Elder Daniel Eliason is back home! :)

Week 95

This is now my 105th week in the mission. I have 1 day left. My last day of proselyting was yesterday. We had two totally awesome lessons.

1st lesson was a 10 o'clock in the morning before church. It was a standard first lesson, but it was perfect. Point for point. Inspired questions. How to Begin Teaching using the last bullet point about baptism. All went perfectly well. 

That was a first for me on my mission when that happened exactly in that way.

Then the last lesson on the day was a first as well. 

This Member family invited 1 family to come and listen to us. This family just had an aunt that died. The Grandmother showed up with the rest of her kids and all the grand-kids too. It was like a family reunion (except one of the sisters was missing because she died in a car crash two weeks ago). There were some 25 people there. We taught all of them the Restoration. It went well. It is hard to teach so many people at a time but we did it. That was the first time I have ever taught such a large group on my mission. All this happened on my last day of proselyting, Totally awesome. Also on Saturday, the day before we got to do a couple hours of service.

On Friday, we had double appointments,  we had to do a split with some of the members to be able to go to both appointments (also a first for me on my mission). When we were waiting for the members to show up on the corner of this street and the other street we were parked next to an old man working on putting the dirt around the new foundation of his fabricated house. He was Hispanic but we had two appointments to get to. So neither of us really noticed. Well, we split with the two

members (which was a first on my mission as well) and all the appointments fell through, everyone else we both went to visit were not able to talk with us at that moment. We ended the split an hour later and we went to our next appointment, which fell through as well. We then realized the missed opportunity we had to do service with that one really old Hispanic guy so we went and offered help. He refused. He only had one shovel. We asked him if he had another. He said he had one at his house. We asked him if he would go get it while we worked on shoveling the dirt. He refused. We asked if he would let us help if we found some shovels ourselves. He said yes. We immediately went to a couple members’ houses we knew had shovels and they let us borrow a couple. We then went back to help him. He was quite surprised. We helped him for 50 min or so. We then returned Saturday morning to help him shovel some more. He did not show up but we still finished filling in the one side of his house with dirt. That took the two of us an hour and a half.

Week 94

So we sent Elder Rios to Mexico yesterday. Elder Tillotson, my last companion, whom I trained to be a district leader, because he was going to need to help his new companion be a new district leader, is now a new district leader himself. Elder Ponce will be training again. 

I am freaking out with all the things that I need to get done. I have become a master at sewing with a thread and needle because by now all my stuff is falling apart. I fixed the hem in couple of my pants. I have resewn on a million buttons. I have fixed one of my suit coats myself. I fixed my backpack.

Week 93

I don't have a whole lot to say. It looks like Elder Rios will not be leaving until transfers. 

This last week we almost lost all of our baptismal dates. We found out that two of our dates, who are living together and not married, actually have a no contact order. One of them has her residency, the other is illegal and has already been deported twice; he has no problem making it back over the border. Apparently, the reason for the no contact order is because he has abused her and the ward has known. 

Two of our other dates were not meeting with us and we were not able to help them progress. We were about to drop the date when we were finally able to reset the baptismal date. 

Our other baptismal date has had no contact with us for more than a week; we are still trying to work with him. 

........ All I have to say is that it is starting to become very difficult not to be trunky.

Week 92

I just talked to you all yesterday, but I did not exactly talk about what had happened in the week. This last week we set a baptismal date in the YSA ward. It was exciting because the missionaries have not had work there in quite a while. We set the baptismal date right after we played basketball on Friday night. We play basketball in Aberdeen every Friday night with investigators and members. We had a lesson right after, we finished basketball at 9:10. Remember that we are supposed to be home by 9 unless in a lesson. Then we can return home at 9:30. We were in Aberdeen so it takes 20 minutes to drive to American Falls and we still needed to find someone that could give us a ride because we don't have the miles to drive up there ourselves every week like that. So we had the lesson, which went until 10:10. We set a baptismal date but at that rate we were going to get home way late. After the lesson we could not find a ride so we had to go spend the night with Elder Zamora. We got super rebuked by the zone leaders (which I am not surprised nor am I mad).

