Family,
Well this has been an eventful week. One filled with trials and yet many blessings. On Monday, we finally got the oil changed. We were supposed to get it at 7500 miles but waited until almost 10000 to get it changed. 2 weeks ago we set the appointment for last week and finally got it done. We got a picture of the odometer changing to 10000 on our phone so that was cool. That night, we taught a lesson with a member present at one of these newer investigators of ours. they are an older couple and helped them move some stuff down in Caldwell like a month ago. The lesson went really well as the spirit was strong. Our member is soooooo good at bearing testimony while being a friend. He's probably the best at doing that in our ward. They said we'd read and pray but didn't invite them to church. We're going to let the spirit of the message work on them a little bit before we go in for the kill.
On Tuesday we had our district meeting in Wichita. I taught about helping our investigators understand the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy. I don't know if it helped because our entire district didn't have one person come to church. We've really been struggling with that recently and our zone leaders are trying to correlate with the district leaders to help in that regard. We've also been struggling a lot with members presents. With so many people moving out of our ward (including the Leavitt's as we found out yesterday) we are losing callings to fill. We need a ward mission plan and without a ward mission leader, it's pretty tough to do that.
Later on Tuesday, we exercised our priesthood and gave 2 blessings to individuals seeking the Lord's guidance. I was grateful to help. The priesthood has really opened my eyes to the vastness of God's power and creations. As the hymn says, "I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me." Without the priesthood, there would be nothing. That's how everything in the creation was organized. It's just amazing to see how people don't understand HOW the Earth was created (or by what power) but just know the WHAT. We also taught a couple other lessons that Tuesday night to newer investigators.
Wednesday was the first of 2 blistering hot days. It got up to like 105 on Wednesday and we had to walk around everywhere (stupid miles). We stopped at this one inactive lady's house who's been a member for her whole life but fell away when she left the house. She's now married to this guy who is the assistant pastor at the local Pentecostal church. I never back down to a challenge because I've heard of preachers being baptized before. Sometimes it takes someone else, though. It was quite interesting to talk to him because his doctrine is different than ours. He knows a lot about Christ's church but disagrees with it. We explained but he waved it off. He is nice, though! He gave us water! It's just a shame to see how far Satan has taken God's children off the straight and narrow path. He sure is good at what he does. After our day of proselyting, we got a call from the AP's telling us that we would be getting a new missionary for about a week and a half because his companion is a visa waiter and needs to be in a mission with an international airport. So President Keyes would be coming down and picking them up to take them back to the Missouri side of the mission. That would happen on Saturday (I'll get into that later).
Thursday was much of the same as Wednesday. We spent the first part of the day in Harper and taught a couple of less active lessons. They said they'd try to make it to church but didn't. Pity. Thursday, I heard it got up to like 109, 110, 111 degrees! With humidity! And we were walking around in that all day. It wasn't too bad once you got used to it (like a swimming pool) but was still hot. It was like Wamego last summer. We had to walk all over during our bike week because...I either didn't have a bike or it was broken. Anyways, after talking to one less active lady who wants to come back to church (she's watching her granddaughter and taking care of them on Sundays and is so tired once the weekend rolls around that she never makes it), we drove down to Anthony to have dinner at a restaurant down there named the Cancun: a Mexican that has place that has only Mexicans working there. While we were eating, however, a sudden storm blew in and the wind was so hard that I seriously thought there was a tornado around. But there was no siren. Just heavy winds and light rain. We sought shelter but then got a message saying you still need to be out proselyting if there's no siren. So, out we went. We had called the zone leaders already and then President Keyes telling him about us staying downstairs but no response. So we just left and proselyted for the rest of the evening. During a lesson with one of our investigators, we had the power go out. It was out for like 10-15 minutes. But for Wichita, the power is still out as I type this. Apparently the winds up there got up to like 80 miles an hour or so. It blew trees down all over the place, tore roofs off, and did more damage than the tornadoes did of last month. But the storm soon subsided where we were without too much damage. So the temperature that day went from 111 to 70 in less than an hour. Crazy, huh?
Friday was an interesting day. Our main highlight was teaching this one guy who is a young biker. He is dating this one girl who lives up in Ottawa, Kansas. Apparently the situation is pretty serious because she said if he's going to marry him, they are going to have to be sealed together. He was wondering how to do that and was told to get in contact with us. So I was afraid it was one of those "flirt to convert" situations but made sure he understood the importance and significance of joining the church. After sharing the restoration with him, we invited him to baptism. He said no and after explaining authority he still said no. He believed that his baptist pastor had the authority to baptize him. He later texted us and asked if he needed to join the church to be sealed. I said yes and was quite bold with him.... He never answered back. During the lesson, I felt like I wasn't teaching well enough but later realized that the thing that was missing was the spirit. So I've been trying to be better at that since then. After a few other lessons throughout the day, we went home.
