Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Week 28: In which I discuss a sample day, miraculously find Luciano, and #LIGHTtheWORLD

Thus begins the Christmas season!

(Written on Dec 5, 2016)
Hola, todos! Mi tiempo es extremadamente corto hoy, porque tenia muchas cosas para hacer. Lo siento mucho!

Hello everyone! My time is extremely short today, because I had a lot of things to do. I'm so sorry!

Washington is awesome! It's getting pretty cold... but still no snow! That's just the worst. I heard you're getting some there in Utah, but I could be mistaken. Here's a sample day, taken from a relatively average day here in Othello, WA:

6:30-7:00 Wake up, go exercise with the 4 other Elders that live really close to us
7:00-8:00 Eat, prepare for the day
8:00-10:00 Personal study and Companionship study
10:00-11:00 Language study with the other 4 missionaries
11:00-12:00 Lunch
12:00-1:00 Knock doors
1:00-2:00 Service
2:00-4:00 Tract
4:00-5:00 Try to find/teach someone who didn't keep a teaching appointment
5:00-6:00 Dinner
6:00-7:00 Teach a less-active member with another member with us
7:00-8:00 Try to find/teach someone who didn't keep a teaching appointment
8:00-9:00 Try to contact a less-active member

Of course, we do sometimes actually have teaching appointments, and sometimes they completely fill up the day. We also have at least 2 backup plans for every plan. Usually, it's either trying to contact and teach people or knocking doors. Some days, we knock doors for a lot more time. However, in an effort to keep things balanced here between finding and teaching, we have a mission rule that we have to knock doors for at least 1 hour every day. That should at least give you an idea of what it's like here, but really, every single day is usually pretty different.

Excerpt from my email to President, since I wanted to share these but don't have time to write them up new (sorry again, running out of time):

Also, I wanted to share #LIGHTtheWORLD miracle! Earlier this week, we were tracting and came across a cool lady. Apparently, she had been an investigator some time before, and wasn't really interested in the message. She was friendly, though. However, we then shared #LIGHTtheWORLD with her and she got a bit excited. As it turns out, she and her husband had been trying to figure out what they wanted to do for a family advent calendar for their kids. They had thought about getting chocolate, but that wasn't exactly what they were looking for. When we shared #LIGHTtheWORLD, though, she exclaimed that it was exactly the kind of thing she had been looking for just earlier that day! She still wasn't really interested in hearing more of our message, but she really liked the church initiative. I hope and pray that that will open her up more and continue to aid in her preparation.

Finally, we met a really cool guy named Luciano. He was actually a media referral some other Elders in our district, but they couldn't find him. My companion aptly noticed that there was another road of the same name in our area, so the other Elders asked us to check by. The only catch was, we didn't have any information on this person! We just had a name and address; we didn't even know what he had requested. Well, I suppose we also knew he preferred English. That's about it.

Anyways, we finally were able to fit in some time to go to the area where he lives (it's a little ways from town, especially by bike). We had planned to teach the Restoration, seeing as we didn't really have much information. When we reached his address, we saw a guy in front working on his car. We went up and talked to him, and it was our referral! Hehehe. Bingo. As we talked with him, he opened up a bit and asked us a very profound question he had been wondering about for a long time: Why did Christ have to be crucified?

At that point, we figured it was a good idea to throw our plans out the window and share a little bit about the Atonement/Plan of Salvation. Interesting, no? The very week I begin to gain an even greater appreciation for the Atonement we end up teaching about it. He started paying more attention. Afterwards, we testified of eternal families, since he had also recently lost his mother, and offered to say a prayer. As we finished the prayer, he was in tears. The spirit was very strong. When we asked him how he felt in his heart, he just said "good." With a little further prodding, he nodded and said it was a different kind of feeling, a feeling he also gets when he thinks about how much he cares about his family. Needless to say, we are going back.

I tend to write long letters sometimes. Anyways, I wish you all an extremely wonderful Christmas season, and I wish you all the best! Lots of love sent your way from Othello!
Elder Adams

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