There are different levels of obedience in the mission. There are those that just don't care about being obedient. There are those that are overzealous about being strictly obedient. There are those that are only obedient when it is convenient and when it is not convenient they think it is fine to disobey rules. Then there are those that are strictly obedient and understand that on rare occasion there are some exceptions to rules. (which is the category that I would place myself)

I would give judgment on rules thus. Is it a want or a need? And if it is a need, is there another way to do things to fulfill the need without breaking rules (even if it is inconvenient)? I am determined that exceptions to rules should not be common. It was a rare occasion in the Book of Mormon when someone was told to murder someone else and have it be OK  Nephi, and Tiancom when he snuck in one time to murder the leader of the other army. But then he thought that it was OK to do that, and he went to do it again, but out of anger the second time and he did not have the help of the Lord and he died. I am determined that the rules we have, have been given to us by a prophet and that we ought to obey them. Yes on occasion there are exceptions, which brings in the principles of priesthood keys. (we were trained on this in the leadership training meeting one time.)

A week or two ago we helped some people remove a fence. Other than that we have not done a ton of service. 

Elder Rios went to Salt Lake last week because he went to go see the Mexican consulate. They just got a picture and fingerprints and stuff. He flew back the same day at 11:00 o'clock at night. We had to go pick him up. He will probably be getting his visa this week. Then it will just be Elder Ponce and I. 

We will be moving apartments again. Every time I get moved I also move apartments as well. I will have served in 4 areas and 10 apartments, by the end of my mission. I sure hope I don't get Emergency transferred right after we move. I moved right before I got to this area and I will move right when I get to my new area. I have already been cleaning the crap out of the apartment we currently live in because it was a mess when I got here.

Week 91

I am still confused as to everyone we are teaching. We are trying to do Young Single Adult work but it is not really happening. It feels very weird to go to a YSA ward and do YSA work. Most everyone is a bit older. They are usually young parents with many little kids. Or new grandparents about your age that are just starting to think about their grandchildren. We have a couple people I am still not too familiar with. 

 

I got everything fine. The box was ripped open. That happened somewhere between the mission office and my place. I got it on Friday the day before my birthday. I figured that it was ripped open between the mission office and here because the tag that the mission office put on it was also slightly damaged. It did not appear that anything was taken. The cookies and everything else seemed to be there. 

Things are going ok. I love doing the missionary work and I wish that I could keep doing it. Everything is fine. I am not under any stress at all now. I am having a very good time. And I have gained respect in the eyes of many people. I know that I have a lot of respect from the mission president and both of the assistants. I have trained more times than any other missionary in the mission except for Elder Bills who is about 25 or 26 and had already completed his degree in college (great guy. he came out with me).

Week 90

So now I am with Elder Ponce and Elder Rios (Elder Rivers in English, but his name is actually Rios. His grandpa is from Puerto Rico).  We have a lot of work compared to my last area. Everything has been ok... There are no major problems with obedience. It is sort of interesting. He wakes up an hour earlier to exercise (not really against the rules) We go to the gym here to lift weights at the school. We don’t have to pay anything. There was an elder in this area that had gotten permission from President Brinkerhoff to go there because it is so early in the morning and no one else is really there, but I don't know how really valid that is. No problems, but questionable. There is nothing bad as comparable to Elder Puga or most other elders, but I will try to be a positive influence.  

I will be skyping home for mother's day.    

I love you all. See you in two weeks. Then after that I will see you all in three weeks.... lol

Week 89

So today it snowed quite a bit. Yes. It snowed in late April. I would send you pictures but I will be home in just a few weeks. Love you all. Thanks for all your support.

Transfer info.....

 

I am being transferred for my last transfer. I am going to American Falls Spanish with the Young Single Adults. I will be a companion with elder Ponce the two of us will be training a new visa waiter waiting to go to Argentina. It will be a co-senior, co-trainer, and one trainee companionship.

Elder Ponce was just promoted to be a senior companion. He is a really good elder. 

Week 88

So I got my trunky papers this week. 

Now  when people ask how long I have been out, I just tell them that I have a 2 hour lay over in Salt Lake and they just give me a blank look, then they ask, "so how many weeks left?" It is pretty funny. 

