Hiking in the Mountains

Wednesday 4th of September, 2013

Yesterday Sam and his companion and the other set of Elders they live with, decided to go hiking. They left the apartment at 7am and hiked for nearly 3 hours, Sam thought it was really fun, it was just a straight walk north towards the mountains, everything around them was just dead or dying. 

They saw a lot of cacti. Elder John got jabbed by a jumping cactus, he said only about 1cm of the spine was sticking out of his leg, but when he pulled it out it was nearly 2 inches long! 

They found different spots where people go shooting and Sam found a couple of rifle bullet casings.

There's a huge city, then just nothing for miles.

Sam and Elder Ballard are getting on well together, the big challenge is just finding work to do. Their area is broken up into 10 smaller areas, and they usually focus on 2 of those areas each day, looking for less actives, or tracting to try and find new investigators. However they have gone over the less active list so many times that they now only have about 7 people who they can visit, the rest are either DNC (do not contact), have moved, or are never home when they try and visit them. They do have four investigators however, it's just meeting regularly with them that is the challenge.

They also have plenty of food. Members feed them every night, and one of the members (David Dorr) brings them big boxes of food every couple of months. 

They haven't had any more freaky weather, but it's starting to heat up again, it's going to be in the 100's and sometimes after the rain it gets really humid as well, and it's pretty tough for them to keep walking around, but the hot weather should be over by October/November time :) Then it will be nice, in the 80's and 90's.

Also, random story for today, the mission President showed up to their district meeting, and for one of the role plays Sam had to pretend to be a lady crying at a bus stop, and two of the Elders had to try and place a Book of Mormon with him. Sam found it pretty funny.

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY!

Monday 26th of August, 2013

So not too much has happened since Thursday, they had a storm yesterday, and apparently there was a lot more rain than usual. Outside the streets had turned into rivers and on one road an entire lane was under water. When they arrived back at their apartment complex, all the rocks had been washed out into the street.

The week has been disappointing in terms of lessons taught, they only got 10 lessons, 6 of which were with active members, 3 with less actives and recent converts, and 1 with an eternigator (an investigator who they will be teaching forever).

Sam finished reading the Book of Mormon and now started the New Testament now. The scripture memorisation is going pretty well as he has nearly up to 20 scriptures memorised now.

Elder John (another missionary who lives with Sam and his companion) knows the piano really well, he started teaching him to play the maple leaf rag, but decided to switch to 'The Entertainer', so hopefully he will be able to learn to play it before he gets transferred! The other Elder who he is training is Elder Von Axelson. 

A lot of people are moving out of the ward, so Sam and his companion have been put in charge of trying to find forwarding addresses for the people who have moved and not updated their contact information. Luckily it's given them something to do, because there is very little work for them to do. They started with a huge less active list, however they have been working on it for 5 months now, so there is barely anyone left on the list who they can visit.

Sam has been reading a really good book called 'How to win friends and influence people', he thinks everybody can gain something from reading it, it's definitely going to make it easier for him to get along with companions in the future.

They are trying to think of things to do other than tracting as it's really ineffective, and since there has been news going around about two robbers who dressed up as missionaries and burgled some people, they haven't been having any sort of success tracting. They are getting visited by an Apostle on 10th September so hopefully they will announce when they will be using social media, that will be a much better use of their time than going door to door. Sam really can't wait to get transferred, as he just needs a change, it's not very often that people stay in 1 area for 6 months.

To end on a happy note, here is a picture of a happy car Sam found.

The Door & The Dog

Thursday, 22nd of August 2013


It's temple day today so they changed P-Day from Monday to Thursday this week. The temple was a great experience for Sam as the spirit is really strong and each time he goes he learns a lot.

Sam was emailing from an office on a golf course today, as the bishop from the San Destin ward took them to the temple, then he took them out to lunch at a place on the golf course, and now he's letting them use the computers there.

Transfers were interesting, Sam threw up in the car park at the stake centre, but then he felt fine immediately afterwards, he doesn't know if it was anxiety, but he has been fine since then. Sam and Elder Ballard get along well, serving together has been really fun and they learn a lot from each other. He is senior companion, however Sam is the only person who knows the members and the area, so he is pretty much just taking the lead for now.

They had an interesting experience on Tuesday, they were tracting and Sam knocked on a door and was talking to a lady who was trying to hold a dog back, it managed to break free of her grip and jumped up on Elder Ballard and started barking in his face. Elder Ballard turned and started running as fast as he could, the dog kept chasing him and he slipped and fell on the road, luckily the dog stopped chasing him after he fell, but his white shirt got covered in the oil from the road and his hands were black as well. After this whole episode Sam just turn to the lady and say "yeah.... and.... we're sharing a message about Jesus Christ", he was trying so hard not to laugh. She must have apologised 20 times to us.

