5-27-13

Family,

I'm so glad to hear about the weekend's events. Is Little League already done? I remember it went into June. As I've said, I'm so proud of Cody and how he did this past weekend. Were there any other Westview athletes that did well? How has the Westview baseball team been doing, if you know? That's just exciting to hear everything about everything. I met a guy yesterday who's the same grade as Cody who just moved from South Carolina and plays football, wrestling, and baseball. He's being recruited by like 24 schools to play football for them! That includes LSU, Alabama, South Carolina, K-State, Oregon, and other big name football schools. He had a broken foot so hopefully he'll be able to heal in time. I feel bad for him because he's moving to a high school out here whose high school football programs don't even compare to those in South Carolina. Have you ever heard of Da'quan Bowers? He was supposed to be a first round draft pick out of Clemson a couple of years ago but instead got picked in the second round. Well he's close friends with this guy (named Chip) and now plays in the NFL. Pretty cool, huh? Anyways, on to my week. Mom, I was wondering, do you have to wear church clothes to work? Dad doesn't, so I guess it's just nice casual, right?

Last Monday was quite interesting. Due to the Potluck the previous day, my intestines didn't like the food I ate. I was needing to "go" more often than I wanted but I'm fine now. Then a little later while doing my laundry, the washer's spinner broke and therefore the whole machine. I don't know the entire details. I just know that that's what happened and we have a new machine now. So we had to go to the Argonia laundromat (I am so glad this tiny town has one) and pay $2.25 to wash and 75 cents to dry. It was a hassle but we got it done. I got my haircut last week too. Our ward mission leader's wife has been cutting hair for over 30 years. She did an amazing job. That is probably the best haircut I've ever gotten because not one piece of hair got down my shirt (I'm sure you know that feeling). Before I forget, how's Cody's eagle going? Sorry Dad, you give great haircuts. In fact the best. Everybody that was there witnessing my haircut couldn't believe how short it looked and thought I was crazy. Buuuut, It feels amazing to have this short hair again. She moves this week so no more haircuts from her. Tuesday my intestines were killing me yet again. But district meeting had to go on. I gave a good training and the spirit was definitely there. My camera was out of battery (weakest battery in the world) so I didn't get a picture of our district but I'll try to send a picture to you. Later once we got back to our area, we had a very good lesson with one of our investigators who is struggling to commit to come to church AND to stop smoking. She said she would come even though she has super anxiety problems. So we were super excited about that but she didn't come yesterday! That was a super bummer. We had zero investigators at church yet again. So other than that we had a pretty good week. After the appointment with that one lady, we were in a hurry for the rest of the evening. 2 appointments fell through and we changed out of our suits at the church. After dinner in the middle of nowhere, we contacted a referral, had one more appointment fall through, and went home. Wednesday we had 2 spiders visit our bathroom. They were pretty big ones too. I was scared to kill them so I let Elder Dansie do it, haha! We also went to Bluff City again and actually had some success getting a couple solid potentials and a new investigator. Apparently that city is the drug capital of Harper county. That's why we got treated so bad last week there. We also had another lesson with our top investigator and set him on baptismal date for June 15th. We just need to get him to church but he hasn't been coming. It's just super frustrating because he sets up a ride but just doesn't come. We had a nice discussion, though, as usual. And we'll see him later this week. Probably on Wednesday. Later we talked to this one less-active sister who is married to a non-member. She wants to go back to church but has health problems the prevent her from doing so. Our ward mission leader moved back to Wyoming on Thursday morning. Speaking of Thursday, we had weekly planning in the morning before beginning our day. We went to Harper later this day and it was supposed to rain a ton and I didn't bring my jacket. So we went back to Argonia just to get my jacket and guess what? It didn't rain the rest of the day! I wasn't happy because we used like an extra 28 miles to get a jacket that I didn't need. But we had a good work day seeing as many less actives as possible. We had 2 less active single sisters come back to church and a whole less active family. So we are focusing more on less actives right now which isn't a bad thing. After dinner we went tracting and met this guy with a sailor mouth and SUPER opinionated. I was bold about the gospel with him and despite my comments, he still said no. He was relatively nice, though. Friday we went to Wellington and had 4 lessons with less actives or recent converts. I also forgot to mention that Friday morning I was so tired when I woke up that I fell back to sleep on accident after the alarm turned off. Fortunately I only slept again until 6:38 but I vow to never do that again.

