week was a great week! We were extremely blessed all week. So it started out just the same, we were working really hard and doing lots of teaching and finding, but by thursday we kinda started to realize that miracle after miracle was happening. So in your mission (i'll just explain this for people that don't know), the mission president sets up things called standards of excellence which are goals that will push you. there are seven weekly standards and if you hit 4 or 5 you can tell you were using your time effectively and really had a great week. Well, back to the story. Sunday, monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday come and go and we worked hard just like normal. but Wednesday we realized that holy crap, we have taught a ton of lessons, found a lot of people to teach, and set three baptismal dates. we had hit a lot of the standards by the end of Wednesday. so we keep going and working hard like usual and then sunday at church roles around and we have 4  investigators at church. We reflected on the week and we had hit all seven of the standards of excellence. not only hit them, but crushed a lot of them. it was pretty humbling to look back on the week and look at the lessons we taught and realize how much god put us right where he needed us. now, missionary work isn't about hitting numbers, but it was just cool to see how many miracles that had happened right before our eyes. a few cool stories i'll tell you about. so early on in the week we were going to see an investigator that really wasn't moving forward. we had just let him simmer for a few weeks so we decided this week was the week to go see him. so we were planning on just sharing a spiritual though with him but we got in there and i had a way strong feeling to ask him about Joseph smith. well by the end we had retaught him the restoration and we were really bold with him and i had the feeling to set a date with him. the guy accepted and committed to reading the Book of Mormon everyday and praying about Joseph smith. it was a crazy experience. Elder wright and i after we left just looked at each other and were like, "what just happened?" haha. it's pretty crazy how we're just the tools in the lord's hands. then we went to a lady that had stood us up like four times and we were going to give her one last shot. so we go and she answers! we were able to teach the restoration and this time elder wright put on the bold pants and committed her to baptism and set a date. and yet again, we leave and we're like "what just happened?" haha. We had a ton of those moments throughout this week. it was honestly crazy to see all the miracles. saturday we also had a pretty cool experience. we had a member go with us to charlevoix which is about the distance from layton to salt lake. he drove us and we also took a priest with us so we could go on splits. well elder wright took the guy with him and taught our lessons and i went with the priest and we went to go door knocking. well, he and i talked for like three hours as we were door knocking and it was cool just to share my testimony with him on how amazing serving a mission is and how much happiness it brings to your life if you work hard. he still doesn't know what he's gonna do, but i told him he better pray about it and tell me what he thinks at church this coming Sunday. so if he's honest with himself on the answer he recieves, he'll be deciding to serve a mission. haha. hopefully he does. he was really worried about school so i talked to him a lot cuz i was in the same boat as him. so it was cool. and he was able to see successful doorknocking. haha. we talked to SOO many people that day on the doors. and we didn't get yelled at which was pretty nuts. haha. it's kinda funny, it's usually the people with really nice welcome matts and happy decorations that are the meanest. and they are usually old ladies too. i have a lot of funny stories about old ladies yelling at us. haha. Well my homies! have a fan freakin tastic week!