In my trunky papers, I got a letter from president asking me to prepare for departing interview. I will have my last zone conference in just a few weeks in which I will get to bear my testimony since it is my last. There is a reason that the trunky papers are called the trunky papers.

I can’t believe that 2 years are almost over.

enough trunkyness.

I have been in this area for almost 6 months now. I had one baptism when I got here with my good obedient companion, Elder Ericson. But once Elder Puga showed up the work slowed to a crawl instead of having about 10 lessons a week, we started having about 3 lessons a week, and no success at all. Now that Elder Tillotson has been here I have been feeling the Spirit working through us to bless those in our area. But we have still only had about 6-7 lessons a week. We have been working hard though. I just feel like I learned so much and then in just 2 transfers I was brought down to the beginning of my mission again. We just got some good advice from the mission president and hopefully we will be getting over 15 lessons a week here soon, but I just feel like I’m caput. 

I am still having a hard time as a district leader. This is what happens.

As a missionary you are responsible for how your investigators obey commandments, but as long as you invite them to do things better and you explain to them the consequences of their actions, no one gets mad at you if your investigators use their own agency to disobey commandments, as long as you explain to what the commandments are. But once you are a senior companion you are then responsible for your companion as well as your investigators, and if you companion does something, the whole idea of as long as you explain it, it is not enough. If your companion does something bad at all, you are responsible for it as well. There is none of this "oh, he is using his own agency", everyone instantly blames you and judges you for all your companions mistakes. And when you become a district leader, the same thing happens except with your district. It is a bit rough.   

This coming week we do have one baptism coming up. She is 9. Over aged youth. We have another that will be coming up at the end of the month. So we do have some success right now, but things are still pretty slow. 

When you sit in the car for 30 minutes at the end of the night wondering what to do with your last few minutes because you already visited everyone who was not home and there is nothing else to do. You don't have miles to go anywhere, you don't have anyone to call, nothing. That is when you know that you need more work.

Week 87

Things have been interesting. I did not change areas but I have moved places again. I have only been in 3 areas but yet I have been in 8 different houses. That was fun. 

This last week we had interviews with president. It was very interesting. They gave us several ideas of things that they want to do in this mission. But then at general conference, Elder Nelson totally repeated what we heard from our mission president. Yet it was our mission president’s idea.... well the Lords idea given to our mission president as well as others.

Anyway it is fun. We have two over aged youth that will be getting baptized here soon.  Hopefully everything goes well. When you are teaching kids you have to adapt to the parents schedules so it is very hard to get through all the material.

I am still having a hard time figuring out how to use my time effectively. As a district leader I have to do so much. I have not been able to write in my real journal for 6 months now. My little mini journal is behind several weeks and it is bugging me because I cannot catch up.  I am still getting to bed past 11 o’clock on Thursday and Sunday nights. But I am happy because my district is doing a great job supporting me when I ask them for help or if I need them to do things.

They are doing the things I ask them. Most recently, they had all their numbers ready when I called for them last night, instead of me waiting for them to finish numbers.

Mom yes I did. I actually sent him an email to his mission email address, that you had sent me and he replied to it, so I guess the church mail system forwarded the email I sent him to his personal email. He actually already emailed me back. That was nice, but thanks for getting the other email address anyway.

Miracles? not any so amazing. But I went to a leadership meeting with president and all the district and zone leaders of the mission.

It turns out I have a lot more authority to give exceptions to mission rules than I thought. They want me to follow up with everyone daily; I cannot remember a whole lot right now.

I love you Mom. I hope today is the best Birthday You could have. Sorry I was not able to write you a hand written letter. It was because I was moving last week. I realized however how grateful I was that I had you as a mother. This last general conference I noticed all the new things that they are implementing for all the youth now.  That is what you did at home that blessed me so much in my life. Thank you.... not to mention how much you suffered because of your ideas in the eyes of other members.  

Hi sadie!!!!!!! I love you.

Sadie,

I just want to let you know that the one thing I have learned on the mission is that you are always happier when you help others and do everything that you can for them. That is the only way I have been able to make it through the most difficult times in my mission. Don't you ever forget that. (^_^).

I will be going to the temple with my companion this Friday. 

