Thursday, the 5th, we had to be at the school at 7am. We had volunteered as project leaders so we had a quick leaders meeting before everyone showed up. I volunteered to be the leader of the planter box building team. I had a folder with all the instructions I needed, so I quickly looked over it and prepared to receive my group of helpers. After the opening ceremony we were assigned a group of people to each project. All the members of my team were people who worked with Disney and ABC news members who worked in sales. They all worked so great together, we went over the instructions and they just jumped right into it, we built 7 planter boxes and placed them in their designated areas and then filled them with dirt and top soil. It was pretty fun. Because of the limited tools we had and the size group we all took turns assisting with each box, so it took close to 4 hours. We then had lunch and spread out to help other groups. I hopped around to different projects; I helped most of the remaining time mixing/pouring concrete. By the end of the day, the group of concrete mixers had mixed over 25,000 lbs of concrete! It was such a fun service project! Channel 7 News was there and Catholic Charities hired a videographer and a photographer for both days to capture the project in the making. It was sweet!! The photographer was awesome, we got a chance to talk with him for a bit, the Elders who serve in the same area he lives in got his info and he showed a lot of interest in learning about the gospel, he seemed really prepared. I got his business card and we look forward to seeing his pictures.
Click here to see the News clip and read the article about this project.
On Friday we did weekly planning and went out for a bit to do some look-ups. We have a pretty filled/messy area book...(meaning there are a lot of people in our records, but we don’t know most of them) so we are in the process of trying to get in contact with all these old investigators to see if anyone is still interested. We’ve found a couple of guys who have shown interest and we’ve set a couple appointments with them but things have popped up for us and them and we haven’t been able to see them yet.
Saturday we met with this guy named Z he is from Africa and he’s pretty cool. This was the second time that we met with him and this time we brought him a French copy of the Book of Mormon. He speaks English but French is his native language and so he doesn’t quite understand the old English in the Book of Mormon, we’ve invited him to read from the French version that way he will understand it better. We had a good lesson with him reviewing the Restoration (since the last time we met was 2 weeks ago) we asked him what he remembered and he actually remembered quite a bit. So we moved forward a little and just focused on the Book of Mormon, we invited him to read it and to pray to know if it’s true.
Throughout the day I sent emails to people in area book regarding their request for Bibles/copies of the Book of Mormon, as well as made some phone calls. Later in the evening we went to visit a blind member, Brother R. We hadn’t seen him in maybe a week and a half, but we had a plan to share a talk from General Conference since he doesn’t get to leave the house and come to church. Well as usual our plans don’t always work out the way that we had planned and I think this time may have to do with the fact that we hadn’t visited him in what might have been 2 weeks... so I guess he had more to talk to us about, lol. He’s an older man, 93. He lives in an apartment, but doesn’t have anyone really to talk to very often so I guess we didn’t come back soon enough to cut his story telling in half for this visit but we sat and we listened, we are sure he needed us there for that reason, but before we left we shared a scripture and then made our way home for the night. He’s a great man with great faith.
Sunday was pretty good; we had an investigator named E show up. We’ve been to his home twice and have shared a couple lessons with him, but we aren’t meeting him regularly because of his CRAZY work schedule. We didn’t even know he would be coming today, he just showed up. So we hope to get in contact with him and be able to see if he’s interested. During sacrament meeting a man stood up to bare his testimony, he explained that he’s just visiting but that he served here in this area over 20 years ago and to see the change has been a great blessing to him. He said that when he was serving here it was only a branch and there wasn’t even a chapel here. It was really cool to hear a little bit about his experience and his testimony. It made me feel good to know that even though there’s a chapel here and it’s now a ward there’s still work to be done and that my efforts here are making a difference.
For district meeting on Monday I asked Sister Bandeaux to give a training on how we can have meaningful studies. She did a great job, we discussed as a district some of the things that we’ve done in the past and the things we are currently doing in our studies to feel like we are having meaningful studies. We talked about the importance of having faith in what you plan to study; in some way what you study each morning (whether you think or not) is applicable to someone you come in contact with.
Tuesday was pretty great too we woke up and during planning just decided we would do a last minute APF. So we called up the other missionaries in our district and invited them to join us. We went to the church and decided we would stand outside and talk to people passing the church and offer to give people chapel tours. The Sisters joined us and went up to the bus stop near the church and talked to people, we talked to a good amount of people and gave a couple Books of Mormon out. The Sisters had some success in bringing people to the chapel for a tour, it was pretty cool. But the weather was pretty hot, we were out I think about an hour and a half and couldn’t take the heat much longer, we both felt dehydrated and decided to clean up. We felt good about it and had a good time talking to people, but we were both ready for lunch and in need of hydration and a quick nap.
