#56- Temple

What a super long week. Its been super full.

Tuesday September 20, 2011: We went and stopped by a bunch of people in our GPS who we didn't know, all were inactive members and we taught 4 out of 6 stops. It was really great. We went and saw Mary again, she is doing pretty good. She has a desire to come back to church! We are waiting until she is ready to make that step.

Thursday September 22, 2011: Today was my year Temple Trip. Elder Anderson came and picked me up, his companion stayed with mine. We drove to the Mission Home, got in the big huge van, and off to the Temple we went. When we got there, there were some others waiting for us. Total out come were ten missionaries; Elders Orme, Willard, Johnson, Anderson, Barclay, Lewis, Seymore (didn't come out with us) Sisters Vance and Klingler, myself, President and Sister Holmes. We had so much fun. After the temple we all went back to the Mission Home for dinner and a sweet discussion. Two hours later, the fireside was going to start. Elder Anderson and I called Dearborn to let them know we were coming, but they said they were busy, so we told them that we would switch at the fireside. During that gap period Elder Anderson and I couldn't go back to Ypsilanti it's too far away. We stayed in Livonia's area and tracted a street for them. We got them a potential. The Fireside was really good.

Saturday September 24, 2011: I went on an exchange to Greenfield. I was with Elder Whicker, we had a blast. We went with the Schaffer Elders, Kitchen and Green, to do some service at a church. We were helping people get food and we helped the older people or people who needed help carrying everything. It was really fun. We all then went to Sister Cupp's and did some service for her. It felt so good to be in my old area. They changed the boundaries, it used to be in Livonia. After Sister Cupp, we all went and saw Shontae. We had a great lesson with her. The rest of the day was really good. I was on my bike again it's been 5 weeks.

Sunday September 25, 2011: Church was good. Wanda was baptized. The Pickett's were teaching her. President told us to count it as well. There are a few pictures here, if you haven't looked at them yet.

Its been a really good week as far as teaching and keeping busy. Hope that you are all doing good.

#55-

What a long, rewarding week!

Tuesday September 13, 2011: We had a Mission Tour, it was really cool. Elder Alan Packer from the Seventy came to address us. After we did exchanges Elder Phinny came to Dearborn with me. That night we stopped by a few people and we had an awesome experience. We stopped by to see James, he's had a rough life and didn't want to hear much at first but after we talked to him about the Plan of Salvation he opened up a lot more. The Pickett's are going to to continue to see him.

Thursday September 15, 2011: Another stop by miracle happened. We were trying to see Sister Cook, no answer. We got back in the van and looked to see where we should go next when a car pulled up in the drive way. We got back out to see who it was and it was Mary, Sister Cook's daughter. We had a great lesson with Mary, she has really interesting work. She mates bumble bee's.

Saturday September 17, 2011: Michelle, the investigator that we got the bed for and she got bed bugs. Our lesson with her went a lot better than we thought it would have been, she sees that we were just trying to help, and she still wants us to come teach her, so that is really great. There is a Hispanic family that moved into the ward, the mom doesn't speak English really well, so sometimes it's hard to understand but her sons translate when we don't get it. She is a really sweet lady. She took us to a Mexican restaurant, it's was so good. It's hard to find good Mexican food here in Michigan.

Sunday September 18, 2011: After church Candice asked if we could come and give her husband, Mike, a blessing because he was sick. He was really appreciative, hopefully he's warmed up a little more and will sit in on a lesson again. We have had 4 re-activations this week. Olga, Edward & Cathrin, and Leola. We have been working with Leola a lot and we are so happy that she's been coming to church, she still needs to correct some things in her life but she is showing a desire to become better. Bishop Presscott called us and said, "I've been teaching a part member family and they are ready to have you guys over to teach them. You now have 7 new investigators" It was really cool, truly a miracle from God.

I have to ask a question from everybody for District meeting next week I think: Have you had any recent Missionary experiences that you would like to share about?

Love you all so much and hope that, I was going to say, "stay warm as the temperature starts to go down," but then I remembered most of you are in California, and it's still warm there. The weather here is really weird, you should go online and see what we have this week. Rain, sun, thunderstorm, sun, 68, 73, 75, 68, 65.

Lets try it again.

#54- Stressful

Although this week has had it's unfortunate events, there have been more miracles coming our way.

Some things that stood out from it are:

Malissa: We had a really awesome lesson with her about the Tree of Life. She was able to identify what most of it meant. It was great, unfortunately she will be going out of town this weekend and has to push her baptismal date to September 25.

Michelle: We've been teaching her for the last 3 weeks. She is starting to understand a lot more in her life since we've been helping her. She's been doing great until today. She called us this morning and said that she has bed bugs and she is blaming us for it. Someone was getting rid of a bed and Elder Buahin asked if we could have it so we could give it to her. I was cool with it, the man said nothing was wrong with it, he just got a new one. The mattress was in our van for like a week and a half and we didn't get anything from it. We gave it to her like a week and a half ago so it's been about 3 weeks since anyone has had it and she just found them this morning. By the way she sounded like we may not be able to teach her any more. Which is very unfortunate.

The Velasquez family is doing really well. We read a Conference talk with them By President Thomas S. Monson from the May 2009 Ensign. They really liked it and are continuing coming to church. They are still scheduled for baptism in December. On Saturday September 10, 2011, We went to one of the son's Football games with them to show our support. They are a really awesome family.

Other than that, like a daily update, we have been super busy this week teaching a ton and running around. Oh wait I may have a few.

Tuesday September 6, 2011: We were doing some service at a less active member's house that just moved into our ward and right after we finished, Sister Holmes (Mission President's wife) called us and said "We need your help, we are at your apartment." (paraphrasing) So we come home to help. Keep in mind that the apartments that we live in used to be Ford Housing. So Ford had a ton of stuff that they gave to the Mission so we spent a good amount of time taking a bunch of the stuff out to one of the vans and later for a truck. It was a bunch of silverware, plates, cups, bowls, towels, blankets, etc. We got to pick out some stuff that we needed/wanted. It was really cool.

Saturday September 10, 2011: I was on an exchange with Elder Adamson, we had a good day. 3 hours of tracting in the morning, nothing. We saw the Velasquez Family where we read the Ensign, followed by their son's game. Then later in the evening we tried to teach a less active who is back to her Catholic Church. She talked a lot about it. I have some questions of why they believe certain things, it sounds ridiculous to me.

That was our week. Super stressful but over all really satisfying.