March 23, 2009

Well, this week was pretty scant as far as events go. Elder Murie has been having very severe headaches all week! He has been having headaches before this week, but not nearly as constant and severe. So he has been in bed sleeping most of the week. We did some work but no nearly as much as we usually do. We only got 12 lessons this past week, which is still not too bad! Haha!

Well, I'll get on to the rest of the week. We taught Erick and Alyce on Tuesday. I believe I already told you about Erick proposing. That's exciting! Oh, Tuesday for dinner was a St. Patrick's Day theme. We had corn beef and cabbage. It was actually pretty good! A lot better that what I thought it was going to be! That was with the Sinsel family. Bro. Sinsel is in the Hickory Hills bishopric. And of course I wore green! I wore a green tie! That's the only color variation a missionary gets! haha. 

Wednesday's district meeting was about desires. I asked the Elders what their greatest desires are. Then what their greatest desire should be. Then talked about making the transition. I used a few quotes such as: "We cannot let our passions destroy our dreams."-Camelot and: "The secret to true happiness is not doing what we love to do, but loving what we need to do."- Joseph Smith, Jr. I also used some scriptures such as Alma 29:4, Romans 8:5-10, 3Nephi 13:20-22. Those are just a few.

Wednesday, March 18th was Elder Murie's B-day! He turned 20 year old! We had dinner at the Capener's house! No surprise there... we are always there! Haha! We had ribs and twice baked potatoes for dinner. It was very yummy! Earlier in the day we taught Monica about temples and family history. Right after we told her that the church was very big into genealogy for that reason she said, "Hold on a minute." then she went upstairs briefly and brought down a binder. And guess what was in that binder?! This blew me away... she had probably over a hundred ancestor names and information! How she got them is even more amazing! A while ago one of her aunts (who is not a member) got very interested in genealogy and started looking up all the information she could about who her ancestors were. She recorded names, dates of birth and death, life history, and even maps of where they lived! Then she just gave it all to Monica a few years ago for no apparent reason! Well, now she knows why she has all those names! As the only member in the family she can take them to the temple now! She is very excited for that! the spirit of Elijah is definitely at work! It has been so amazing to see everything in her life come together like this! She is overflowing with joy!

Thursday and Friday were not very eventful at all! Not really Saturday either, except there was a Ward Chili Cook-off that was pretty good! Some yummy chili! Sunday, Ali Haught came to church all by herself why the rest of her family stayed home. She called someone for a ride and got ready by herself! I'm so proud of her! Monica came as well and brought a friend of hers, Juan! She is already trying to reach out! She's awesome! So it's Monday night and guess what!? Elder Murie woke up with a slightly less painful headache this morning! That's good news! The bad news is that he sprained his ankle today playing basketball! Poor guy! Haha! I feel bad for him! He'll get better, though. Well, that's about it for this week. 

He forgot to date this letter.... (ha ha ha)

This past week was great! It feels like it is going by so fast, but at the same time very slow. It's a weird feeling. It just feels like everything is merging into one day. I can't really describe it. I think it's kinda throwing me off. I'm still getting used to it. I'm doing good, though. Well, I'll get on to telling you about my week.... Last Tuesday we taught Eric and Alyce about tithing. It went very well. Alyce is a little doubtful about tithing, but Eric is all for it! He loves the principle of tithing. Eric is a lot more spiritual than Alyce even though Alyce is the member and Eric isn't. It's pretty funny. Ha ha!

 

Wednesday was Zone Conference. It was awesome! A general authority was there to train us. Elder Mask from the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy came. He was very enthusiastic and funny. He taught about obedience and working hard and being diligent. I learned a lot from him! He is amazing! It's such a blessing to be taught personally from general authorities. We were so busy Wednesday night that we had to do splits with different members. I went with one member and Elder Murie went with another. It was pretty weird being without my comp, but it was a good night. I taught the Haughts and Bill (crazy old guy). Haha! 

