Richard's Mission Address

Elder Richard Aufdermauer
Michigan Detroit Mission
33505 State St. Ste. 101
Farmington, MI 48335

Monday, February 28, 2011

#26- Investigators

This has been a cool week. We've had a lot of really cool lessons with investigators.

Kevin- last time we checked with him he was smoke free for 5 days and he came to church yesterday. He basically bore his testimony of the Priesthood. He said that he's been looking for a church and that he likes it at ours and that he thinks he found his new church. Kevin is on date for March 12.

Savanah- is a super awesome young woman, she asks a lot of indepth questions for a 13 year old. Our lesson with her went super well. We were going to teach her the first half of the Plan of Salvation but because of the questions she asked we taught the whole plan and some.

William- is a good investigator too. We have had some powerful lessons with him but the only problem we are having with him is getting him to come to church. We had a Church tour with him on Saturday, Brother Beauchamp came with us and it was amazing. The spirit was super powerful there in the chapel. Sunday morning came and Brother Beauchamp went to get him, he answered the door, but he said he was feeling really sick. NO!!! We thought that the tour really helped, and I think it did help. We haven't lost faith, we know he's going to come to church.
We also had a new investigator come to church, his name is Brother Holmes (I could have spelled that wrong) but he is a really nice guy. He came with a less active member and he agreed to let us come teach him this week, so that should be lots of fun.

I also had two exchanges this week, I don't really like exchanges but they turned out pretty well. Found a new investigator in the Canton/Plymouth area.

On Monday February 21, 2011: President's day, we went bowling with the Westland Elders (Kirkman and Barclay)

HAHA told you that this week was going to be better :) but nothing crazy :( but that's ok because this week was super fun.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

#25- Lessons, Lessons, and More Lessons!

Hey everybody!!! This week has felt pretty slow. Nothing has really happened. Except teaching 20 lessons! We've had tons of cancellations, especially from our investigators, which sucks big time.

On another note. The weather this week was awesome. It's been in the 50's. By Friday, February 18, 2011, 90% of the snow was melted, then on Sunday around 3 it started to snow again. 10 inches!!!! That's crazy!!!

Didn't get to email much yesterday being President's Day and all. We spent the Day at Brother Allen's house, which is where we do laundry and stuff. Then the Westland Elders, Barclay and Kirkman, came over and we went bowling, which turned out to be lots of fun.

Sorry again for another super short update but I got nothing else. I promise next week will be better.

Monday, February 14, 2011

#24- Missionaries Are People Too!

Pretty cool week this last week. We got two new investigators.

Savanah- She's 13 years old. Her mom is less active and wants to get re-activated. Savanah is a lot more into God than I was at 13.

Matt- We haven't really been able to teach him yet. Brother Cartwright is his wife's hometeacher and invited Matt to church and Matt's been there every Sunday for 5 weeks. We are going to try to see him this week, he's kinda hard to get a hold of.

We've been teaching a lot of less-active lessons again. I love so many people out here, lots of them are super nice and actually treat my like a human rather than a missionary. Not saying thats good or bad, but hey, missionaries are people too.

Other than that nothing really wild or crazy has happened. Well I guess this is kinda crazy, yesterday, Sunday February 13, 2011: It got up to about 45 degress and today, it was 40ish a little bit ago (it's 11:25 am) so we'll see what the rest of the week brings to us.

Sorry it's a little short this week. Hope you all have a good one this time around. Spring is just around the corner!

Monday, February 7, 2011

#23- You Can't Believe Everything You Read

It feels good to be on track with my adventures, but nothing too crazy has happened yet. Some interesting things, but not crazy.

This last week has been great for snow. Had a snow storm on Wednesday February 2, 2011. Then some more snow on Friday February 4, 2011. probably totaling about 10 inches; about 5 inches each day. Also this week was the first time I've used a snow blower, i'ts great! It is so much easier than shoveling, thank you Brother Allen!

Thursday February 3, 2011 & Friday February 4, 2011 were my interesting days. While Elder Turley, my companion, was at a leadership meeting I got to go on exchanges with Elder Wood. Elder Wood is from Utah, he's only been out for a week and a half. He is still trying to figure the whole missionary thing out, but that's ok he's new. I struggled a little bit but not that much, I caught on really fast.

Thursday: I went to Schaffer. Now Schaffer is a Detroit area so they don't have cars. Remember it snowed yesterday, like 5 inches? We were on bike, riding through all that snow because Detroit doesn't get plowed. All the major streets get salted and the residential streets are untouched. we went to one of their investigators and she was having a fit because she found a "Secret Society" Life magazine that blew down Mormons and she was pissed asking us, "Why didn't you tell me this stuff? You guys are a cult!!! You guys practice polygamy! I want to talk to Elder Bradshaw." Elder Wood was getting heated up. I was super calm. We couldn't do anything in that situation. I really wanted to say "Do you really think that I would be a member of this church if we did that stuff?" But I kept my cool and did my best to calm her down. She said that she will let us come back but Elder Bradshaw had to be there(Elder Wood's companion). It was interesting.

Friday wasn't so crazy, but it was interesting as well. We, meaning Elder Wood and I, were in Livonia, my area for the day. The crazyish, funny, interesting, awkward lesson that we had at ShontaƩ's. We wanted to mess with Elder Wood beacause he was new. We propably shouldn't have but I can't turn back time so oh well. ShontaƩ was pretending to be an Investigator and the lesson that we taught was the Law of Chastity. Enough said, I don't have to say more. Except that it was great. Shhh don't tell.

Sunday February 6, 2011: I may be a missionary but that doesn't mean I don't know what's going on it the world. I'm disappointed that the Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Green Bay Packers yesterday in Superbowl 45, 25 to 31. Dang, oh well it doesn't matter to me that much but still.