Week 17

So Tuesday was a little miserable because we had to bike across town to get to an appointment that didn't end up happening. And it was raining and super cold. So we decided to go over to the English elders' apartment to finish our studies. Then we had them take us to our dinner so we left our bikes at their apartment. We later regretted that decision, haha.  It then for English class instead of helping teach I went in with the ward choir and helped them practice. Which actually worked because afterwards they didn't sound like dying cats! Haha. It was a lot of fun though, I miss singing everyday.

The next day we ended up walking so far and we didn't have time to pick up our bikes. So we were walking a ton. But it was totally worth it in the end because we needed up on a road we would t have tracted otherwise. And we came in contact with a super golden investigator. He answered the door and after a little bit he's like "wait what church are you from?" And we told him and he was like "oh! I went to that church for like 3 months 18 years ago and I loved it, but I moved to Atlanta and lost contact with them." Then we said there's a reason we found him then. We asked if he had a bom and he said he did in the past and loved it too. So we gave him another and set a return for tonight at 6:30!
Thursday we had to walk again which wasn't too bad, but this time it was to get our bikes so that's probably why it wasn't bad, haha. Then we had dinner at grandma morenos house. She told us to call her that. So the branch here is basically 3 huge families, and she's the mom of one of them. But she always gives us so much food. Like that time was 3 huge burritos each. We luckily convinced her to let us take one one for lunch the next day, because we were dying! But she also always has a referral for us. Because she rents her rooms out in her house to a ton of Hispanics. So she just invites one of them to come talk with us and we usually can do the first lesson. It's pretty nice actually, haha.

Then Friday was the mission tour with elder klebingat. Holy cow that man is a powerhouse. And he's German so he was super bold with us. But it was really, really good. I learned so much from it and a lot of things I can improve on.

Saturday we had a kid go out with us who just got back from his mission and it was awesome. He suggested we go to a family friends house. And it ended up being a possible investigator that we had been trying to get in with. So with this kid we got to talk with this guy for awhile. He owns caracasville. You can look it up online. He's such a good cook. And he invited us back over for the 27 because he is busy up until then.  Then that night we met a family from Costa Rica and sat and talked with the mom for a couple hours. It was cool because we taught her the restoration and she agreed with everything. Up until we said the bom is another testament. She says that wording makes it another bible. So we tried explaining it for awhile. Still don't know if she fully understood. But then we invited her to be baptized and she wasn't ready to say yes. Because she feels like then evrythings she's ever done before doesn't mean anything. Including he baptism in 87. So we tried explaining it doesn't mean they have no value, just that it wasn't done by the proper authority. We really just shouldn't have invited her to baptism yet. But I got it back to her reading the bom and finding out if that's true. And then after she can decide about the rest. So hopefully when we go back Wednesday she's there. But she was super awesome and I've never talked so much during a lesson.

Sunday was a highly productive/unproductive day. Haha. First reason is we had a lesson with Manuel before church and got him on date for January 7th. And I really think this ones going to happen. He's already come to church three times and is planning on staying. So just gotta make sure he knows the bom is true! Then right after church we booked it over to Nashville with the Aldays and went to the walk through Bethlehem. The actual event wasn't that cool, but it was a perfect opportunity to talk and gain their trust for a couple hours. Then afterwards they took us out to eat. whoops. Haha. We mad a judgement call and decided it was ok, and it it was good we did. Another long time to talk to them. And we got them to come to the Christmas dinner this Friday. Now we just need to get in and teach them! They keep canceling on us because of their daughters swim meets. But I think it will be easier now. Then we came back to the apartment and did 12 week for the last time! (It's the first 2 transfers in the field training thing) it's bitter sweet. Because it's super boring, but now we have to leave the apartment at 12 instead of 1. So another hour to tract when nobody is home! Yay!

That's the week! Love you fam!

Con amor,
Elder Williams

Week 16 - Hermitage

So this week was an interesting one. We had exchanges from Monday night until Wednesday night. And I took over the area so I had to really test my Spanish?? but it went rather well in that aspect. I could really feel the gift of tongues helping me. Because I didn't have elder Webster here to lean on. That was a fun couple days and I'm so glad I have elder Webster back. Except transfers are this next Tuesday so I'm not sure if we will be together that much longer. I have a feeling I'm going to a new area. But we will know for sure on Saturday!

On Tuesday we had district meeting/ interviews with president. Nothing really exciting there. Just got to talk with him for a couple minutes.

Best white person moment of the week! We knocked on a door at 7:30(not even late yet) and the wife answered the door with the husband right behind her. We said our normal missionary thing and then the husband comes out and just starts yelling at us. He was like "this is a no soliciting neighborhood, get out of here." We reply with "not soliciting and if he knew any Hispanics around." He says "not in here, you're going to try a different neighborhood. And you have no right to be knocking doors this late at night. You're scaring the crap out of people. I had a gun pointed at the door when you knocked. Now get the **** out of here." We replied with "alright have a merry Christmas." His face was priceless, he couldn't believe we were so cool about it haha. Couldn't stop laughing about it for the next little bit haha.