As they walked away from her door, one of the members (Kenny Thomason) asked if they were okay, they told him that they were, and he said "I was about to shoot that thing" and pulled a pistol out of his shorts. Sam kept having to stop himself from cracking up during the whole day, every time he was thinking about it he just wanted to laugh :P

Sam's scripture memorising is going well, he knows around 20 scriptures now, along with some other things he decided to memorise from other books. He is hoping he can keep it up for the rest of his mission!

They might be close to stopping tracting in the mission, because some people dressed up as missionaries somewhere in Nevada and robbed somebody, now it's all over the news so people aren't really wanting to answer the door. They are being visited by Elder Neil L. Anderson, and another general authority, the east and west missions will be combining so they can meet them for a conference. Hopefully they will find out when they will be using tablet computers and facebook.

Fellowship is important for new and potential investigators, it makes the missionaries jobs so much easier when they have people they know at church which make them feel comfortable.

There is still a fair bit of work, but since he is coming up on 5 months in the same area, it's hard for him to stay focused, since he pretty much has the ward directory memorised, he knows whether a member is going to answer the door to them or not before they even get there. There are some people who they can just not track down. 

Original Prankster

Monday, 12th of August 2013

The transfer calls were announced today, Elder Blanco is going to the Mesquite zone and will be speaking Spanish, Sam will be staying where he is and will be getting a new companion called Elder Ballard. He doesn't know much about him apart from he has been out 6 weeks longer than him, but he thinks they will get along even though they've never met before.

This week was pretty funny, Sam has been having prank battles with the other elders who are staying with them (Elder John & Elder Harper). It started when Harper didn't put the lid back on a bottle properly, threw it for Sam to catch and he got covered in water. So Sam decided to pull the pipe out of the cistern in Elder Harpers bathroom, Sam and Elder Blanco thought it was funny because they heard him thudding around in the bathroom, then he burst out the door and said "I don't know what you guys have done but I'm NOT mopping that up", the bathroom got a little bit flooded but nothing got damaged.

Every time they go tracting, when they get to the last door, they jokingly say "Here comes the Ensign story". They were on the last door of the street, and so far only 2 people had answered and they weren't interested. An older lady answered the door and invited them in before they even said anything, so Sam and Elder Blanco were thinking she was a member who wasn't on their record, since the only people who normally invite them in immediately are members. It turns out she saw the Book of Mormon musical, had a lot of questions, knew a lot of people at her work which were members, and was reading about someone's story on how they joined the church and how it changed their life. She was really happy to see them, but they didn't have time to teach her, so they have set up an appointment for Tuesday, and hopefully all will go well!

One of the Zone Leaders (Elder Crapo), taught Sam a system that he has been using for memorizing scriptures, he said people have done research on it, and if you keep it up every day for 2 years you can end up with a photographic memory. He said his old Bishop did it, and he can look at any page of the Book of Mormon for a few seconds, then you can ask him what the 4th word on the 17th line is, and he can tell you. Sam couldn't really explain how the system works, but looking at how it's set out it's a really clever system, the way it's set up, you wont forget the old stuff you have memorized, and you can constantly learn new scriptures. Sam wants to keep it up for the rest of his mission and then he will know almost 600 scriptures. So far he has memorized 'Our Purpose', 'The Standard of Truth', 10,11,12th Articles of Faith, Alma 7:11-12, Moroni 10:3-5, Alma 32:21, and the 13 steps to weekly planning. He is going to order the seminary scripture mastery cards and learn all 4 years worth. He is also going to start doing 'The Spartacus Workout', as he thinks it looks like fun, but he will let us know how it goes.

When Sam is out contacting people he picks up any change that he finds on the floor, he has already found a few dollars worth of change! Today he printed out his sisters first scan photos so he can look at them properly back at his apartment as he wants to try guess the sex!

Quick Update

Monday, 29th of July 2013

Not too much stuff happened this week, but here are the highlights:

- Sam slid off his bike, luckily he was only going 5mph and he landed on his feet, but one of the pedals got a bit bashed up, there was oil on the road right on the corner, there was no grip at all!

 

- He tracted into a satanist, she looked like a man and had expanders in her ears and her ear lobes were all droopy

 

- There's been a lot of lightning lately, and it's been really windy, Sam and Elder Blanco had to fight the wind all the way back home yesterday.

 

- Sam and Elder Blanco have set up a game, they are sort of running the work like a business, it's made them talk to a lot more people and hand out a lot more pass along cards and pamphlets, they keep finding new ways to make the work fun.

 

- They haven't been doing a whole lot of tracting, here are the stats for the last 4 weeks: 198 doors knocked, 131 people weren't in, 44 people weren't interested, 1 crazy person (satanist), 15 people from other religions and 7 return appointments (they all flaked on them).

 

As you can see tracting isn't the best use of time, he is looking forward to when they can start using tablets and computers to proselyte, then they will be able to reach a lot more people, and waste a lot less time.