One of the less-actives we saw changed to seventh day Adventist. That church is so anti-Mormon it's unbelievable. We're going to do some major service for him tomorrow so hopefully he starts to realize the testimony he once had and come back to church... just like Dallin. I just have to say that he is a very strange man. We also had some potentials that dropped us. I was super bummed about this one person because her father came out and said we're not interested and no matter how much we bore testimony and how much we tried to pry him, he said not interested again. It tore me apart. People just don't want to pursue the truth. I've been trying to be bold with everyone but sometimes it just doesn't work. Maybe I need to just step it up a bit and be super bold. I think that's what I'm going to start doing. It's also frustrating to see how many people think they're "saved" when they're not! Christ himself said we must endure to the end (see Matthew 10:22) to be saved. I'm just looking forward to when everyone will feel the truthfulness of the gospel in the spirit world. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up now. I still have work to do. Saturday we went down to Caldwell and had a nice hour and a half discussion with this one guy who tends to dominate the conversation most of the time. He said he'd probably come to church next week. We also had another lesson with an older couple that we found a couple of weeks ago. They said they'd try to make it to church next week too because of the holiday this weekend. We also clarified some points about the Book of Mormon and helped answer their questions. They were grateful to understand our church a little more (that reminds me we need to update their teaching record still. Woopsies!) After Caldwell, we had dinner with this young family with 6 kids under 8 years old. They are still learning how to be parents, so it was cool to get to know them because of how close they are (relatively) in age. Later that night we had another less active lesson with this one guy Dad's age. He's a truck driver and has weekend off but is lazy to go to church. He said he'll "surprise us" one of these Sundays and come but wasn't ready to come back yet. He hadn't been to church in over 5 years, he said. So we'll be working with him. Yesterday, I told you about having no investigators at church, but the talks were good. One was by a soon-to-be missionary in a ward in Wichita. He's going to Ghana for his mission in a few months. So that was cool to hear about.We had a cool Gospel principles lesson too. We always are the ones teaching it and we're glad for any audience we get. Elders quorum was the most engaging since my first area. Our main teacher was out of town and he is kind of boring. Our substitute was a great teacher. Our priesthood lesson was on Elder Ballard's talk "This is My Work and My Glory". I told you about Sunday a bit with the recruited football player and all. But we also talked to a couple other less-actives and invited them back to church nest week. Hopefully we'll nab 'em but it's their agency so we'll see. During dinner here at home, I had a very cool spiritual experience. I won't tell you about it on the computer but maybe sometime when I get home or something. Nothing really happened at night, but YEAH! That's my week. Now to answer some of your questions. 

About my allergies, no I haven't taken any medicine. I keep intending to but I just forget whenever I go to the store to get some. That or I just blow it off saying that I won't need it because it'll last for only a few more days with Summer coming upon us. But the next time we get gas I'll buy some there. We don't do too much tracting because the church is trying to turn away from that. We are focusing right now more on less actives and current investigators. I don't necessarily enjoy tracting but know I must do some just to make sure we get those that are spiritually prepared to hear the gospel. I try to mix it up in my approaches. Too many people here just don't care about us or the gospel. But yeah, it's okay. But that's it for me. I'm sure I forgot to say something but whatever. Have a good week and enjoy the last few days of school! It sounds weird to talk about holidays because holidays don't exist on a mission. Anyways, have a good week!

Love,

Elder Sutherland

PS:"Well I was shopping for a new car, which one's me? A new convertible or an SUV?

Too bad I didn't know my credit was wack so now I'm driving off the lot in a used sub compact.

F-R-E-E that spells free. Creditreport.com baby.

Saw their ads on my TV. Thought about going but was too lazy.

Now instead of looking flying, rolling flat. My legs are sticking to the vinyl and my moxy's getting laughed at.

F-R-E-Ecreditreport.com baby!"