On Friday we did weekly planning and went out for a bit to do some look-ups. We have a pretty filled/messy area book...(meaning there are a lot of people in our records, but we don’t know most of them) so we are in the process of trying to get in contact with all these old investigators to see if anyone is still interested. We’ve found a couple of guys who have shown interest and we’ve set a couple appointments with them but things have popped up for us and them and we haven’t been able to see them yet.
Saturday we met with this guy named Z he is from Africa and he’s pretty cool. This was the second time that we met with him and this time we brought him a French copy of the Book of Mormon. He speaks English but French is his native language and so he doesn’t quite understand the old English in the Book of Mormon, we’ve invited him to read from the French version that way he will understand it better. We had a good lesson with him reviewing the Restoration (since the last time we met was 2 weeks ago) we asked him what he remembered and he actually remembered quite a bit. So we moved forward a little and just focused on the Book of Mormon, we invited him to read it and to pray to know if it’s true.
Throughout the day I sent emails to people in area book regarding their request for Bibles/copies of the Book of Mormon, as well as made some phone calls. Later in the evening we went to visit a blind member, Brother R. We hadn’t seen him in maybe a week and a half, but we had a plan to share a talk from General Conference since he doesn’t get to leave the house and come to church. Well as usual our plans don’t always work out the way that we had planned and I think this time may have to do with the fact that we hadn’t visited him in what might have been 2 weeks... so I guess he had more to talk to us about, lol. He’s an older man, 93. He lives in an apartment, but doesn’t have anyone really to talk to very often so I guess we didn’t come back soon enough to cut his story telling in half for this visit but we sat and we listened, we are sure he needed us there for that reason, but before we left we shared a scripture and then made our way home for the night. He’s a great man with great faith.
Sunday was pretty good; we had an investigator named E show up. We’ve been to his home twice and have shared a couple lessons with him, but we aren’t meeting him regularly because of his CRAZY work schedule. We didn’t even know he would be coming today, he just showed up. So we hope to get in contact with him and be able to see if he’s interested. During sacrament meeting a man stood up to bare his testimony, he explained that he’s just visiting but that he served here in this area over 20 years ago and to see the change has been a great blessing to him. He said that when he was serving here it was only a branch and there wasn’t even a chapel here. It was really cool to hear a little bit about his experience and his testimony. It made me feel good to know that even though there’s a chapel here and it’s now a ward there’s still work to be done and that my efforts here are making a difference.
For district meeting on Monday I asked Sister Bandeaux to give a training on how we can have meaningful studies. She did a great job, we discussed as a district some of the things that we’ve done in the past and the things we are currently doing in our studies to feel like we are having meaningful studies. We talked about the importance of having faith in what you plan to study; in some way what you study each morning (whether you think or not) is applicable to someone you come in contact with.
Tuesday was pretty great too we woke up and during planning just decided we would do a last minute APF. So we called up the other missionaries in our district and invited them to join us. We went to the church and decided we would stand outside and talk to people passing the church and offer to give people chapel tours. The Sisters joined us and went up to the bus stop near the church and talked to people, we talked to a good amount of people and gave a couple Books of Mormon out. The Sisters had some success in bringing people to the chapel for a tour, it was pretty cool. But the weather was pretty hot, we were out I think about an hour and a half and couldn’t take the heat much longer, we both felt dehydrated and decided to clean up. We felt good about it and had a good time talking to people, but we were both ready for lunch and in need of hydration and a quick nap.
Another great week has come and gone... I don’t know where time is going... but we are enjoying the time we have left in the mission and trying to do our best to prep this area for future missionaries, we have so many people on record and we get referrals like crazy here so it just keeps adding up. I’m thankful for the reminder that I was blessed to recognize this Sunday that no effort is wasted, we are all contributing to the work of the Lord and I know that this is truly His work and that His hand is always in it. He’s guiding us to the right people and the right people to us. I know that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored and that we are blessed to have continued revelation through modern prophets. I’m grateful for this knowledge and I know all who seek to obtain this knowledge can, through faith in Jesus Christ.
Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,
Elder Newbold
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