5-20-13

So here are some pictures for the week. The first one was on Monday last week with me and the alpaca and llama that I showed you a couple weeks ago. I could've taken a close-up picture of them yesterday but I didn't. The next one is of the stormy sky yesterday in Argonia.

Family,

Whoa! Did you see that tornado?! I didn't. Anyways I had a pretty good week this week. The Bateman's don't ring a bell. It wasn't the family we had thanksgiving dinner with in 2000, right? I saw a raptor, ghosts, skeletons, and witches that Thanksgiving night. I was freaked out. You're going to have to remind me who they are because even though I remember some families from that era, I don't remember all of them. Well on to my week, shall we? 

Well last Monday I hit my 11-month mark. It feels so weird to say I've almost been out a year. I mean I just left for Pete's sake! I shouldn't talk about that. I don't want to get too trunky, haha! Other than finding a new investigator, nothing really happened that night. On Tuesday we had interviews in Wichita at the nice brand new stake center. We also had a combined district meeting with the Hutchinson district. I felt like I was all over the place in the training but it still went well. Our new car is pretty much the same car. We traded a 2010 silver Chevy Malibu for a silver 2012 Chevy Malibu with a bike rack! I was stoked about the bike rack because now we can save miles by driving to the town we want to go to and then biking around the town. My interview with President Keyes went well. We talked about how we should not bash other churches. I brought it up because I've seen other missionaries and members in most of my areas talk down about other churches. He didn't say he'd go fix the problem by telling every stake president to tell their members to stop it. He just said control yourself and be an example. I was expecting the former to happen but it was amazing to see the mission president talk to me in such a way as he did with such love and care that it made me want to be better. President Keyes is so awesome. If I stay in this mission, I'm really going to miss him. I'm sure President Bell will be good too, I'm just saying President Keyes is awesome. After interviews, President Keyes and Sister Keyes took us out to Panera Bread (Mom's favorite restaurant). We had a nice conversation but it felt like the Sutherland table a bit because there would be intervals of nobody talking. With the mission president, it was kind of strange. Once he dropped us off again, I forgot my blue suit (again) at the stake center while we were going on exchanges with the Auburn Hills Elders. I went with Elder Stein down to Wellington and Elder Dansie went up to Wichita with Elder Holt. Elder Stein's district leader in the MTC was Elder Hermansen, as I told you about in the skype last week. We had an okay day. It was starting to get hot. I think the hot summer is just around the corner again. Hopefully not as hot as last year but still hot. Wednesday was an interesting morning. After our studies, Elder Stein and I couldn't find a soul to talk to and at the same time didn't want to waste miles. So we just left early for Wichita to exchange back with the Auburn Hills Elders. Later that day my allergies were killing me. I had super itchy eyes all day long. In addition a bug really liked my left eye and flew right into it, automatically killing itself. But I was unsuccessful in getting it out that night and didn't see it in my eye in the morning. So I still don't know if the fly is still in my eye or isn't. Is it possible that a fly that gets stuck in your eye could get stuck BEHIND your eye? I sure hope not. After dinner, we tried some people unsuccessfully before heading home. However, we did contact a referral. Also, I don't know if I told you, one of the big oil companies, KSI, along with Shell are pulling out. So several of our members are moving to Colorado, Texas, or Wyoming: including the guy that helps us whenever we need a Spanish team-up. So we were bummed big time about that but just know now that we will need to get the help of the ward council even more than before. Thursday was weekly planning (again?!) followed by another day in Anthony/Harper. We actually first went to Bluff City to try and contact some less-actives. We invited one back to church and she said she would but she wasn't there yesterday...SOML: Story of my life. We also went tracting a bit in this very old and small town. Not a single soul was even sort of nice to us. In fact after knocking this one door, I think the lady called the cops. Nobody came but I just think it's ridiculous what people think of us. So every Thursday we have dinner with this one family that is moving back to Utah next month. But this past Thursday they forgot and we wasted an hour talking to their daughter. So they just got us Subway and we went home. I felt so unproductive that night. But when we got home, I was washing my face, as I normally do, and the power went out for like 5 minutes. It was kind of cool but freaky at the same time. Friday we had 4 lessons with less-active or recent converts and did some tracting. It got super humid on Friday and Saturday so tracting was tough. But we got some good potentials and plan to go back later. After dinner, we had a unique experience. So, I've been trying recently to try talking to everyone I see. That has been extremely difficult for me because it is tough for me to just walk up to someone and talk to them. But the words of another missionary keep sticking in my mind: "When you don't talk to them, you're throwing away their salvation." So we were going to talk to this apparently young couple but their friend stopped us and said they were going through really tough times. It made me upset because the gospel is exactly what they need. I told the old guy that too! Ugh! Whatever, they'll have the chance to accept the gospel in the next life although it's so much easier here than in the spirit world. We won't have to FEEL the repentance (forgive me if this is false doctrine). Anyways, we then shopped and went home. Saturday was another scorcher. Because Elder Dansie got his helmet at the store the day before, we were able to go biking that day! We went down to Caldwell and didn't have much success. We were sweating like crazy too. OH! I forgot to mention that morning there was a parade that was about to begin celebrating Argonia days. It's an annual thing and therefore lots of street contacts. I was terrified to even go up to someone more than ever before. But I got enough nerve to talk to a couple of people unsuccessfully. I felt proud of myself. Meanwhile, down in Caldwell, we talked to this one guy who chews tobacco. I could see it in his mouth. He's super nice and knowledgeable but talks most of the time. So we don't get much opportunities to speak. He said he's been reading the Book of Mormon though so that's a good sign. Nothing much happened that night. But we parked our car in the garage that night because it was supposed to get stormy overnight. In ward council the next day we made specific assignments to the auxiliaries that applied to what we needed. Hopefully we can get more involvement in the ward even though it will dwindle in number but not unbelief. Once we got home after the potluck and stuff, we got ready to go in the cool weather hoping to see a tornado. When we left and drove halfway across Argonia, we got a message from the zone leaders telling us to go inside and stay there until they give us clearance to leave. The sky looked pretty stormy but that didn't stop us. But we had to go inside now. So for the next 2 and a half hours we watched some DVD's from the thing I got for my birthday. We then got clearance to go. There was virtually no wind when we left. We heard there was a tornado at the Wichita airport and another one in Caldwell...where we were on Saturday. It apparently ripped out some homes on the South part of town down there. I can't wait to go down there this Saturday to check it out. On Sunday night we had a great dinner with the Leavitt's. After, they came with us to an awesome appointment with one of our investigators. The spirit was there and he is prepared to hear the gospel. He is probably one of our top investigators right now already. I think he'll progress really quickly. We then rushed home and called it a night. So that was my week! Any questions?

To answer your questions about service we did, hmmmm, I don't remember if we did any service this past week. We did the week before but not this week, I don't think. Church was good. As I said above, we are losing members here pretty soon so we may be blessing AND preparing the sacrament at church due to the shortage of young men. But yeah, that was my week. I will go now. Have a great week! Love,

Elder Sutherland