Remember how I talk about ups and downs? This week was no rollercoaster. This was more of one of those rides that shoots you straight up and down so fast you lose your lunch just to gain it back again. Saturday night we taught the stop smoking workshop finally to a part member couple we've been working with and it went really, really well. We were way stoked and so were they. We even helped them with their fear that once they got off of smoking they'd go crazy and potentially kill each other (both have psychological disorders to an extent with no meds due to the cost...besides tobacco). They also had overcome all of their reasons for not being able to make it to church. She had gotten a new job that no longer required her to work on sundays and they had gotten a new car so they had a ride. The next day, they weren't at church and later when we stopped by their fears had come to fruition. Yeah. Nearly everything in their house had been destroyed or damaged, he had had his bags packed ready to leave, and they had smoked. They had also apparently gone to church early, having forgotten to reset their clocks and had left when nobody was there. By the way, I do hate daylight savings time. Our other investigators had the flu ravaging their family and the people we had set return appointments up with and had taught lessons were uncommital in arranging return appointments. In our other pursuits for the week, we tried to check up on some referrals of people who had requested copies of the Book of Mormon, neither of which worked out. One was a home just inside a cemetery gigantodogs and never answered and another was way down south. We went to it, thinking it was it, asked for the person, wasn't there. We then went to another old potential investigator, just to realize I'd gotten the names mixed up and had gone to the house of the old potential asking for the referral and were now headed to the referrals house, not the old potentials. This was disheartening, as the old potential was a friend of a member who had re-referred us to them, and we had completely messed it up. So we went to the referral, knocked on the door three times and never got an answer, even though they were obviously home. We then tried to leave, and Elder England backed up, without me backing him because I figured he wasn't going to back up and didn't get out to back him when he did, and he ran into a ditch. I pushed him out, just to see something metal sticking out from beneath the car. It was one of those reflector things they stick on either side of a country driveway. But this was no cheapo one, this was one with little fancy things on it, including a cowboy design on top. Elder England crawled under the car and took awhile getting it dislodged. It was all bent out of shape. We went back, knocked again, still no answer, so we left it with a note offering to replace it. Still no call. We're not THAT scary. We did have some cool stuff, like getting in with a few less actives and having a lady say she'd always wanted to attend a mormon church and was way excited to get a copy of the Book of Mormon. We're also going to Nauvoo today for a Zone P-Day. It should be fun. So it wasn't all bad. It never is. I'm still staying positive.
--
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
Monday, November 8, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
With All These "Eggs" and a Sunday Holiday You Would Think It Was Easter, Not Halloween
I don't know if this is the case, but I feel like I've never heard the phrase "good egg" as much as I have in the last 24 hours. I've heard of plenty of bad eggs but all of these good eggs are just reminding me of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
This week.... I don't have too much to report on, or so I feel. So if I take this seldom opportunity at typing on something with a backspace to have some fun, please forgive me.
Um, we were planning on a really productive week, but didn't get it. Tuesday night we got a call from the Zone Leaders letting us know that interviews were the next day in Quincy and that our last district leader should have told us that.... So I spent some time calling back and forth cancelling the exchange we had planned and figuring out everything. When all was said and done, not only was our nightly planning shot, but all of the work we wanted to do the next day was, too. So we went to interviews early and it all got bumped back a few times as the interviews elsewhere went over. Oh, did I inform you of who's in my new district? Remember Elder Havice? Yeah, he's in Quincy now. Anyway, we got stuck in Quincy nearly all day and got no work done on the Homefront. And the Zone leaders went on a one night and a free dinner exchange with us after the interviews. The interviews were pretty nice, though. I got to talk to President about this new calling of mine and he complimented me, as usual, on my optimistic attitude behind my work. I'll admit, I usually am pretty optimistic about the future out here. I don't see how you can't be. I've just had enough of thinking life sucks and being with people who think that and that nothing ever goes right and blah blah blah i'm just sick of it and being positive about the future, even if this moment is hell, keeps me going. It's funny, actually. Thinking life's terrible and it can't get better breeds apathy (it's called learned helplessness from what I remember from psychology) yet the only thing that will bring you out of that state is to get up and keep trying. Yeah, I might be wrong, things might be eternally messed up; but things aren't going to get any better with that mindset. So I just have to continually keep on chugging along believing next week will be better than last.