Saturday we had an appointment fall through in the morning so we just went home and made some calls before heading up to Wichita to pick up the new Elder, Elder Hellbusch, and his companion going to Brazil, Elder LaPray. We then went to the 13th street building to wait for President Keyes to pick them up. It was tough to say goodbye one last time to President Keyes as our mission president. Before my mission I thought he would be there for the whole duration of my mission. But little did I know what the Lord had in mind last October in general conference thus needing to expand for more missions for the missionaries to fit in and therefore more mission presidents. I hear President Bell is super cool. I will be meeting him this Wednesday so I am excited about that. After the goodbyes we left to get Elder Hellbusch's stuff and then back to the Wellington area. Elder Hellbusch just turned 21 this past week and has been out for 19 months. He's from Denver, Colorado and loves skating (just like Dallin!). He also went to BYU-Idaho for 2 semesters for fall 2010 and summer 2011. So I just missed him! But he's super cool and has already bolstered our companionship with a great spirit. He sure has a strong testimony and great ability to not only teach the gospel, but teach by the spirit. So I'm trying to take his example and use it for my own work. I need to lose my pride. So I'll be working on that this week.
While at one of our recent convert's house, our phone fell out of Elder Dansie's pocket without him realizing it. So we were without a phone for about 24 hours. I tell you, being without a phone for that long is quite tough. But we were without one for like a week when I first got here, so no biggy, right? I could tell this was going to be a great week and a half until transfers with Elder Hellbusch by the great lessons we taught with him. On Sunday, a fifth Sunday, we had a productive ward council meeting. But during sacrament meeting, however, one of our older members gave a 35 minute monologue talk about a missionary experience while she was in Arkansas. I didn't really understand the whole gist of it. But I am sure she did which is the most important thing. Our Bishop was out of town and left everyone totally unprepared for our fifth Sunday third hour lesson. So after a good Sunday school lesson, brother Leavitt taught a "wing it" lesson. It was about preparedness and all that was talked about most of the time was food storage. I thought it was quite intriguing, believe it or not. Everyone was engaged and involved. I'm not a food storage buff but it was cool. Proselyting for the rest of the day was great! We taught a couple other lessons and met new people. Hopefully we can continue in helping others come closer to Christ as this week begins. I will be meeting President Bell on Wednesday at a special meet and greet with him. So I am excited and look forward to it. So yep! That was my week for you!
On Tuesday we had our district meeting in Wichita. I taught about helping our investigators understand the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy. I don't know if it helped because our entire district didn't have one person come to church. We've really been struggling with that recently and our zone leaders are trying to correlate with the district leaders to help in that regard. We've also been struggling a lot with members presents. With so many people moving out of our ward (including the Leavitt's as we found out yesterday) we are losing callings to fill. We need a ward mission plan and without a ward mission leader, it's pretty tough to do that.
Later on Tuesday, we exercised our priesthood and gave 2 blessings to individuals seeking the Lord's guidance. I was grateful to help. The priesthood has really opened my eyes to the vastness of God's power and creations. As the hymn says, "I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me." Without the priesthood, there would be nothing. That's how everything in the creation was organized. It's just amazing to see how people don't understand HOW the Earth was created (or by what power) but just know the WHAT. We also taught a couple other lessons that Tuesday night to newer investigators.
Wednesday was the first of 2 blistering hot days. It got up to like 105 on Wednesday and we had to walk around everywhere (stupid miles). We stopped at this one inactive lady's house who's been a member for her whole life but fell away when she left the house. She's now married to this guy who is the assistant pastor at the local Pentecostal church. I never back down to a challenge because I've heard of preachers being baptized before. Sometimes it takes someone else, though. It was quite interesting to talk to him because his doctrine is different than ours. He knows a lot about Christ's church but disagrees with it. We explained but he waved it off. He is nice, though! He gave us water! It's just a shame to see how far Satan has taken God's children off the straight and narrow path. He sure is good at what he does. After our day of proselyting, we got a call from the AP's telling us that we would be getting a new missionary for about a week and a half because his companion is a visa waiter and needs to be in a mission with an international airport. So President Keyes would be coming down and picking them up to take them back to the Missouri side of the mission. That would happen on Saturday (I'll get into that later).
Thursday was much of the same as Wednesday. We spent the first part of the day in Harper and taught a couple of less active lessons. They said they'd try to make it to church but didn't. Pity. Thursday, I heard it got up to like 109, 110, 111 degrees! With humidity! And we were walking around in that all day. It wasn't too bad once you got used to it (like a swimming pool) but was still hot. It was like Wamego last summer. We had to walk all over during our bike week because...I either didn't have a bike or it was broken. Anyways, after talking to one less active lady who wants to come back to church (she's watching her granddaughter and taking care of them on Sundays and is so tired once the weekend rolls around that she never makes it), we drove down to Anthony to have dinner at a restaurant down there named the Cancun: a Mexican that has place that has only Mexicans working there. While we were eating, however, a sudden storm blew in and the wind was so hard that I seriously thought there was a tornado around. But there was no siren. Just heavy winds and light rain. We sought shelter but then got a message saying you still need to be out proselyting if there's no siren. So, out we went. We had called the zone leaders already and then President Keyes telling him about us staying downstairs but no response. So we just left and proselyted for the rest of the evening. During a lesson with one of our investigators, we had the power go out. It was out for like 10-15 minutes. But for Wichita, the power is still out as I type this. Apparently the winds up there got up to like 80 miles an hour or so. It blew trees down all over the place, tore roofs off, and did more damage than the tornadoes did of last month. But the storm soon subsided where we were without too much damage. So the temperature that day went from 111 to 70 in less than an hour. Crazy, huh?