We found a ton of really promising families this week. One of them we knocked on their door at 8:30 and they let us in and we didn't leave until 9:45... whoops. And we didn't even teach anything. But we just talked about how they had met with the missionaries a year before and somehow lost contact. But they were super nice and awesome and we just sat and got to be their friends. This Sunday, if we get permission, we are going to go to something called "walk through Bethlehem" with them and just really get a solid relationship with them. But they would seriously be the coolest members:)
We also were able to come in contact with margarita at her house at 8:30(seems to be a pattern with us). But we just ended up helping her clean her whole kitchen, because her two grown kids who live with her don't help at all. But so we were there till ten..... mega whoops. It's ok, it was for a good cause haha.

Yesterday we accidentally slept in until 8... both of us turned off our iPads the night before and didn't realize the other did to. So elder Webster luckily woke up naturally. But we freaked out and go ready super fast. We had to end up not doing language study, so it was a costly hour and a half. But at least we didn't do it on purpose! I set up my alarm clock from the mtc so that wouldn't happen again haha.
But church we had 2 investigators show up and a less active family too. And the mom of the less active family even got up and bore her testimony! It was awesome. One of the investigators was a golden investigator just placed in our laps. We met him last week at church when one of the most recent converts brought him. He stayed all 4 hours last week and 5 hours this week (we had dinner after church and then we taught him the first lesson) but the lesson went pretty good and we had his friend with us so it was super easy. He's already planning on staying at his church before we started teaching him so we just have to get him all the info and get him baptized! Haha, that's the power of member missionary work:)

That's about it for the week. Love you all and I'm praying for you!

Con amor,
Elder Williams

Week 15 - Hermitage

Hola mi familia,
This week went by super fast because we had thanksgiving in the middle. And it was a lot of fun.
Monday we tracted for a while in the area around an appointment we had and didn't really find anyone. But then the appointment went pretty good and we invited them to be baptized once they knew it to be true.

They said yes, but we aren't sure if they really understood our message. Because then we invited them to church and they both said they couldn't. But if they did understand and it really is just work then they are another promising family.

Tuesday was a day full of tracting into black people, and then nobody showed up to English class. So we tracted even more haha. But we did end up finally finding a Hispanic house and got a return appointment with them!

Wednesday was district meeting and I did my first training! It was on chapter two, how to study effectively, which the actual training part was super boring that even I could tell. But then we got to a role play thing and I had a lot of fun with this one. So I had both English companionships take mine and elder Websters iPad with an ensign pulled up in Spanish. I told them they had 5 minutes to figure out what it's saying and then each had to explain it to us. They were freaking out and thinking it was talking about El Salvador and not the savior.

Elder Webster and I were dying haha. Then I got up after and related it back to effective study. If they had an hour to read these, they could have used more resources like google translate or found the talk in English. But because they didn't "prepare" before hand they couldn't. And then I said it's the same with the gospel in English. If we walk into a lesson without studying it out before, it will be just as if we were doing it in a foreign language. I was pretty proud of that one.

Then the rest of the day we had stock full of appointments, which every single one of them fell through. Then we ended up in an area we hadn't tracted yet. So we knew there was someone here that god wanted us to find, we just had to find them. So we started our selective tracting. Basically we knock a door and wait until they say they're not interested, then ask if they know any Hispanics around them. Yes- we go to that house. No- we skip a couple houses down and do the same thing. It's usually pretty effective and we do it because we don't like white people anymore. But we ended up finding a family who just moved her in the last couple weeks. But they were super nice to us and let us share the whole restoration. But at the end she said she doesn't want to get her religion and ours confused. But we are going to keep trying her because we know there is a reason we found her.
Thursday was definitely not a missionary day haha. We woke up and went straight to the turkey bowl. Which was an absolute blast. It was so fun to just relax for awhile and just have pure fun.  all of us missionaries couldn't walk for the next couple days though, we are all has-beens now haha. Then we went and got ready for the day and went to our district dinner at the ebys. I was really disappointed when it wasn't deep fried turkey, but it's ok I forgave them. But that was a ton of fun and the dad got me super excited for a lot of things. He shared a ton of mission stories and got me really excited to get back to work and work my tail off.  After that we went to our branch presidents house for dinner. Now Hispanics like their turkeys spicy haha. The outside was glazed with a spice and the inside was stuffed with a ground beef/vegetable mix. It was really good but I had already eaten two plates before that so it was a struggle to eat another.

After dinner we played nertz with one of his kids and the kids wife.

Then the rest of the night we just did personal/language study. It was a fun day.

Friday we met with margarita Anderson again, she's the one that the whole branch knows but we couldn't find her. We just kept getting to know her and how we can help her get to church. Then we shared the Christmas video with her. then we had weekly planning and more tracting. Lots of fun.
Saturday we met with Maria again and had a partial lesson about the plan of salvation. It was really hard because her kids kept coming in and distracting us. But we got it out sort of and shared the family proclamation with her. But we will keep trying to get her converted.
She is probably our most promising one.

Sunday we had (technically) 6 investigators at church. We had David and Julie, their son, Mario cardiel, and then two guys we had never met before. But we will count them haha. One of the guys even stayed for 4 hours!(1 hour of choir for Christmas after) so we are going to try to meet with him next Sunday.

That's basically the whole week. I love you all and I'm praying for ya:)

Con amor,
Elder Williams