Dear Mom,
This last week has been a good week but it was sad to say goodbye to the Mississippi Jackson Mission. Also, our book app just got switched to the new mission and that's what I would look off of to write my weekly email and know everything we did, and it got erased when it got switched over. So, I'll do my best to remember for this week.
Monday was an interesting P-day with a weird schedule and we played basketball in the afternoon instead of the morning. Then that night we went to the Garcia's house for dinner. Our mission did a sanctification week for the last week of the MJM where each day there was a challenge sent out and the winning companionship would be announced in the text for the next day's challenge. Monday's challenge was how many pass along cards could you give out on a P-day, so at the end of our P-day we went to the Mall and gave out cards to people.
Tuesday was a good day but the challenge was number of hours biked and Elder Stubbs didn't have a bike, we were allowed to count hours walked without using the car to get places. We had some morning appointments and we walked into our area and went to some appointments but only one went through. We had a total of 3 hours walked. 3 hours was all we could afford because our area is so big, being the whole zone, and we would just waste our day away and only get to like one appointment or 2 if we walked everywhere. It was also a very hot and sunny day so we were sweating like crazy and the roads here have no shoulders, no sidewalks, and are really skinny. We had to walk off the road through the tall grass and ditches the whole time which didn't make it any better. We then walked back home and had lunch, we made chicken alfredo. We then went to an appointment but she didn't want to talk that day cause everything was going wrong for her that day and her daughter was sick. We then had a lesson with one of our main investigators and she said the best answer she could get about when to be baptized was the number 24, it was the 26th, so we went with July 24th and then I realized that's my birthday. When I told her, she got all emotional and I think she then recognized it as a true answer to her prayer and she is really excited to be baptized. It's also 2 days before the transfer which I have a really good chance of leaving. So that was really cool. We then did our studies that we weren't able to do in the morning and then went to dinner with the Valenzuela family.
Wednesday was District Meeting and it was Sister Thurman's birthday so we all met at Panda Express to have our district lunch before district meeting. Then we had district meeting at the church and we got to know all the new members of our district. We also had some good discussions in the lesson which was really nice. We then went to an appointment with the same lady who had a bad day on Tuesday and didn't want to talk and this time, she was baby sitting, and her daughter still had strep so we again couldn't visit her. The challenge for Wednesday was how many doors could you knock, so we then went tracting for a couple hours. We took a break and went to dinner with the Armenta's and then did some more tracting. We knocked 36 doors but we had a good number of lessons during it as well, which was awesome!
Thursday we had multiple appointments in the morning so our studies were oddly spread out through the day. And we were going to have a super buys day because we were booked with appointments but then about 50% or more canceled which really stunk. We then had an early dinner with the older Cardenas family and they made us really good tacos from a specific state in Mexico. Then we had some lessons and they were some pretty good ones that went well and helped our investigators a lot and we came away from them feeling really good. Then we tracted some more and then we were able to stop by one of our Spanish investigators and she had 7 of her 9 grandchildren with her an we taught them all about the Book of Mormon and read in it with them all. Thursday's challenge was how many Testimonies of the Book of Mormon can you bear and we came away with 21 which was alright but we expected to have a lot more because of all the appointments we had that ended up falling through.
Friday we had bunch of other appointments fall through which was really frustrating. We also did our weekly planning as per usual. And then that night we drove up to Laurel and had dinner with the Garcias. Then we went and visited a family where the wife is a member of the Church but the husband isn't. They just had a baby like a week ago. We had an awesome discussion with them and got the husband to talk all about how he feels of the Church and Scriptures, specifically the Book of Mormon. It was awesome to see the testimony that he has and how much it is growing.
Saturday we were able to do all our studies in the morning which was really nice. That afternoon we went looking for places to do service but everything we went to for some reason was closed, even city hall. We decided to at least take some pictures there though, haha. Later we tried some phone tracting and called number in the phone book. Most didn't amount to much, but then we got into a bash (more like a heated discussion, it wasn't that bad) with a dude for like 20 minutes. It was also in Spanish so that didn't help it very well. We did do fairly well with understanding most things and answering most of his questions. Nonetheless, we ended on a good note. We later went to an appointment and then tracted and then we went to the Mall to make contacts. A contact is meeting someone, making sure they know who we are and extending and invitation to do something, preferably using a card or something with our number on it. We were able to talk to 30 people in that hour and a half we had at the mall and it was actually really fun!! That was the challenge for Saturday; how many contacts. I enjoyed that one a lot.
Sunday was a little frustrating. We had over 10 solid commitments from people to come to church and none of them came. One of them, our main investigator, her nephew got hit and killed by a car the night before. This is not the first time she has had stuff like this happen since we have been teaching her, most things just weren't this extreme. It was really sad to talk to her on the phone as she said she would not be able to come to church and hear how hard that was for her. It shows how hard Satan works to keep people from making good choices and coming closer to our Heavenly Father. We went to the Hburg ward and then to the Branch and it was a good Sunday of testimonies. In the Spanish branch I bore my testimony which is always a bit hard but it is getting better. After church we tried to visit a ton of people but none of them were able to meet. We then went to dinner with the Cardenas family.
Today has been pretty good so far. The Columbia Elders came down last night so that we could do district P-day today. All of us Elders met at the church and played basketball as usual and then the sister came an hour later and we played volleyball and then a couple of the Oak Grove ward youth came and we had a massive nerf war!! It was lit!! Then we all went and got Chick-Fil-A for lunch.
This week has been a pretty good one and on Saturday night we said bye to the MJM and on Sunday morning we said hello to the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission. It is weird switching to a new mission with different rules and different leaders and everything. Also all this week, every morning Elder Stubbs and I went to the track and did our workout and running and it has been really nice to get a really good work out in every morning. Until next week!
I love you mom!! Thank you for everything you do for me! I am so grateful for you! I love you with all my heart!!
Love Elder Acton
A few pics of a cool lightening storm
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