When The Rain Came Down...

Monday, 22nd of July 2013

This week has been an eventful week for Sam!

He had dinner with the Roper family, for a change he shared something with them for the spiritual thought. They watched a video on youtube called 'Brad Wilcox - His grace is sufficient'. It is the best talk Sam has ever heard, he explains perfectly how Christ's grace works, how the atonement works, and our whole purpose of being here. Sam really wanted us to watch it as he said it will change your whole perspective of what repentance really is, and how much Heavenly Father loves us.

On Friday Elder Blanco went to a leadership training meeting, so Sam was on exchanges until 4pm, in a completely different area. It was a good day for him as he felt he has definitely grown in confidence. In each situation he found he would naturally take the lead, whether it was in the conversation, sharing a scripture or a lesson, Sam didn't think he would be able to do that, but he had been praying that he would be able to be more confident and it definitely worked for him!

They had an interesting discussion with a man who had all sorts of concerns, they talked about the atonement, fall, restoration, spirit world, 3 degrees of glory, baptism, parables and black people not having the priesthood until the 70's. The guy would ask a question, then as Sam would start to explain he would bring up something completely irrelevant, then as he would explain that then he would keep interrupting. Sam explained that the church had no official statement on the priesthood not being given to black people, however he told him he had discussed it before. He explained, and he agreed that the people at that time were still biased towards black people, he then explained that with the priesthood comes a lot of responsibility, however because of the way the people were at that time, they wouldn't be able to fulfill their responsibilities. He kept asking the same question and Sam must have explained it 10 times to him. Sam said he was friendly but pretty ignorant.

After exchanges Sam and Elder Blanco went to check on the Wagasky family, they are the people Sam had his first meal with in the field, they were preparing to move so they wanted to see if they needed any help. On the way to their house, they could see a thunderstorm which was weird as they could see the lightning, but couldn't hear the thunder. It started to rain and the sky was black, and it was nearly constant lightning. They were inside talking to the family and Sam started to feel sick, completely randomly out of nowhere, so he stood outside for a few minutes and vomited four times, then was fine afterwards! Their phone went off, as they received a CMAS alert for flash floods and severe hail, the rain started coming down really heavy and the lightning was insane. Luckily Brother Wagasky gave  them a ride home, and they saw some INSANE lightning, you could see the bolts going straight across the sky, and a lot of fork lightning. It was almost constant lightning, the longest time he counted without seeing a lightning strike was 5 seconds. There were storms on Sunday as well, the wind was really strong, Sam sat out on the balcony and ate his cereal and watched the storm. They are going to have another storm today, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Last night they had another really cool experience, one of the members didn't show up to church so they went by to see how she was doing. While they were there the young men's president also came and told them that he had been praying specifically for us. Literally 10 seconds after they left, a guy shouted out to Elder Blanco 'are you guys Mormons?', he told him they were, and he told them he wants to join our church, and wanted to know how to do it. He is called Christopher Williams, and seems pretty genuine in wanting to meet with the missionaries and learn. He said he invited the missionaries back to his house 2.5 months ago, but they didn't show up, however Sam and Elder Blanco were both in the area 2.5 months ago and they have never met him until now!

Samoan to English in 2 Weeks?

Monday, 15th of July 2013

The fire from last week was still burning, it was burning for over a week! It was the biggest fire the valley has ever seen, it was the #1 priority fire in America and 10% of all the hot shots (elite firefighters) in the nation were fighting that fire. Apparently nothing else is going to grow on the mountain for years now, the fire has done so much damage.

Sam enjoyed his week last week as the work is starting to pick up again. On Wednesday he got to go on exchanges with Elder Tusa, he is from Western Samoa and spoke no English. He went to the MTC for only 2 weeks to learn English and he has only been out in the field for 2 weeks! They had 3 hours of study together, the language barrier made it a challenge for them both. Sam was very impressed with how well he is going for only learning English for 4 weeks, he isn't afraid of going up and trying to talk to people even though he is just starting to learn the language!! Elder Tusa was so grateful to have the opportunity to work with Sam. He will make a great missionary if he continues to put in the effort to learn the language.

Last night they had a 'cool experience' (in the words of Sam) There is a less active lady whose husband isn't a member, it turns out that yesterday the ward mission leader, Doug Coburn, had visited them and her husband is now interested in taking lessons with Sam and his companion. They visited them last night and they are a great family, they even have a small black pug! He asked a lot of questions and even wrote some more questions down for next time so they can discuss them more. Its always a good sign when people ask a lot of questions and sincerely want to understand what it is they teach. Their recent convert, Sean Thomason, wants to go with them to the next lesson!

They have taught 11 lessons this week bringing it up to 18 in total. They are behind in numbers from last transfer but Elder Blanco says the work always slows down after a baptism. Sam is still loving it over there and he is still getting along well with Elder Blanco!