Honestly, I have no clue what I want for my birthday. I have no ideas. As for clothes. I don't know. Games..... no clue.  

Week 86

I am preparing pictures to send, but I don't think that will happen today. 

This last week has been good. I want to describe something very important "there is no such thing as an accident or a coincident" God makes all those things happen. I find the more you follow the Spirit, the more it will happen. It has been happening so much lately. I cannot share every situation. This just helps me know that what I am doing is what the Lord needs me to do.

We had to move. We moved in with other members this morning. Last night I did not get to bed until 12:30.  I was making district leader phone calls until 11:05 pm and then I had to pack.   I did not get to bed until 12:30 because I literally had no time for 3 days to pack. I had tried but my district leader responsibilities got in the way every single day leaving me no time to do things. In fact we still need to go back and clean our living space of the members house that we were living in because we did not have time to do that either.

Anyway I am doing very well. Because we had to move, I was able to pack up my stuff to see how heavy it is. It looks like I am going to need to send as many books as possible home the week before I leave because my two bags weigh 50 lb each and my carry on weighs 50 lb as well, which is not going to work. I am considering just leaving most of the white shirts I have, except for a few nice ones. 

I decided to share one of the stories that happened this week, just because of how awesome but simple it was. 

This was during the time where we were so flipping busy that we did not even have time to plan what we wanted to do in the day (yes, we are always supposed to plan but the Lord understands when we cannot). We were out in this one area, we were contemplating going home 30 min early to clean and pack. But we both decided that we still wanted to visit someone when we could think of no one to visit. We were right next to the main road, which would be the fastest route to get home. We were out and about and I could have easily taken the shorter road home. But instead, I exercised self control to go an extra mile, and an extra few minutes to go the longer way home. It just felt right. I did not argue with the feeling. I just said, "lets go this way home and maybe we will think of someone to visit" and my companion just said "sounds good". So we went. We were approaching this one house of a family who are active members and they have 2 kids that are 8 preparing to be baptized. We had visited them before but we had finished the lessons with their kids, we had no reason to pass by. (side note, the husband had had a divorce and got remarried to this great person, this new couple is amazing, but the 2 kids are his kids. but every time they come from their birth mother they are always attention hungry and behave horribly) As we passed the house both Elder Tillotson and I said in our hearts and to each other, lets go see how the Brimhall family is doing today. We had not seen them for about 3 weeks. We went and knocked and newly married Sister Brimhall answered the door. No one else was home. Sister Brimhall had served a mission. We told her that we were passing by and that we just wanted to see how the family was doing. She gave us sort of an odd look. She realized that we were sent to her door. She broke down into tears for about two seconds because she knew that God had sent us to her door but she quickly regained herself within 2 seconds (literally) and then she said, "I need a blessing, Br. Brimhall is not here right now, I need to prepare a talk that I have not even started yet (that was Saturday night) and Br. Brimhalls ex-wife is giving us a really hard time and it is extremely hard on me. We suggested that we go to the back porch to give her a blessing. My companion gave the blessing. We attended her ward that next day and she gave a good talk even though she was a little emotional.

That is just one such tiny experience that shows how much our Heavenly Father loves us. These accidents/coincident are influenced by the Spirit. All that happens in just a matter of minutes, and if you do not look carefully you may miss the fact that it was influenced by God.

Week 85

So this last week we have been seeing a lot of good things happen. I am able to do my duties as a district leader now to the fullest and I feel much more accomplished.  I am now trying to get back into the mode of a missionary trying to buckle down and work hard. In our area, tracting is not successful as it is in other areas. The only time anyone will let us in is if we have a member with us.

We finally had a miracle Saturday that we were both not expecting and we found a new investigator from a door we knocked on. She is Hispanic. She said that she had not talked to missionaries before. She was catholic, but very nice. She gave us a couple tamales each. We were just talking to her and she talked about how her daughter had died. We asked her if she had thought much about what happens after death, and she said that some believe that there is another life after this one, but she was not sure. We testified to her that we know what happens afterwards, and that our church teaches this. We shared a 10 minute version of the lesson and we gave her a pamphlet to read for when we come back. We testified of eternal families and we could totally feel the spirit. It has been a long time since I had an experience like that. It made me very happy to know that I was still able to listen and follow the spirit to bless the lives of those who I am here to serve. 

