Week 26

February 26, 2018

Dear Mom~

So, this week has been pretty good! Wednesday was my first District Meeting and I was a bit nervous but it went way better than I thought it was going to go. I spent the whole morning preparing for it.  For introducing each other and getting to know each other we played a game called "hot seat" and it's where you sit in a chair and everyone gets to ask you questions and you HAVE to tell the truth, lol. It was fun. I taught the lesson and it went well and there were good discussions. After District Meeting we went on a search for previous investigators of the Sister Missionaries that used to be in this area but the info on them wasn't good so we had a hard time looking for them and had no luck. So we tracted for a while and had no luck with that either. We came home for lunch then had some appointments fall through as usual and then we had nothing left to do so we went to the mall where more people are and went Al-ing which is basically contacting people, talking with them, giving them a card and extending invitations to them. That night we were supposed to eat with a family but they never responded to our texts or calls to confirm so we just ate at home. While at home eating they called us, speaking very fast Spanish, but we understood that they waited for a while, ate all the food and were then about to leave. . . we laughed really hard! They only waited a few minutes and ate the food super fast cuz the call came only 15 minutes after the original appointment, haha.
Thursday we drove to the church in the morning and shot hoops and played bump and pig with the Oak Grove Elders. That morning I tried something new and discovered you can cook eggs in the waffle maker and it is so much easier and the yoke doesn't break!!! It was fantastic! I organized all of our media and books and such things cuz it was all a mess and very random and unorganized. For lunch I tried making an egg scramble with the waffle maker and this also works very well. It's basically an egg waffle. We then drove to Foxworth, MS to meet a part-member family in our ward which is insanely far from us and then they weren't even home so we decided to call and then we realized we didn't even have service. We drive back into service and found out they were at their Restaurant so we went there and visited with them. They let us order something from the menu so we both got a char broiled chicken sandwich which was supposed to be one of the best things. It was so so GOOD!! It was close to dinner though and we still had a dinner appointment to go to and we were already full. We did more contacting out there since we can't tract cuz it's not our area and we didn't want to drive all the way back home just to soon turn around and drive all the way back out to our dinner appointment. Later we went to our dinner appointment with the Valenzuela's and ate more food! We then came home and went quickly to bed.
Friday was more productive cuz we were able to go visit our main investigator on his break at his work which is a Mexican Restaurant called Fajitas. We were able to get to know him a lot more and he opened up to us and we talked about setting him with a date to be baptized. He's pretty cool. We also did our weekly and monthly planning which helped us a lot. That night we went to have dinner with the family that was gonna feed us Wednesday. Their address was wrong though so we ended up knocking on the wrong apartment and a black dude in his 20's answered and we were like whoa that's not the Hispanic family we are looking for LOL so we played it off as if we were tracting, haha. Later after struggling to find this place we figured out that at the beginning we were only one door to the left of where they were at. We came in and it seemed as if they were not expecting us. They speak mix-teco, (a dialect of Spanish which almost sounds like Chinese) not much Spanish so it was pretty silent and really awkward. Only the dad and kids were there and he was just cleaning the house because the kids made a mess. It looked like he had just got off work. Later the mom and the older siblings came home. We thought maybe over the phone they didn't understand that we had set another time for dinner so we shared a thought with them and then were gonna leave but the dad said they were gonna cook food for us. We sat there and no one really talked as he cleaned and the mother and older siblings cooked. He put on Mormon Channel for us to watch in Spanish so that it wasn't so awkward. We felt really bad at first but then realized that they were expecting us, they were just kinda late and act awkward, lol. Anyway it was a long hour that we were there.
Saturday we went to the church to shoot hoops with the Oak Grove Elders again and then after lunch a member picked us up to do service. We helped a member in the ward move so we loaded everything up in a 20 ft. trailer but they didn't have much so it didn't fill it up much and then we drove to the new house. We drove with Brother Lemuse, who we were helping move, and he doesn't speak like any English but speaks clear Spanish and we taught each other Spanish and English and it was awesome. When we arrived, the Branch President had drove the semi on the front lawn and got it stuck in the wet muddy grass. We unloaded and then another semi came and pulled it out and then we all ate pizza. There was a lot so we ate a lot but then that night we had to drive out to our dinner appointment in Laurel so it was another day of 2 big dinners.
Sunday was really good, I really enjoy being able to hear so much Spanish and feel the spirit and learn from it. After church we went to more appointments but of course, they fell through so we tracted on a Sunday afternoon. Then we drove back out to Sumrall and had dinner with two member families. This morning we went to our church building and played basketball for 2 hours or more. 8 of us Elders, just like last P-day and we had some real intense games! They were awesome and I am getting better at Basketball, I still am not good lol but getting better. I got home and realized that I had some pretty good blisters for not using basketball shoes. So I will be saving money to get some cuz that wasn't cool haha but at the same time, I'm not, not going to Ball with the other Elders lol. Anyway it was fun week and this next week we will be doing lots of tracting!!!