Friday was an interesting day. Our main highlight was teaching this one guy who is a young biker. He is dating this one girl who lives up in Ottawa, Kansas. Apparently the situation is pretty serious because she said if he's going to marry him, they are going to have to be sealed together. He was wondering how to do that and was told to get in contact with us. So I was afraid it was one of those "flirt to convert" situations but made sure he understood the importance and significance of joining the church. After sharing the restoration with him, we invited him to baptism. He said no and after explaining authority he still said no. He believed that his baptist pastor had the authority to baptize him. He later texted us and asked if he needed to join the church to be sealed. I said yes and was quite bold with him.... He never answered back. During the lesson, I felt like I wasn't teaching well enough but later realized that the thing that was missing was the spirit. So I've been trying to be better at that since then. After a few other lessons throughout the day, we went home.
Saturday we had an appointment fall through in the morning so we just went home and made some calls before heading up to Wichita to pick up the new Elder, Elder Hellbusch, and his companion going to Brazil, Elder LaPray. We then went to the 13th street building to wait for President Keyes to pick them up. It was tough to say goodbye one last time to President Keyes as our mission president. Before my mission I thought he would be there for the whole duration of my mission. But little did I know what the Lord had in mind last October in general conference thus needing to expand for more missions for the missionaries to fit in and therefore more mission presidents. I hear President Bell is super cool. I will be meeting him this Wednesday so I am excited about that. After the goodbyes we left to get Elder Hellbusch's stuff and then back to the Wellington area. Elder Hellbusch just turned 21 this past week and has been out for 19 months. He's from Denver, Colorado and loves skating (just like Dallin!). He also went to BYU-Idaho for 2 semesters for fall 2010 and summer 2011. So I just missed him! But he's super cool and has already bolstered our companionship with a great spirit. He sure has a strong testimony and great ability to not only teach the gospel, but teach by the spirit. So I'm trying to take his example and use it for my own work. I need to lose my pride. So I'll be working on that this week.
While at one of our recent convert's house, our phone fell out of Elder Dansie's pocket without him realizing it. So we were without a phone for about 24 hours. I tell you, being without a phone for that long is quite tough. But we were without one for like a week when I first got here, so no biggy, right? I could tell this was going to be a great week and a half until transfers with Elder Hellbusch by the great lessons we taught with him. On Sunday, a fifth Sunday, we had a productive ward council meeting. But during sacrament meeting, however, one of our older members gave a 35 minute monologue talk about a missionary experience while she was in Arkansas. I didn't really understand the whole gist of it. But I am sure she did which is the most important thing. Our Bishop was out of town and left everyone totally unprepared for our fifth Sunday third hour lesson. So after a good Sunday school lesson, brother Leavitt taught a "wing it" lesson. It was about preparedness and all that was talked about most of the time was food storage. I thought it was quite intriguing, believe it or not. Everyone was engaged and involved. I'm not a food storage buff but it was cool. Proselyting for the rest of the day was great! We taught a couple other lessons and met new people. Hopefully we can continue in helping others come closer to Christ as this week begins. I will be meeting President Bell on Wednesday at a special meet and greet with him. So I am excited and look forward to it. So yep! That was my week for you!
How was the trip to Blythe? Is Jayson's hearing better? How was Cody's last EFY? I truly enjoy hearing about your week because it helps me know that my prayers aren't going unnoticed. Dad, that's funny that that one guy's last name really is engineer. Why can't my last name be like "baseball player" or something that would guarantee a spot in the majors? Haha, just kidding. I did hear about the overruling of prop 8. When you described the details, I thought about Christ's last night in mortality and how many things the lawyers and judgers and stuff did that were against the law. Stupid California. Why are you so retarded? We won the vote fair and square. Hey, why don't they do the same thing they did for prop 8 and do it for the US president election? Now, wouldn't that be nice? Was the UT like: "take that, Mormons!"? I bet they were. I'm so glad I'm on my mission and don't hear about all this stuff. I'm sure stuff happens everyday that I don't want to hear about. But anyways, I best be off. I hope y'all have a great week! Talk to you soon! Love,
Elder Sutherland
PS: "I am a musical instrument with speed and aromance."
-Mater the tow truck
Thanks for getting this all together and online....
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