Week 84

No complaints. My new companion is totally awesome. I hope to end my mission with a bang. His name is Elder Tillotson. He is humble. 

We have tracted so many doors just in the past few days. We have gotten and contacted so many referrals. I have a good companion (very obedient, but not obsessively)

I don't have a lot to say. I feel like we are starting to see miracles because we are following the spirit and we have unity. For example, "I feel we should go knock on that house" and it actually worked guided by the spirit. With Elder Puga it was, "I feel we should go knock on that house" "NO." "Why not?" "Because that is stupid."

I do feel the spirit a lot and now we are seeing many good things happening.

I will get you a bunch of pictures next week.

Week 83

Elder Puga is being transferred.

This last week during companion inventory, I had a talk with Elder Puga. I decided to talk with Elder Puga again about the headphones. He got fuming mad. He told me that I had never talked to him about it. I remember when I did talk to him about it. I did not sit down and say "Elder Puga, we need to talk" but I remember when I clearly had told him that headphones were against rules, in fact I had offered several times for him to use my speakers. But I presume he was not even listening to me because he never does. But since this last time I talked to him (by actually sitting down and saying, "we need to talk"), he has not used headphones.

I have seen too many missionaries justify disobeying rules and twist the words of the white handbook during the course of my mission.

 I will be getting Elder Tilittsen.

I don't know much about him. He has been out as long as Elder Puga but I will be his third companion in the mission. He just finished being trained.  So, Elder Puga will be with Elder Mayor from Argentina and his companion will be with me.

Week 82

Nothing much has happened this week. Everything is still the same. 

This week we will find out what happens at next transfers, not much more.

week 81

This week has been very crazy. I went on exchanges with the zone leaders and they are trying to help me with my companion. I told them I had already talked to my companion about not using headphones but he still uses them. The zone leader helped me out to make sure he mentioned it to him too, but my companion is still using them.  This only makes things infinitely harder when I am trying to help my district when I hardly have time to do that because I don't really have the support of my companion because instead of supporting me as a district leader he causes more problems.

week 80

This week was crazy.

 I am on a record now for how many personalized responses I have gotten from president. Usually he copies and pastes something in his email back and then writes something specific but it is very generalized for the whole mission. But in my emails for the past 4 weeks or so I have gotten a lot of very personalized letters from him because of what is going on in the district. It is sort of interesting. 

 I am doing great. I am doing and going through everything with a lot of hope and patience. I have been great.

I learned how to do this amazing zig zag tie. So it crosses over itself like 5 times and creates this zig zag pattern. And it is about the same size as a normal tie not

week79

With regard to what I said about "others" and inviting them to come unto Christ, Preach My Gospel actually refers to doing that with whatever your responsibility is, for me that includes training being senior companion and being a district leader. And so far that is all I have done, "invite". I am not constantly on people’s cases for everything. I simply invite them to do better and I leave it at that. I do not get mad or upset if they don't. I am saddened when they don't because I know how it will bless them, and I know how important it is, but I do not get mad.     

So a couple transfers ago we had transfers a week early and stuff.

We had a transfer that was 5 weeks then this last one was 7 weeks long and then the next one is 5 weeks long because of the age change stuff and the change in the time of the MTC. Then every transfer after that will be 6 weeks long like normal. 

This means that my mission was just officially shortened by a week.

week 78

Well, I don't have a whole lot to say this week. It is crazy. 

I am not too cold, I am still only using my coat and that is it. The temperature is around 32 deg.  Cool to hear AZ got a lot of snow.  

I am trying to think of more ways to exercise, rather than just doing sit-ups and pushups. Those are really not effective because it is hard to push myself when I first wake up. I had a couple of ideas the other day hopefully they will be work better.

week 77

 I am still getting bombarded with things to do and things I need to improve on. It is quite difficult especially when trying to satisfy the zone leaders.

I still have way too much to do,  This is causing me to think "I only have to put up with this for another 4 months." That is what we call a trunky thought.

  

One thing I really appreciated that my companion said to me is that I am the most obedient elder he has seen in this mission. That made me feel better.

week 76

Today’s email is a bit disorganized. 

  

My responsibilities as a district leader just went way up. I now just lost all personal time. I now don't even have time to correctly train my companion. I am losing time to just work in my area. They want me to call every member of the district every day. That will take about 30 min to do every day.  It is ok, but trying to train at the same time is a nightmare.

I have a ton of pictures I want to send but it will have to wait. 

I love you all. I am doing well.

I hope all is well at home.

week 75

We just got new cards to use. Instead of having JP Morgan cards we are now using bank of America cards.

We had to go get new tires on our car. They were almost bald.

Last week the mission doctor made it mandatory for everyone to get flu shots. I had already had mine and I have not gotten sick. But about 40% of the mission was useless for the last week because so many elders were sick. 20% were sick,  their companions had to stay with them. 

 

I don't know if I had explained this but that family I taught in my last area, the one that was anti-Mormon and everything, are getting ready to be baptized. I think I told you all about the amazing lesson we had that caused such a change.

We would invite the spirit then he would chase it away and then we would invite the sprit again and he would chase it away again with the spirit of contention wanting to bash. That repeated over and over in that lesson. We kept inviting the spirit and at one point in the lesson he accepted which is why he is now about to be baptized.

Yesterday we had a lesson with someone in a very similar way. It was amazing but he never ended up accepting the spirit after we invited it like several times.  I don't know if he will be baptized but I know I am doing my job when the investigator feels the spirit.

week 74

The other day I was thinking..... yes when your companion is sick you spend time thinking, when normally I don't have time to think.

I made a list of the blessings that I gave before my mission. 

1st Ashley Dewy

2nd Tacia

3rd Mom

I am sure that you all remember when that happened.

Also, This week we will be getting new mission cards. Instead of being credit cards (that is just the way it works, it is not actually a credit card), we will get new cards that work with debit. 

This last week was tons of fun. 

We watched "Despicable Me" on New Years Eve as a zone. On Wednesday I went on exchanges.   My companion got sick and I was stuck inside for 3 days, basically. He is still not feeling 100% but he is doing a lot better.

That is about everything I have to report. Actually I got to go to a leadership meeting with the mission president on Friday while my companion was sick. Another elder came to watch him while I went. That was a lot of fun. I found out more of what I need to do to help my district. 

The mission president talked to me directly about a companionship in my district because he got an email from a parent about a problem that is going on.  fun......

week 73

Really... Twinkies too.....

wow.

I really appreciate the Spanish Grammar book. I am already using it. It is nice.

Oh.... Dad, thanks for your GPS. it is quite useful. 

I loved all the Christmas gifts. Thank you.

So this last week I would like to report that I informed the mission president of what I saw last week and I told him that I would inform the zone leaders. I informed the zone leaders and they told me they would address the problem. 

I then ran into some elders from my district at the family history center and I walked in on them looking at video game websites and other apostate stuff. I chastised them later on that night when I gave them a phone call. (I did that with as much love as possible).

Actually, I had a dream the other day that helped me know how to chastise and correct with love. I was doing something wrong (something I would not actually do) and it happened right in front of the mission president (remember this is a dream). President Brinkerhoff then corrected what I did in such a way that I felt a lot of love come from him to the point that I wanted to tell him thank you and that I loved him back (again none of this would actually happen, but it was just a hypothetical situation that I dreamed that showed me the way to correct with love.) I had that dream the week before all of that happened

Another story. I am the closest Spanish speaking district leader to Pocatello. So if Poky Spanish need a baptismal interview they need either me or the zone leaders here to do it, because we are the nearest leaders that speak Spanish, so this last week Pocatello actually had a baptism. They asked me to do the baptismal interview. We cannot interview anyone that we have taught. I asked them what the name was. They told me it was Shane I did not know a Shane so I was on my Pocatello they day they told me the baptismal interview was. (We had to get a ride with a member because we did not have miles). I still needed to find out the location of the place where the interview would be. They had given me this crazy address so I wanted to call them. Finally they get me the number of those elders so I can call them. We were already almost to Pocatello. The first thing I asked them was what was the last name of the person being interviewed and where he lived, just in case there was someone I had forgotten about. They then told me his name and it was not the name that they had given me and it was the wrong address as well. His name and address matched perfectly to someone that I taught while I was there. So I could not do the interview I was way excited that someone I taught was getting baptized, but now we had made it all the way to Pocatello and we had to drive back. The member just took us to Pocatello for nothing and the zone leaders had to make an emergency trip to Pocatello to do the interview. Everything ended well, but it wasted our entire night.

week 72

This is a little rough today trying to email. The other apostate elders are very distracting and a very bad influence on my new companion. This is getting frustrating I think I will end up reporting it to president. I hate being a tattletale but I can't stand missionaries doing these things.

This week was crazy. I have a great companion, but I think I he will require more help than the rest of my companions. My last companion just got sent over to the apostate district of the zone. This is going to make me very frustrated.

week 71

I am training again. The trainee that I have right now looks like he will get his visa to go to Spain in just a few weeks. President decided to put him in a threesome in a pure Spanish area to help him out. I will be getting another son here really quick.  This Wednesday I will be "giving birth" for the third time. I am "due" this week. Everyone is teasing me that I am "getting it done". Once I am done training this elder that is coming (and he will actually be staying in the mission and not going to another one) I will only have 3 months to finish my mission or you could also say 2 transfers. I have 4 transfers left in my mission as of right now. 

Crazy. 

So this week has been crazy. I have not had time to do nothing. 

I am so excited for Christmas.

I don't know much else to say. I have had so little personal time since I started to train, not even to write in my journal. I am so behind.

Every time I figure out how to do things faster that way I make time to write in my journal, I get a new position that takes up more personal time.

week 70

This week was so hectic. It was so busy with 7 ward Christmas parties going on, 2 exchanges (when I was only able to do 1 of the 2 I had to do.), Also a meeting for all the trainers, and so much happened. 

We had a baptism on Saturday. He thought he was already baptized but they could not find his records in the church, but he definitely now is converted. He knew nothing of the church. At lest now he passed the interview and everything well.

I had to do 3 baptismal interviews this week for other investigators of the 2 sister companionships in my area. I had to go to the baptism of the one set of sisters. The other one will be this next week. It is crazy. And now we found two more golden people that are ready to be baptized.

Transfers are the next week that is coming up. 

We find out this Saturday what will happen.

We will have an all day p-day on Christmas.

I think I have too much to write anything in detail. I could probably write an entire novel about my life in this area as a district leader, trainer, and white washing.

I love you all. Have a good day.

week 69

I am finally starting to get a hang of these district leader responsibilities. The zone leaders are great, there is only one other elder companionship in my district. I have two other sister companionships. The exchanges have to be done by the end of the 4th week. Well it turns out that because this transfer is a week shorter (which I did not know) All the exchanges have to be done by the end of the 3rd week, which will be physically impossible for some district leaders that have 3 other elder companionships in their districts. The zone leaders are apparently going on exchanges with me this week instead of next week. I will be going on exchanges three days straight. 

I am getting the hang of covering an entire stake.

I figured out how to better do things that way I am able to do everything I have to do.

Last night I was making district leader phone calls. I actually started making the phone calls on time at 9:30. However, the phones don't get good reception, and a lot of other things. I was also not calling just for numbers but also for information about the investigators with baptismal dates. I did everything I could and called the zone leaders, and it turns out that it was still not enough. I forgot to get some information. So, I had to call/txt the sisters back, I texted them at 10:38 pm. That is how long all the numbers and phone calls took to do. I also had everything basically organized and ready to take numbers when I started at 9:30

 

Now, I get to tell you about another great thing that happened the other day. 

I was so stressed one day that I decided to not be stressed. Here is how it works.

You act like Tacia!

It is so simple.

You just be bubbly about everything. I don't know how it happened. But there are some side affects. You start to talk to yourself (like the time I was with Tacia and someone went out to talk on the phone outside and Tacia went onto the porch at Centennial Apartments and started to talking to herself and having a complete conversation) in front of your companion. You start to act very hyper. Very sporadic and it appears to everyone that you are ADHD. (^_^)

That was a fun day. (^_^)