We taught Monica 3 times last week to get her ready for her baptism that was on Saturday. She is so awesome and golden! She was so ready for baptism! We taught her Thursday night, Friday morning, and then Friday night she had her baptismal interview. That went great! Saturday was the baptism! Her parents drove an hour and a half from Topeka just to see her baptism! And they aren't members either! I was so glad to see her parents supporting her! Monica and her family came a half hour early so while Monica changed into the white jumpsuit Elder Murie gave them a tour of the building. The baptism was at 11:00 and the Relief Society room was packed! So many people from the ward came to support her! It was amazing! I performed the baptism. The whole thing went very smoothly. Bro and Sis Capener gave wonderful talks as well! After the baptism all the members in Mormon Village had a BBQ to celebrate Monica's baptism. That was so good for her! She got to know everyone a little better and feel of their love. It was very good for Monica's parents as well to see how the members love Monica! It was perfect weather outside, too! It was just an amazing day!

Monica's baptism

After the BBQ was all put away and cleaned up, Elder Murie and I saw a U-haul truck in Mo-ville. U-haul trucks mean "service" to missionaries! So we jumped at the opportunity and asked if we could help. It was a young couple with 2 kids. They were moving in and the husband was going to Cleveland. Steele and Laney are their names. So we helped them move in and in return they offered to have us over for dinner Sunday night! They aren't members, by the way... :)

So before I get to how that went I've got to tell you about the rest of Saturday. The evening was spent doing 2 baptismal interview for Companionships within the Zone. That was great! And even though the night was spent out of our area we still reached our goal for lessons this week! We got 23 lessons that week! We were very excited! Sunday went amazing as well! Elder Murie confirmed Monica and she had a great time at church! She will be an awesome member of the church! We hope to go to the temple with her within the next few weeks to do baptisms for the dead! That will be so amazing!

Sunday night we had dinner with Steele and Laney. It went really well and we taught them about the restoration. They are pretty cool people. They also know some of the members from Mo-ville. They've got no chance now! They have fallen into the snare of Mo-ville! It's just a matter of time before they are baptized! ha ha ha! JUST kidding.... but who knows? Ha ha. So we found out on Tuesday that Eric is going to propose to Alyce!! Now all he needs to do is quit drinking! And he is working towards that. Then he can get baptized! I'm so excited for them! I'll tell you how it goes in my next letter! Well, that's about it for this past week.

Elder Montierth being himself.... at Liberty Jail... what a goof. :)

March 13, 2009

Wow! Time is moving so very fast! There wasn't a whole lot that went on this past week. At least not compared to the last few weeks. Last Wednesday night we started teaching a less-active couple, the Bumatay's. They are in their 30's and want to get back into things as far as church is concerned. So the bishop told them that the best way to do that is to take the missionary lessons like an investigator would. We will be teaching them all the lessons now. We are very excited about that! On Wednesday we taught them the restoration. It was a great lesson!

Thursday was such a perfect weather day! It was such great weather that we taught Monica outside in the afternoon. We taught about tithing. It went so well! She is so awesome! She is actually excited to pay tithing! She is so willing to do whatever it takes to obey God's commandments! She has experienced a true change of heart. A mighty change of heart! It is so amazing to see!

Friday morning we had a meeting as a zone to start out the new transfer. It was very good and very spiritual! We talked about a lot of things: prayer, faith, sacrifice, attitude, charity, etc. It was the perfect meeting to start out the transfer. So that meeting ended at about 12:30. Then we had lunch at Panchos (that place is amazing!) So our work time started at about 2:00. From that time til 8:00 we taught 4 lessons. Not ad for not having any scheduled! At 8:00 I had an interview with a guy named Tom that was getting baptized the next day. He's ready! He is 18 and he wants to go on a mission! That's really awesome. 

As of Friday night we had 15 lessons for the week so we would need 5 lessons on Saturday. Well, judging from the past few Saturdays we knew it was possible so we planned accordingly. So we went to the first family on our plans and they were there! The Geyer's are an active elderly couple that have been sick recently so we visited with them. Then we saw the next person on our plans... Barry Pennington. We had been trying to visit him since I got in this area. He is inactive but a great guy! He is in his 50's and living alone. After Barry we went to the Preater's home. They were there as well! It was great! We taught them a good lesson. We continued throughout the rest of the day and taught 2 more lessons ! Again, the Lord came through and helped us accomplish 20 lessons for the week! That's the 5th week in a row! It sure is a miracle to work here! I feel very blessed!

Sunday was great as well! Monica came to church! We weren't sure if she was going to come because she was in Norman, Oklahoma for the weekend to help her sister with a newborn baby. You can do the math online and see how far away that is. But she drove all the way back home so she could go to church at 1:00 on Sunday! She knew that if she didn't come that day then she couldn't be baptized the following Saturday. She is so awesome! She really wants to be baptized! :) That makes me really happy to see her amazing progress! The previous week she went to the Gospel Doctrine for Sunday School and it was kinda over her head, so the next week the Ward Mission Leader threw together a gospel principles class at the last second and had some other members come in and support the class. It turned out really well! She learned a lot from that class! After church we had dinner with the Capeners and Monica and then taught Monica some more and answered questions she had. She is already trying to reach out and share her joy with others that she knows! It's great! Monica is being baptized on Saturday and I'm baptizing her! I'll tell you all about it! Well, I'm going to finish this letter up. I plan to send out another letter on Monday or Tuesday. Sorry for this one being late. 

March 2, 2009

I can't believe how fast time is flying by! It feels like it was just Monday yesterday! I can barely keep track of the days as they fly by! This was another great week! There was a lot that went on! Monday night we had FHE with a family in Mo-ville (Mormon Village), the Forreds, and we taught them about baptism because they have a daughter that will be turning 8 soon. That was pretty good. Sis Forred's non-member sister was there also. After that we went over to the Capener's house to teach Monica there. It was a good lesson. We were going to have dinner at the Capener's the next night also so they invited Monica to dinner. We got to the Capener's house early and helped them prepare dinner. It was hawaiian haystacks! MMM! Then we had another good lesson with Monica. That night we also taught Erick and Alyce the 10 commandments. That went pretty well. They are doing great. Erick is steadily reading the BOM. 

Elders Davis, Hutcheson, Murie, Stevens, Mapa, Corzo, and Clayson

Wednesday's District meeting was on helping investigators keep commitments. I think it went very well. After district meeting, since we were all out of money, we made egg drop ramen noodle soup at the church. It wasn't too bad... I never was a huge fan of ramen anyway.

After lunch I went on exchanges with Elder Mapa in his area, Chapel Hill. That was pretty fun. We biked SO much! Haha! It was great! We taught a guy named Jimmy Green. We were super bold with him. Well, at least I was. Ha ha! We also played basketball with some high school aged black kids on a super ghetto court! I was the only white boy there because Elder Mapa is half black- half Tongan! It was fun! It was a good exchange. Thursday was pretty uneventful. Friday Ali had her baptism interview with one of the zone leaders. She did awesome! So by Friday night we only had 14 lessons taught for the week. We needed 6 more, but we had a ton of stuff going on on Saturday. It was a super crazy day! Here were the set things that we had to do: 9-11 in the morning we were going to be helping an elderly lady move, 2-4:30 we had the baptism, and 6:30-8 we had the Elder's Quorum Pinewood Derby. Oh! And we didn't have the car or any rides to these things as of Friday night. So I'll take you play-by-play through this day. 

Woke up Saturday morning and looked outside... about 3 inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing. At 9:00 we walked about a mile and a half to get to the elderly lady's house. There were only 8 people there to help, including us, the whole time we were there. She hadn't packed ANYTHING up yet. There were only 4 males there. The other 4 were women. It wasn't too bad. In her basement , garage, and upper level she had probably at least 300 2 ft-long plastic tubs! She had SO many! We filled up the entire U-haul and only got about half of them out of her house- it was actually a duplex. Ha ha! We had a good time!

At 11:00 we came back home and made Bro. Shriner (the guy we live with) lunch in exchange for a ride to an investigators house and then to the church! Ha ha! We made spaghetti then headed up to Jesse and Joyce's house. Oh, we also taught Bro. Shriner a lesson after lunch! The lesson with Jesse and Joyce went really well! Then Bro. Shriner dropped us off at the church at 2:00 so we could get things set up for the baptism at 3:00. 

The baptism went awesome! There were lots of members from the ward there to support her, including her family's visiting teachers, home teachers, primary teacher, and most of her primary class! It was so cool! Her aunt Amanda and Amanda's boyfriend, Marcos, were there, too. They are investigators so it was good for them! Ali is in the Hickory Hills ward, but Sis. Capener came with Monica so Monica could see a baptism in our church. That was awesome to see 3 of our investigators there. Oh yeah, clarification: Sis. Capener and Monica are from the Overland Park 1st ward area. Elder Murie baptized Ali and I gave a lesson while they were changing back into regular clothes. Since we had investigators from 2 separate wards we had to count my lesson twice, one for each ward. We made an appointment to teach Monica again at 4:30 at her house. 

We were done cleaning up the baptism by about 4:00 so we had our ward mission leader drop us off in Mormon Village. Then we started searching for a team-up to go into Monica's house with. Haha! Bro. Taylor from Mo-ville was available so he came with us. He is really awesome! We taught about baptism and confirmation and answered some questions she had about the baptism. 

Our dinner that night was at the Sheffers. They also live in Mo-ville. Haha! So after we taught Monica we walked over to the Capener's and talked with them a bit until 5:30, which is when dinner was scheduled. Bro. Sheffer is way awesome! We always go see him to get our back and neck adjusted. He's very good. We had pizza for dinner then taught them a lesson. Were you counting all those lessons? Because that last one was number 6! We did it! We taught the 6 lessons we needed to get to 20! and we did it by 6:30 pm! That's a miracle! That makes 3 weeks in a row with at least 20 lessons! At 6:30 we went to the pinewood derby and won 4th and 5th place. Booyah! At 8:00 we didn't have anyone to go see so we just went home and prepared lessons for primary the next day.

Sunday morning I confirmed Ali a member of the church. That was very special! In OP 1st ward I got up and bore my testimony. For the 3rd hour in OP1 the RS was having a visiting teaching conference so all the women in the ward had to be there, so the men had to take over the Primary. Wow. 5 year-olds are CRAZY!! Ha ha! The lesson was on the different priesthood blessings... and I learned VERY fast how short the attention span of a 5-year-old is! Ha ha! I had a whole hour so I adapted my lesson quickly! Let's just say I have a lot of respect now for primary teachers! HA HA! I think I did pretty well, though.

I started this letter on Monday (March 2nd) and now it's Wednesday morning and my comp. is sick so I have some time to finish this letter. I've got to tell you about yesterday! It was awesome! We went to the Liberty Jail... Twice! ha ha! We went at 11:00 AM with Monica and the Capeners! It was so amazing! That was my first time ever going there. Same with Elder Murie. Monica really liked it! THEN... at 7:00 PM we went again with ERick, Alyce, Alyce's son James, and brother and sister Feaster. It was another amazing experience! To me, the second time was much more spiritual. Each time was a different sister missionary. The second time it was a sister that came out the same time as me. She was very powerful! And guess what?! She is done with her mission in 6 weeks! The sisters I came out with are going home at the end of this next transfer! That's so crazy! Well, on the way home from the Liberty Jail the second time we got transfer calls! You should have already gotten the news from the Capener's, but if you didn't... we are both staying! We are both excited about that! We will both be here for Monica's baptism! Yay! There are actually only 2 missionaries in my zone that are being transfered. One from my district is becoming a district leader, Elder Davis. He will be very good! He has been in Chapel Hill for 7 1/2 months! It was time for him to go. Well, I've got to wrap up this letter now. :)

 

Liberty Jail with the Capeners and Monica and Logan

Liberty Jail with the the Feasters and Alyce, Eric, and James.