Love you tons Mom!! Have a wonderful week!!

Love,
Elder Acton

My District

 Mississippi Country

 My new  apartment

Week 25

February 20, 2018

So, this week has been pretty crazy with transfers and all. So, transfer day was pretty crazy, all I knew is that I was leaving so that morning we went to the Gulfport building for transfers and I was excited to find out where I was going. While there I was given orange colored pipe cleaners to put on my luggage which meant I was going to the Hattiesburg Zone. From that info I was able to figure that I was going to the Purvis Spanish area which is the only Spanish area in the Zone and it just had Sister Missionaries there. So, I was able to figure out that they would be leaving and so I would be "white washing"! (means two new missionaries being put into an area at the same time) I still didn't know who my companion would be. so we loaded up and left for Hattiesburg and I got off there and so did Elder Lecates and everyone else continued to Jackson. I did not have companions yet so I went with two other guys who didn't have a companion but had already served in the Zone the transfer before and they ended up being the other two District Leaders, so three of the four in the Zone were together which was kinda cool. We all drove to I-Hop and got breakfast together, Zone leaders, two sisters and us three and 2 other Elders. Then us three got a car's tires changed and then we went and studied with the Zone leaders at their apartment. Then we ate pizza for lunch and went back to the church. The luggage had already arrived so we unloaded the luggage for our Zone and then the transfer van and two cars arrived with Elders and Sisters. I still didn't know who my comp was and the ZL's kept me in suspense. I found the only other Spanish Elder and we figured we must be comps, haha. His name is Elder Christensen and he is from Moses Lake, WA!! Originally from Royal City, WA! We had to leave our bikes at the church cuz we didn't have our bike rack in the car we were given. I am the designated driver and it is a '16 or '17 Chevy Malibu, which is really nice. The ZL's guided us to our apartment and we unpacked and realized that there was a small bowl of eggs and some dressing and that was about it in the fridge. There was a few pieces of frozen salmon and chicken in the freezer and then not much of anything in the pantry. So we had basically no food. Luckily I had brought with me the food I had been sent or that I bought so we had a bit of canned food and pantry items. That night we went to Walmart to get toilet paper cuz the sister missionaries didn't leave any of that either and while out, none of the bathrooms we stopped at had toilet paper either (or someone had messed them up real bad) so after we ate at Wendy's, we were finally able to get back to our apartment and use a bathroom, lol!
Friday we exercised in our apartment cuz there is no gym and we also only have one bathroom, but besides that it is a pretty nice apartment still. We read a bunch of records about investigators and notes left from the sisters so that we could get an idea of what to do. We got library cards and tracted a trailer park in our small English area. We were given an "English area" because our area is the whole Zone since we are Spanish for it all, but everything is super far away so the Sister Missionaries were given an area to work near the apartment for when we have nothing else to do or our miles are used up. So, we tracted a bunch of trailers and didn't get much but it was cool. That night we also had our first all-zone District Leader call with the ZL's.
Saturday was good, we had an appointment early in the morning that fell through and then we drove out to Laurel which was a 30 mile, 1/2 hour drive or so and had lunch with a Hispanic family in the branch. -Side note- This is the only Spanish Branch in the Mission and it is really cool! -End Side Note-  Our GPS is off by about a mile sometimes because the map is 55 months old so we had to search for this place and miraculously found it as we turned into a few trailers and saw some Hispanics outside and decided to ask them if they knew where this address was, but we came up to them and it seemed as if that was them so we ended up not even asking and just went over and sat down where they told us to and they fed us Chanclas (technically means sandals but they were just a type of quesadilla) and empanadas. Later we tracted some more and taught a cool black guy our age and then went to the Branch FHE which was cool and was a lot of Spanish. They had food afterward too.
Sunday we met with the Branch President and his counselors before church and then we started Sunday School at 12:20. We had Priesthood Meeting after that and then had Sacrament Meeting. In Sacrament Meeting we were asked to bear our testimonies and introduce ourselves and I went first and it was a bit nerve racking, haha, but it was good. We also met one of our investigators who we texted about coming to church the day before and he came. His 5th time, I believe. We met our branch mission leader as well.There are about 45-55 int he branch I think, which is pretty good! Later we drove to Sumrall which is about 20 miles away and had dinner with a member family which was cool. -Side note- Oak Grove is a very rich community. Bret Farv lives here, there is a famous baseball player building a mansion here and there are many members who are really rich.  One of them, the Duffs, are billionaires. We live (in Hattiesburg) right next to Oak Grove, even though we are Purvis Elders. -End Side Note-
Monday we did more tracting, in fact we tracted for 2 hours straight-which is a long time for tracting. We didn't end up talking to one English person all 2 hours, except for maybe a few words and them telling us they aren't interested. We taught the Restoration or set a return appointment with 10 people and it was crazy. We found two different people who were former investigators of the church, which was awesome! Also, there was a guy that we taught the Restoration to and then afterward he basically said he didn't understand us, so that was cool. . . .It was a pretty crazy day.
Today, we picked up the Oak Grove Elders and we met the ZL's and another companionship at the Hattiesburg building and played basketball for like 2 hours which was fun. It was a crazy workout!! It was a crazy past several days and will probably continue to be crazy.

