Generations

Monday 16th of December, 2013


Sam received some of his Christmas Packages! He thought it was a great idea what his Mam did for him, each day he opens up a present and inside is a part of the nativity, a message and a gift to go with that part of the nativity. Now he really looks forward to opening a new part of the Nativity each day :) He also loved the union jack socks and signed pillow case, he tucked his suit pants into his socks and pulled them as far up as he could before cycling to the other side of our area (just to show off his was British)

Sam and Elder Calderwood have started practicing throwing playing cards and they're both getting pretty good at it, but now their arms and backs are killing them.

He has also started working out for the last few weeks, he always needs the loo at 6:30am each morning. He filled a gallon milk jug with water and put it in the bathroom, so for exercise time he can give his biceps and shoulders a pretty good workout each day.

Sam has been doing a lot of work on the familysearch.org website, he has found quite a lot of work which has already been done, and he has also pushed back a few generations using family census records. It's really fun for him, however he only gets 2 hours a month to do it. Elder Calderwood can trace his ancestry back to Adam and Eve, which Sam thought was really funny finding Jacob, Isaac and Abraham in his lineage.

Sam also printed out some Egyptian stuff from the Joseph Smith Papers website, he is trying to decipher the Anthon transcript, it's pretty interesting. He loved how you can see the original papyrus with the facsimiles, he wants to learn so much about the Egyptian language, but that can wait for a short while!

He can't believe that he is coming up to 9 months in the field, he still feels like a greenie! He is really looking forward to Skyping his family on Christmas day! The missionaries are having a Christmas party this Wednesday and they're going to watch Ephraim's Rescue, which Sam is really excited about as he heard a lot of good stuff about that movie!

Sam will be having Christmas dinner at the Jeffers, and probably Christmas Breakfast with the Van Buskirks. The Jeffers are preparing to serve a mission in Portugal at the beginning of January.

Sam found It funny that there is a really obvious pattern which pretty much proves the opposition is real. As soon as you set anyone with a date, or commit them to baptism, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. They set Leslie with a baptismal date, then no later than 1 week after, her boyfriends ex-girlfriend suddenly comes back on the scene, causes a huge commotion, Leslie says she wants to kill herself, and they gave her a blessing. She moved out back to her parents. This happens (nearly) every time someone commits to baptism, which is pretty funny for Sam to observe, but also a bit scary that Satan really does everything he can to stop the work from progressing.

Dish Soap V Dish Detergent

Monday, 2nd December 2013

Sam was blessed with success this week!

 

From tracting one street, they have found 3 new investigators, and an active family who is actually going to the ward he used to be in (Eldorado Estates), but should be coming to the Deer Springs ward instead. They also managed to get in contact with Sergio (who is investigating) and his wife Portia, who is less active. They have managed to schedule more lessons with Sergio, and Portia went to church yesterday. She was nervous since she didn't know a lot of people, but it was great that she made the step to coming back. Lastly, they set Leslie with a baptismal date of January 4th, however there are still some things they need to address with her first, so the date will probably get pushed back, but the goal of January 4th will help her progress.

Sam gets fed pretty much every night, occasionally there might be a day somebody doesn't sign up, but most of the time the dinner calendar is booked 3 months ahead of time. Some people even sign up twice in the same week. However, there are over 200 members in his ward, so there are enough families that they aren't burdening anyone in particular.

A few weeks ago Sam was loading the dishwasher, and he picked up a bottle of dish soap, but he didn't read it properly and he thought it said 'dishwasher detergent', so he started the washer, and when he went back into the kitchen 10 minutes later there was a big pool of foam on the kitchen floor and it was just pouring out of the washer. He stopped the washer, but the inside was just filled with foam, so they got it all cleaned up and started it again, luckily the next day it was all gone and it didn't flood again.

There is a family that Sam wants to help this Christmas, she's a single mother who is looking after her two sons, and her daughters baby, and her brother as well. She works two jobs but is barely making enough to make ends meet, she told them that 'Christmas is staying packed up this year', she has a 4 year old and an 11 year old son, so they are going to try and get some ward members involved in putting together something for them.

Sam and Elder Calderwood have both joined the ward choir, they both sing bass, and he is glad his companion knows how, since it's so hard for him to sing a different tune than the melody, he just follows him and the other bass (Brother Sampson).

English Weather in Las Vegas?

Wednesday, 25th November 2013



This week has been cold and wet, it felt like England again for Sam, but it luckily only lasted 3 days! Now the sun is out again and its melting the snow on the mountains.

Sam had a fun day on Saturday, he went on exchanges with the zone leaders, he went with Elder Frost in his area, and Elder Wilcock stayed with Elder Calderwood on their area. Sam had the car so it was nice to have the chance to warm up after walking around in the rain. The training is going well with Elder Calderwood, they've been tracting more, and they are going to try something called 'Inspiration Tracting', where they both pray over a list of the streets in their area, and write down which ones they feel prompted to tract, then whichever streets they both feel prompted to tract they will go and do.

Sam should still be in the same area for Christmas, as he will be training for 12 weeks, there are 9 weeks left of training, so unless something bad happens, neither of them should get transferred this transfer.

The work is picking up, they've been receiving referrals, and they tracted out some potential investigators, so hopefully they can get the ball rolling, the Tule Springs zone isn't a very high baptizing area, Sam is not sure why but he is not going to stop working just because of that!