Hello people,
What a week. Last Tuesday night I drove down to Windsor CO with my Zone Leaders to pick up my new companion. His name is Elder Chinbaatar!! He is from Mongolia, and entered the MTC August 28th. Before then, he didn't know any English at all, and had never been to the MTC. He has been an amazing example to me of faith, he can barely speak the language and is FAR away from home, but has a desire to serve and do whatever the Lord needs of him. We have to do 3.5 hours of studying every day though which is....funnnn. 1 hour for personal, 1.5 for comp study (extra 30 min for training), and 1 hour of language study. Having Elder Chinbaatar as a companion has shown me how much I don't even know my own language. He asks me what some words mean, and I can't explain and have to look them up in a dictionary.
Wednesday was Halloween, so we had to be in our apartments by 6:00 pm. So we didn't have a lot of time to proselyte (especially after 3.5 hours of studying). BUT we went out tracting for about at hour, and we were able to hand out 3 copies of the Book of Mormon! It was great, I think it was a blessing to have success, to encourage Elder Chinbaatar. The only words he could say to people that day was "bye, have a good day", and he asked me what people said when we walked away from every door because "they talk so fast", but still I think he felt good! Since it was Halloween, our mission president gave us a list of movies we could watch. We watched 17 Miracles, but I don't if Elder Chinbaatar understood any of it...
Thursday we had district council with our new District, there's 3 companionships and 1 senior couple. In each of the 3 companionships there's a Greenie, and I'm basically still a greenie, so we're the greenie district. The senior couple, the Golds, brought Chick-fil-A for breakfast...me gusta. That night we had a fantastic lesson with Mei and Jenny at our Bishops home. We ate Japanese food (because his parents went to Japan on their missions) that was made by Americans, and we had 2 Chinese people and 1 Mongolian. #gatheringscatteredisrael. We went over the commandments and Jenny committed to keep all of them! Funny story-I was about to teach the law of chastity and Bishop Bailey says "I'll teach this one!" and took over. It was a tender mercy, not having to teach a 15 year old the law of Chastity.
Friday night we taught Jenny again, and finished up all the lessons and went over the baptismal interview questions. Jenny is getting baptized!!! We started planning her baptism, which will be next Saturday the 10th! I am the happiest missionary that has every lived, no doubt in my mind. Before the week of Meis baptism, Jenny would lock herself in her room because she didn't want to listen to us. The first time we met Mei, we were disappointed because we knew that Jenny could help us translate with Mei, but she went to her room, and wouldn't come out even thought Mei was yelling at her in Chinese. And only about 2 weeks ago, Jenny opened up to us. A couple days after we first talked to Jenny, was her mother's baptism and she was able to see her mother and feel the spirit of that ordinance. The spirit of God softened Jenny's heart, and opened her up to the gospel. Now her and her mother can continue to make covenants with God and find peace in this life, and eternal life in the world to come. I am so happy for these two, and will never forget them.
Saturday was kinda a disappointing day with finding. We talked to a lot of people, but didn't get any return appointments or anyone interested. BUT I know that there is no effort wasted. When I just talk with people, I give them a clear choice to choose Christ, and whether or not they do does not effect me. It makes me sad because I love these people and know that they are loved and known by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, but it doesn't discourage me. I also trust that somewhere, just walking around or saying something to someone, we planted a seed that may grow and be harvested by someone down the line. Just speaking to people, and letting them know that there is a savior who cares about them, whether or not they believe me, makes me feel good:)
That night our ward had a "fall festival" and we helped run two booths. I was running skeeball, and Elder Chinbaatar was in charge of "throw the ring on the witch hat". It was super fun, but I felt bad for Elder Chinbaatar because little kids were talking to him and he couldn't understand them, but I was too busy to help him communicate with people. Maybe it was good though, forcing him to speak and understand English.