Love you tons mom!! I hope you have a great week!!

Love,
Elder Acton

A few more pictures of investigators from Biloxi

Transfer Day

The food I packed and brought with me

aka "Food Storage" ;-)

Week 24

February 14, 2018

Dear Mom,

This week has been pretty good and a lot of fun. We have visited a lot of people and have taught more lessons than usual. We have taught the 2nd and 3rd lessons and not just the Restoration! It was so nice to be able to actually move forward with some investigators. Monday was a fun P-day. The Pascagoula Elders were over here from Stake Conference and so we all went bowling together. It was fun but it was weird bowling cuz the pins were tied to strings and would just get pulled back up after you knock them down. It was a weird way to do it but it was still fun. I got a new high score of 145 :) We stopped by a member's house and I fixed their surround sound system and hooked it all up to their new TV. They thought it was broken and were gonna throw it away...Then we taught a Restoration lesson to a new investigator of ours named Eric. That night we made our own dinner and I made some chicken, veggies, and rice and I didn't have creole seasoning so I had to improvise and I didn't have the right veggies but carrots and peas had to do. It turned out really good and I had some really good corn with it too. 

Tuesday we did some training on the computers for when we get our phones and we did some Book of Mormon reads with some of our investigators. We were able to get 3 siblings of our investigator, Reyna, to join us and they were very engaged which was awesome.

Wednesday we went to a member's apartment in our complex early in the morning and gave him a blessing cuz he had had a fever for a week and it was said that he had the flu. I also fasted for Tye and his back for the day. We had District meeting and then afterwards the Morris's came to our apartment for inspections. Later we were able to teach a couple Plan of Salvation lessons which was great and went really well. That night we went to a member's house and the priests made Shrimp Po-Boys for us and the D'Iberville Elders.

Thursday we woke up and Elder Hyde was not feeling very well so we didn't go work out so he could get a bit more sleep. We did exchanges with the D'Iberville Elders, Elder Baird came with me and Elder Hyde went with Elder Jex. Elder Baird and I went to one of the appointments I had set for the day and we set one of our investigators on date for baptism which was awesome.

Friday we taught the Plan of Salvation to Eric and then later that night we visited Reyna and her siblings and her boyfriend and we got them to all commit to coming to church.

Saturday was good, we tried to visit some less actives and later visited the Schmidts. We also got to see some of a Mardi Gras parade and that was kinda cool to be down here and experience that.

Sunday was awesome because we were able to get 6 investigators at church. Eric came and Reyna and her boyfriend and siblings came and I was so proud of them. It is so wonderful to see success and progress. We then, after church, had to drive all over creation and wait 45 minutes to be able to get to our apartment because of a Mardi Gras parade. That night I started packing in case I left for transfers and I also completely cleaned the fridge which was quite disgusting. Oh, also on Saturday there was big thunder storm and it rained super hard and then it did it again Sunday night.

Monday was a normal day instead of P-day because of transfer week. We taught Eric the Gospel of Jesus Christ and set him on date for baptism as well. We stopped by the D'Iberville Elder's pad and moved a ton of little things around just a bit to mess with them and confuse them haha. We visited some people and I said goodbye cuz I was pretty sure that I would be leaving. We also got splattered with some mud while out in a field with one of our investigators, as a truck was stuck in the mud. 

Tuesday we had District Meeting and it was just the four of us Elders again. We visited some other people and said bye and got pics with them too. That night I got a call from the President's Counselor, President Silas, saying that I will be a District Leader-if I accept. I accepted and I am very nervous but it will probably be good for me. We came back to our apartment and the D'Iberville Elders had strung Mardi Gras beads all over our apartment and under our sheets, haha. This morning we found out, with transfer calls from the Zone Leaders, that I will be leaving but I don't know where yet. I won't find out until tomorrow morning (Thursday). So for almost a week you won't know where I am...Muahahaha.  Lol!

It has been a good week and I am excited to see where I end up being transferred to!

Love you tons Mom!!! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Acton

Bowling

Dinner

Sunrise on the clouds

Elder Baird playing the floor is "Lava'

Bishop Lyman's son, Spencer

(on the basketball team)

The Zieber Family and Zack (in the red shirt)

Zack is Eddie's (in the superman shirt) friend

that we have been teaching and wants to be baptized.

Saying goodbye to some of our investigators.

 Prank from the D'Iberville Elders

Mardi Gras beads EVERYWHERE

Week 23

Dear Mom,

I hope you have had a great week and that you are doing well.

