Week 78

What a week! So much good happened!
Monday the 25th:

We had a great district meeting, Elder Patterson gave a great training covering and reviewing all the points we’ve covered the last few weeks about Inviting people, they make commitments, and we follow up. After our meeting we split with the Zone leaders, I left with Elder Baker to his area, leaving Elder Patterson and Elder Murset to our area. Unfortunately Elder Baker is sick… he’s got a cold so let’s hope I don’t get sick.

We went home for lunch and to have our studies. We talked about the plans we had for today and went out to work. The Zone Leaders are Spanish speaking and I’m not very familiar with their people or area so although we had a few set appointments they fell through and I didn’t even realize it because we had such great back-up plans that we met some people who we talked to and ended up teaching that it made today feel like it went as planned.

Tuesday morning I woke up with my back hurting a bit and I was tired... I started sitting on the bed for studies, then ended up laying down for the rest of studies to stretch my back...

We had a couple look-ups we did this morning before we planned to unsplit. When we finished we hadn’t heard back from the other Elders about when and where we should meet. So we went home, had lunch, and then went to the church to meet the Elders. After contacting some people and having dinner we went to the church to play basketball. When we got there I started feeling a little out of it. I sat out for the first couple games to even the teams and relax. Then I played the last couple games. It’s pretty fun; one of the guys we play with is the son of the wife of our bishop. He’s not a member but he’s really nice and loves basketball so we always have a great time.

Pday was great! We went to the church and played sports all day! We started off playing basketball as a zone. It was all Elders. We played a couple games of basketball, switched up the teams. Then we played a long game of GatorBall and then played a game of 21. When we realized it was 2pm we left for lunch and went home, then we cleaned up and did laundry. At 6pm we left and were on our way to do a look up... we were at the train station and waited for over 15 minutes... I don’t know what it was, but we both felt pain, my head was hurting and his stomach was upset. So we went back home and when we got there one of the guys from maintenance came and knocked on the door, we let him in and he started doing some work on our ceiling in one of the back rooms where there was water damage from the floor above us leaking. So we were then stuck inside till he was done which was till about 9pm. We didn’t know he was coming to do work today so we are glad it all worked out.

We had a sweet experience meeting a guy today down in the basement of our building. We had gone down to get our laundry and when we exited the elevator he was standing there, he said hey you both have mail. Confused, we followed him and didn’t find anything in the pile of boxes where he said he saw 2 boxes for us. (Which doesn’t make sense because we don’t get mail delivered to our apartment address and we don’t give our address out to people, so it must have been a mistake.) But while we were with him, we were talking and we found out he’s a member of our church and that he hasn’t been to church in over 12 years. We talked about General Conference coming up this weekend and invited him to come. He said he works all day Saturday and is going out of state Sunday; but that next Sunday he doesn’t work and that he would like to go with us. What a tender mercy! To be placed in the path of someone from our church family who has been lost for some time.

Thursday was all right we did weekly planning and about sometime in the afternoon my head was hurting again and my headache lasted for some time... I had a runny nose. And all that fun stuff…

Friday I woke up fine, but then all of a sudden it seemed during studies my nose was running again and my head was hurting and as time went on I knew I was getting sick… we stayed in for a bit so I could rest because later this evening we have planned to go out and make an hour effort to find and invite people to come to General Conference. So at 6pm we left and I was feeling worse… I don’t know what it is about General Conference, but the last one I was sick for also! I don’t get it! We went out and again we were blessed to meet a few people who were placed in our path. We met a woman named Anna who is from the D.R. and she is a member, she hasn’t been active in nearly 10 years... she said she even served a mission. We asked what happened? What changed in your life? She said that she got married to a catholic man and since she just hasn’t gone to church. We invited her to General Conference and got her number. We talked to a lot of people today and invited them all to General Conference so we will see how it goes!

Saturday I was feeling crappy, I woke up around 9 and just felt like straight trash... we got ready and went to the church for General Conference at 12-2pm which was awesome, we then had a break for lunch and then watched conference from 4-6pm... By then Elder Patterson was starting to feel a little trashy. We ended up going home to watch the priesthood session, which I absolutely loved. President Erying’s talk hit me hard... I realized I need to have a better outlook on the callings I receive. I believe I trust and respect all the leaders that have had stewardship over me, I feel like I’ve been blessed to have great leaders in my life and have always been so easy to love and trust them. But for myself I always wonder why I receive responsibility and callings when it’s not something I necessarily want... but I always accept it anyway because I believe those are callings that Heavenly Father has inspired others to call me to that position. But while he spoke it just hit me that I need to have more trust in Heavenly Father. If I truly believe that they are inspired callings from him and I trust those that receive that inspiration, then I should respect the callings I receive and do more to be proactive with them to show my appreciation.

Sunday we both woke up feeling at our worst... so we were both home all day watching Conference.

Monday morning I felt just the slightest bit better but Elder Patterson wasn’t feeling too good, but I had meetings to attend. We went to the church for leadership meeting and talked about our districts in the Zone and how they are doing.

District Meeting was solid! I was not feeling too good, but earlier in the week I reached out to Elder and Sister Richards to see if they would be willing to give a training. Elder Richards accepted the opportunity and had prepared a wonderful talk given by Elder Brown was back when, it was on the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and an experience he had with a man during his law career. It was so awesome and was perfect for the theme for today, because right after district meeting we all had interviews with President Smith.

Just before we finished watching/listening to the talk that Elder Richards was playing, President Smith walked in and joined us for the last 15 minutes of our district meeting. After the talk was over it was open to discussion, I said a few things and let everybody share their thoughts on what they just heard or learned from the Spirit. It was really cool to hear what everyone had to say and the Spirit was strong. Just before closing I asked of President Smith if he had anything to add or contribute before I closed this meeting, he stood and spoke for a few minutes and just focused on the Restoration, since that was what we would be talking about today. (We were asked, in preparation for interviews with President, to Study the Restoration and to teach him the last three points of the lesson and invite him to be baptized) so he spoke of some things he has seen in previous interviews with missionaries and gave us some tips to teach. It was pretty awesome. We closed our meeting and we went out to eat at Panda before interviews. Interviews went well, things changed a little bit as I’m sure the Spirit guided, but instead of me role-playing teaching the restoration to President, he said this is your interview. I felt to share with him some spiritual experiences that he and I had together a year ago. The month of September-October a year ago and even 2 years ago were very special to me so I felt to share those with him to rekindle the Spirit we both felt and to remind him of experiences that he may have forgotten.

It’s been a great week! Though we have been inflicted with sickness we made the most of what we could and are grateful for the experiences we were blessed with this week.

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold