Richard's Mission Address

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

Monday, July 25, 2011

#47- Gifts from God

This has been a really good week with a few awesome miracles.

Tuesday July 19, 2011: We stopped by to see Candice. We haven't been to see her for about a month and we decided to stop by and do a drop lesson. She identified that our time is sacred and that we need to be working with people that are interested in learning more about the church. She said that she has a stronger desire to come to church and to progress to baptism. She expressed that she has been noticing that God has been leading her through the last few weeks that we haven't been there. She's been able to live the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. She said that when she had a desire to break them she could feel God say "No you're not." It was so cool. After that great lesson with Candice we showed up at Rita's house. Last you heard about Rita, she didn't want to get baptized because she didn't want to marry her boyfriend. We knocked on the door, she answered full of smiles. "Rita whats up?" We asked. She responded: "I'm getting married!" She is going to get married on October 15th at the church. she is really excited. She will be able to get baptized after then, and we are super excited for her.

It's been really hot this last week. Wednesday and Thursday got to the 100's.

Thursday July 21, 2011: I was on an exchange with Elder Jones. Elder Jones was trained by Elder Adair. Elder Jones is from Idaho. Today was the record breaking hottest day for a super long time, it was well over 100 we heard it got to 110. This so happened to be the day where everybody that we planned for wasn't home so me made some unscheduled stops with a few people and shared messages with them.

Friday July 22, 2011: We had a really awesome lesson with Sister Goff and her daughter. We talked about gifts from God and how we can get them and use them. It was really cool. I talked about some of my talents like art and that as I practice I get better. And also my gift for music, I guess. How I taught myself to play the piano, which is going pretty good. And how I also taught myself in my last area how to play the violin. It was great.

Monday, July 18, 2011

#46- Golf

I don't really have to much for you this week.

Monday July 11, 2011: My golf experience, par was 36 and I got 67...not all that great. My view on golf has changed so much since I actually got to play. It's not as boring as I thought it to be. I would love to learn more with anybody when I get home.

Thursday July 14, 2011: Elder Adair went to the temple today for his 1 year mark so I got to go on an exchange with Elder Welch. You may remember him from my first area. We had a fun time. While we were in Detroit, I found an American flag. The really cool thing about it is that it has 48 stars on it! Sorry Hawaii and Alaska. It was just laying there in the grass in front of an abandoned school. No I didn't go in it. I'm assuming that some kids got it and then ditched it.

Friday July 15, 2011: At 6 pm we were leaving a members house from dinner and we passed 2 kids. They yelled "Do a catwalk." For those of you who are wondering "What's a catwalk?" most of us know it as a wheelie, but a catwalk is doing a wheelie for a long time. So Elder Adair pops up into a wheelie looses control turns his handlebars vertically and comes down, he bails and bends his rim, no possible way to get it trued. Smooth. We walked to the Bowen's, right down the street and got a ride home. Makes me glad that I didn't bend my rim.

That's about all I got for this week its been really slow.

Monday, July 11, 2011

#45- Yay Miracles!

This has been a very interesting week.

Monday July 4, 2011: Because we didn't go to the Zoo last week we went today. It was really cool. The Detroit Zoo has a really cool Polar Bear Exhibit, I think it was my favorite part. We also payed the 4 extra bucks and did the Dinosaur Exhibit, complete with fake mechanical dinosaurs.

Friday July 8, 2011: We were riding east on State Fair, and some girl was waving people down to buy some drinks to help her pay for something for school. I had the prompting to stop and buy a drink, long story short we talked to her for about 10 min and she said that she wants a Book of Mormon, that's a small miracle. Later that day we went and saw Rita and she said that she doesn't want to be baptized any more because she doesn't want to get married to her boyfriend or kick him out. She said that she won't be coming to church on Sunday. We told her that she is always welcome to come to church. Today was also the day that Derek and Janel took us to dinner, it was really cool to see them. Riley and Audry are so big and super cute.

Sunday July 10, 2011: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIANNA!!! Rita came to church! That tells me she's not done with us yet. Also the less active family that we've been working with, the Goff's came to church for the 4th time, if I heard correctly they are now reactivated! It's so great to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ change the lives around us.

Monday July 11, 2011: Nothing too exciting is going on today. Actually, I lied I'm going golfing for the first time. It's time to see how much I suck. Go me!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

#53- Year Mark

What a crazy, full, stressful, weird week.

Monday August 29, 2011: Due to some planning complications we had to switch our preparation day to Thursday so that we could meet with some people who could only meet with us today. We saw Steven, he is a crazy investigator who I think is stuck in his ways of life and doesn't really want to hear our message. Even though he says he wants to learn, he didn't listen to what we were saying. He would interrupt all the time and tell us why we were still young and that we didn't have as much experience and that we needed to study more. He is a really spiritual man, but he doesn't want to hear much of what we have to say. That was the weirdest thing that happened this day.

Tuesday August 30, 2011: We had a really awesome lesson with Malissa. We read from the Book of Mormon and she was really into it. It was great. Later that evening we saw Brother Boyde and after we had our lesson with him we got into a discussion about how Detroit was such a disaster. There is still hope for Detroit, it may take a long time but there is still hope. Detroit is actually worse than some third world countries. Elder Buahin said that parts of Detroit are worse than parts of Africa.

Wednesday August 31, 2011: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIE!!!!!!

Thursday September 1, 2011: Today was preparation day, but more importantly today was my HUMP DAY!!! We had a stressful week and a half so we took most of the time to relax and sleep. The evening was really good. We went to Mama D's (Danita) to borrow her lawn mower and after we picked it up and put it in our van we went to see the Schaffer Elders, Kitchen and Green. While with them we celebrated my one year. I burned one of my shirts, missionary tradition.

Friday September 2, 2011: We used the lawn mower that we borrowed, we mowed Liola's lawn. She is really cool. She came to church last Sunday. We had a really powerful lesson with her. It was great.

Saturday September 3, 2011: The best part of the day was our lesson with our investigating family, The Valesquez. They are awesome, they are waiting to get baptized in December so that their family will be here with them and I think that she said the brother is going to baptize them. I'm really excited for them.

Sunday September 4, 2011: Super awesome Sunday. The Valesquez family was at church. Liola was at church. It was great. We had a lesson later with Brother Lusford, he's an inactive member. He is stuck in his ways and thinks that he is on higher ground than us because he said that he knows so much more than us about God that he doesn't have to go to church. He's a lost sheep within the gates. We later had an awesome lesson with Sister Manner, she's active and is Liola's sister. We talked about how we could help her sister and how we could help her as well. Long story short, this family has fallen apart and we are trying to mend it back together as best as we can.

Monday September 5, 2011: It was Labor Day so the libraries were closed and we couldn't e-mail. The Stake was having a picnic, it was really fun. I got to see some members from the Livonia ward, and I got to hang with some other missionaries. Over all it was a nice day.

Wow, updates for everyday this last week. Hope you all have a great week and that you will be able to accomplish all the things that you guys need to.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

#44- Birthday and Holiday

Fun and busy week.

Monday June 27, 2011: We did not go to the Zoo. :( By the time we were done with all of our stuff before we wouldn't have had enough time. Instead we went bowling. It's been 3 months since I've been bowling so I wasn't that great. We then went to the Bowen's and helped them finish their chicken run. They are going to get some chickens soon.

Tuesday June 28, 2011: We went to the Goff's (The less active that came to church on Sunday) to do service by mowing their lawn. They don't have a lawn mower so we had to borrow one from a member that lives a few blocks away. Their grass hasn't been mowed in a long time so the grass was about, I'd say 2 feet tall, so it took a while to cut it all down. My service shoes are now green. :)

Thursday June 30, 2011: We biked to our correlation meeting and we got flagged down by two people. The first one was Eddie. He wanted to give us each a dollar to get a drink, because it was really hot, but we told him we can't take money from people, so he forced it upon us by shoving it in our pocket. He was receptive to our message and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. The bad part is that he lives is Hamtramck's area. When we got to the church, Jennifer called to us and said she was looking for a church to go to with her kids. We taught her the Restoration and she said she would come to church. She lives in Dexter's area. We find people for other areas but never for our own.

Sunday July 3, 2011: My birthday. Today was great. Church was fun, we had 2 investigators there. Rita and Betty. Guess who else came to church today...Derek. I saw him drive up and I just about flipped. I was thinking earlier before church, I knew he was going to be in Michigan in July and I though it would be sweet if he came today and it really happened. It was so cool to see him. After church we went to Willie's house and taught a few lessons around there.

Monday July 4, 2011: Since we didn't go to the Zoo last week we went today. It was a lot of fun. We also got to celebrate the 4th with our crazy neighbor/investigator, a man named Murray. He got some fireworks and we got to watch. It was fun.

Hope that everyone had a good 4th, Party hard. Have a great week everybody!!