This week was a pretty good week. It was a pretty normal week except for the weekend. Monday and Tuesday we made some visits and taught a few people but it was pretty frustrating because on Tuesday almost everything fell through and didn't work out. We had a dinner appointment later that day with a recent convert, Sister Cotton(she lives with her sister), we couldn't get a hold of her all day. Her number wasn't right and some hispanic dude answered, then when we got her new number, it didn't work. We didn't know what to do exactly so we got her address from Sister Lyman (the Bishop's wife) and just showed up at 5:00. When we got there she was in need of some help. She had gone to pick up her nephew from something and while she was gone, her washer flooded the downstairs. Luckily it was concrete. She was walking around barefoot in the half inch to inch of water. First I noticed that her TV cords were plugged into a power strip and were sitting in the water...I made sure we found the breaker and shut off the power to the living room and then picked up the cords and power strip out of the water and eliminated that problem. We pulled all the rugs outside and dumped the water out of them and hung them up. We then mopped up the water with a bunch of towels and wrung them out and wrung them out and wrung them out. We spent an hour doing this and did our best to get the water away from the wall and the trim. She later put some fans and heaters on it to dry it. We didn't get dinner that night but that was ok, we were able to be there when we were needed. She would have had a rough time because she can only use one of her arms and has a pretty good limp and her sister didn't get home until late.
The next day was interesting, we had District Meeting but it was only us 4 Elders because the sister missionaries were attending a different district meeting. Later that day, after making our rounds to the people we were trying to visit, we had a dinner appointment with a person we tracted into, she was going to make us Gumbo. She is older and every light in the house was on and the TV, but no one answered. We thought she just couldn't hear us knocking on the screen storm door and we didn't want her thinking we didn't come by so we knocked on windows and walked around to the back of the apartments and knocked on the back door. We did this for like 20 minutes. Anyway, we left her a note. (Also this is in what everyone calls the sketchy and dangerous neighborhood or the projects so we laughed at the fact that we probably looked so creepy walking around to the back of the building between the fence to knock on the back door, haha).
Thursday, I went to the Chiropractor and got an upper back massage to loosen up my muscles and then got adjusted. It went well and helped a lot. We were able to have a good appointment with some investigators and we read in 3rd Nephi with them. We then went back to the lady who said she would feed us Gumbo cuz she told us she would feed us today since she wasn't there the day before. But we knocked 3 times and no answer so we didn't get Gumbo that day either. But we later went to Sister Cotton's for the make-up dinner since the first time was ruined by her washer. She made us some really good BBQ and mashed potatoes and peas. Probably the best southern BBQ yet.
Friday, we were able to go to one of Spencer Lyman and Jaylen's (our investigator) basketball games. It was a great game and they did so well. They won against a very tough team. We were also able to visit with a recent convert while there. We were glad to be there to support our investigator plus we got a great game out of it. And we were able to spend time with a bunch of members and a recent convert.
Saturday we did service with the Stake for Stake Conference. Elder Thompson the area Seventy organized it with the help of Sister Davis. We had to go 1 1/2 hour late because President didn't want us there at 8:00am for some reason. So, we stood around for a while waiting for something to do cuz they already finished painting. We ended up doing 2 hours of raking leaves. During this time I was in a trio with the D'Iberville Elders cuz Elder Hyde went with President Perkes and Elder Thompson to visit a less active, who we will now be teaching. After the service project when they dropped Elder Hyde back off with us, we went to Sicily's for lunch because we had some coupons. That was really good.
Sunday was a good Stake Conference and I really enjoyed listening to Elder Thompson. We had dinner with a member that night and played a board game called suspicion which was pretty fun. Then we stopped by an older couple who are not members but love the missionaries and they gave us a bunch of food and groceries which was very kind of them to do, again. It was a great week and I am looking forward to another one! Also if anyone is planning on sending me anything in the mail don't send it between the 8th and 15th because I might be getting transferred so my address may change.

Love you tons Mom!!! Hope you have a great week!!

Love,
Elder Acton

Sunrise on the beach

On the beach with Elder Hyde, Baird, and Jex

to watch the Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse

It was bit chilly the morning of the eclipse

I had to use a sweatshirt and my raincoat to 

act as a windbreaker.

Week 22

January 29, 2018

Hey mom!

I hope you have had a great week! My week has been an eventful one. Lol!
So Monday was a good P-day and we got a lot of stuff done. That night we were able to visit some of our investigators that we haven't been able to see in a long time because of the flu. We reviewed the Restoration and taught it to another guy that was there. It went well and we hope it continues to go well. Tuesday was great because I went to the Chiropractor! We went at 10:00am and I spent an hour, at least, filling out paperwork. Then I got 2 X-rays, one from the front and one from the right side. I am possibly going to go back this Thursday for a kind "make sure everything is still good" type of visit and most likely get a half hour to an hour massage therapy. That will be nice because my muscles are a big part of the problem. And I will see if I can get the pics of the X-rays from him, and I'll send them to you if I get them. Anyway, he believes I cracked one of my rib heads which is causing the most pain (at the beginning, but is less now) and that is something that is just gonna take time to heal cuz there is nothing they can do for that. Also my bottom left rib that had caused me trouble the last time I went in before leaving on my mission, was really low and at a weird angle. . .not in place. Then most of my ribs on my right side were high and pushed up out of place. He popped all my ribs back in place, that was a lot of popping! Also, my left hip was really low and my right one was really high, so he adjusted that was well. He did a very good job and it helped a lot, he also fixed my wrist, which may need one more fix. I told him that it had hurt for a long time especially when doing push ups or something like them. He said one of my bones in my hand/wrist had been out of place for a long time. Anyway, I am mostly better and the last little fixes will most likely occur this Thursday. He gave me much more movement in my neck and back which was wonderful and I don't hurt as much when I wake up in the morning.
Later that day we did more tracting and taught many more Restoration lessons. One of them was to a bunch of people chilling in their lawn chairs. Wednesday we had District meeting and the Zone Leaders were there and it went well; we had a good discussion. Then we did some more tracting and taught even more Restoration lessons. Thursday was a big day. We were told Wednesday night over a zone wide conference call that we would have an emergency zone conference the next day. So we went to Gulfport and had a 1 1/2 hour long zone conference. President and Sister Olson told us that our mission is going to be decommissioned as of July 1st, 2018. We will become part of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana Mission. There are less missionaries out than when the age changed and there are other countries that are growing in the gospel faster so they will be sending less to the U.S. and more elsewhere.  They will be closing a number of missions. They wanted us, the missionaries, to know first so they held an emergency zone conference with every zone in 2 days. They wanted us to be able to tell you guys before you heard from someone else and got worried. Anyway, that will be a big change but everything stays the same until July 1st. That is when President is done with his mission so it will be a good time for the change. Our new President will be the current President of the Baton Rouge Mission. In the afternoon we visited a couple who have 3 kids that we recently found through former investigator records. They are awesome and are so much fun to talk to. We read the first 12 verses of 3 Nephi 11 with them and left the rest of the chapter for them to read. On our way from them to a dinner appointment with Brother and Sister Dickens (they are in their 80's and she is Austrian, really fun). They don't like us being late so we were hurrying from our appointment that went long. . .we stopped by our apartment to grab a tupperware we needed to return and when we came into our apartment we noticed that all of our furniture was gone. Couches, chairs, beds, everything! We found it all out on our balcony. We were a bit frustrated and knew that it was the D'Iberville Elders and the Pascagoula Elders who were down here earlier for Zone Conference. We went to our dinner appointment and stayed there a little longer cuz she was teaching us how to crochet. Then we came home and moved everything back. We wanted to get them back but we didn't know what to do because they would obviously be taking precautions after they just pranked us. We didn't want to do anything that would damage the mission car and we couldn't do anything that would require keys to their car or apartment.  So, we thought. . .there was a dead opossum on the road to the church, let's use that. We got the opossum(we used gloves and garbage bags) and decided to drop it in their apartment. We walked up to their apartment on the 3rd floor and knocked on their door. They opened up, we walked in, I was holding it behind my back, they started laughing because of their prank and then I walked forward and dropped the opossum out of the bag onto their tile floor. Their laughter ceased immediately and their faces turned to a morbid expression. It was so funny cuz they were so shocked of what just dropped out of the bag onto their floor. We then turned around shut the door and left them to it. We went back to our apartment and went to bed. Friday Elder Hyde felt bad and wanted to go their apartment and apologize, so we did. They didn't answer so Elder Hyde wrote a note. Later they texted saying they got our note but ignored us. We went to Firestone and got 2 of our tires replaced on the car and then went back to our apartment. While we were doing our weekly planning, we got a knock on the door and it was the D'Iberville Elders. We opened the door and let them in, and they were like, "you got us!" The rest of the day we tried to visit a ton of people that we need to teach but no one answered. Saturday was alright. We went to a members house to pick up some food they got for us which was awesome. Then later the D'Iberville Elder came over and it was raining super hard. There was a real big rain storm but Elder Hyde and I decided to still go try and visit people even though we didn't have any appointments. We dropped the D'Iberville Elders off at the Schmidts cuz they didn't have any appointments and didn't have many miles left. We were able to finally get in a house we have come back to a few times. The lady there said she would make us Gumbo on Wednesday! I am so excited!! It was worth walking and standing out in the downpour. Many asked why we were out in this weather, but we told them that the weather doesn't stop us, haha. We later went and visited with the Schmidts and before we left they gave us more food (cookies. . .and green beans and chicken) to take home. They are so kind and wonderful people. Richard also showed us his many guns, which was cool. Sunday was a good Fast Sunday and we had the Spanish Group again which was nice. Then we went to the base for the Break-The-Fast potluck. We also visited a recent convert whose birthday was the other day. It was a crazy week, but a fun one!
Love you so much, Mom!! I hope you have a great week!!

Love Your Missionary
Elder Acton

 After another mission haircut

Driving around with Elder Hyde