Sunday was GREAT. We had a regional broadcast. Sister Jean Bingham, Elder Matthew Carpenter, Elder William Anderson, and Elder Jeffery R Holland spoke. Being a part of a church who has true and living prophets who speak to us, is such a blessing snd hearing from an apostle of God and feeling his testimony on sunday reminded me how lucky I am, that night I was talking to a guy named Julio, who was very knowledgeable about the bible. He was saying how "we need to do everything the right way to make it to heaven, like be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost". And I agreed with him and shared how there is a lot of confusion and he asked how are we supposed to know the right way. Amos 3:7 came to my mind and i quoted it from memory to him, and testified that there are true, living prophets in the restored church of Jesus Christ today. The spirit was able to witness what i said was true, because it came from my heart. That morning my testimony was strengthened hearing Elder Holland speak, and I was able to share that testimony hours later!
That night we had finding planned from 6-8, but had no idea what to do. So we knelt down together and asked Heavenly Father. We then made a choice to tract a small trailer park, and contact some less active members there as well. "Contracting" (contacting and tracting). It went GREAT, we set up 4 return appointments and had some great conversations with a couple people. One lady barely spoke English, but spoke Spanish and I was able hablar Español un poco, and set up a return appointment. But I'm going to refer her to a Spanish Hermana to teach her, my Spanish isn't as great as I thought.
Speaking of different languages, we had a fun time Monday night. We ate dinner at a members home with Mei and Jenny. I asked Elder Chinbaatar how to say broccoli in Mongolian, then Mei and Jenny how to saw it in mandarin. Then this started the whole night speaking in different languages and brother Moore, went on his mission to Iceland, started speaking Icelandic and I was speaking Spanish for fun (because thats the only other language i know kinda). It was a fun night. We taught about temples and it was fantastic, it couldn't have gone better. We had a recent convert from about a year ago, who is about to go to the temple to be endowed, who was there. We had the Moores, who go to the temple to do baptisms often because they have youth aged children. And we had US the missionaries!! It went great and both Mei and Jenny want to learn how to do family history, and are going to get temple recommends asap, and the Moores offered to drive them!! IM SO HAPPY. Being a missionary is the best.
Spiritual thought: Someone during the broadcast said something along the lines of "we don't keep the sabbath day, the sabbath day keeps us". The center of the Sabbath day is the sacrament, and the center of the sacrament is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The two Sundays when I was in a tri-pan, covering three wards were loooong. But one good thing was that I had thr opportunity to sit through thr sacrament ordinance 3 times. I could sit and ponder about my savior 3 times, and think about him about 2000 years ago. In the garden of Gethsemane, suffering, and for a moment he suffered for me. He felt all of my pains and suffered for my sins. And I know he did the same for you. When we go to church and partake of the sacrament we become clean again, as we were when we were baptized, and the Holy Ghost can be in our lives more abundantly. Also taking that time to ponder the Atonement can help saints, who maybe haven't made any serious mistakes. It can enable you and give you power to get through the week. The sacrament is powerful, take the time to participate in it each Sunday with the right state of mind, and it will change your life.
Fun stuff:
-Elder Dudley kicked a door into my face while we were playing with nerd guns on preparation day. The goggles I was wearing smashed into my face and cut me and left marks...
-somebody brought us Root Beer and pizza, and Elder Chinbaatar pointed to the soda and asked what it was and he goes "BEER?!" and I had to explain that there was no alcohol so he says "ohhh it's fake"
-Elder Chinbaatar is starting to say words that I say that aren't even words like "gotcha" and "aight" and saying "awesome" all the time when it doesn't even make sense. I should start working on using more dignified language
Pictures:
-I really wanted to buy this
-I saw my pal from the Mtc, Elder Bolton. He's in my zone now. Crazy that we left the MTC 3 months ago.
-selfie me and Elder Chinbaatar took the night he got her to send to his mom
Elder Bolton and Elder Milius
Elder Chinbaatar and Elder Milius
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