Don't get me wrong, this week wasn't bad, life doesn't suck, hell hasn't completely combined against me, and the North Koreans aren't out to kill me, but let's face a fact: Missions aren't easy. I know, that sounds depressing and all that junk. But it's fact. And the only way to overcome that fact is an optimistic outlook on how you can improve in order to improve your situation. Yes, you can be the best missionary the world has ever seen and never have a baptism nor plant a seed that ever truly comes to fruition in this life. But as PMG says, a successful missionary is not measured on convert baptisms, reactivated members, or if you invited 7,945 people to be taught this week. It's on your commitment to the work. And how committed is someone who eternally has a negative outlook on what comes next? So, yeah, this week's numbers didn't exemplify a missionary you might read about in the Ensign, but I'm committed to improvement. When you have the Savior beside you, and you live worthy of that, how can you fail? Even if your area doesn't improve, at least you will. And apparently that's the thing President appreciates the most about me. Is that a wordy and lengthy enough explanation?
Besides that, I had my first district meeting. It was all on love. Apparently they all liked that. Well, at least, those who responded, which was all but one. But you just can't make everyone happy. There's only one person I have to please and He's not the one who needs the advice.
We had a trunk or treat Saturday night. I didn't dress up, besides brinking my sunglasses and having a concealed nerf gun. We gave out cruddy bubble gum and pass-along cards.
We went tracting yesterday. We called it quits when the people started handing us candy. And yes, we did have restrictions for both sunday and saturday nights. We had to be either in by six or being driven around by members. On neither night did it effect us too much. Saturday we came in from the trunk or treat and all that at about the same time and sunday we came in by seven and then had to deal with all sorts of calls between the zone leaders and Quincy and stuff. I feel like the people who watch Dragnet and want to be a detective just to discover when they become one that it has a whole lot more to do with paperwork than fighting crime.
The stop smoking workshop we've been trying to set up fell through again for the I-Don't-Know-th time. It should work out now. Really. I hope.
Still teaching the same people. That's all going well. Nobody came to church this last Sunday, though. Well, at least not in the way of investigators. Thursday night we got a call from a less active I've been feeling an urge to visit but didn't know how to get ahold of him. Well, he called us and asked us to come over, which we did, and he told us he wanted to come back to church and just needed a ride. It was seriously the easiest less active work I've ever done.
Well, i think I rambled enough today. Hope you enjoyed it. If not, there are no refunds.
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
This week.... I don't have too much to report on, or so I feel. So if I take this seldom opportunity at typing on something with a backspace to have some fun, please forgive me.
Um, we were planning on a really productive week, but didn't get it. Tuesday night we got a call from the Zone Leaders letting us know that interviews were the next day in Quincy and that our last district leader should have told us that.... So I spent some time calling back and forth cancelling the exchange we had planned and figuring out everything. When all was said and done, not only was our nightly planning shot, but all of the work we wanted to do the next day was, too. So we went to interviews early and it all got bumped back a few times as the interviews elsewhere went over. Oh, did I inform you of who's in my new district? Remember Elder Havice? Yeah, he's in Quincy now. Anyway, we got stuck in Quincy nearly all day and got no work done on the Homefront. And the Zone leaders went on a one night and a free dinner exchange with us after the interviews. The interviews were pretty nice, though. I got to talk to President about this new calling of mine and he complimented me, as usual, on my optimistic attitude behind my work. I'll admit, I usually am pretty optimistic about the future out here. I don't see how you can't be. I've just had enough of thinking life sucks and being with people who think that and that nothing ever goes right and blah blah blah i'm just sick of it and being positive about the future, even if this moment is hell, keeps me going. It's funny, actually. Thinking life's terrible and it can't get better breeds apathy (it's called learned helplessness from what I remember from psychology) yet the only thing that will bring you out of that state is to get up and keep trying. Yeah, I might be wrong, things might be eternally messed up; but things aren't going to get any better with that mindset. So I just have to continually keep on chugging along believing next week will be better than last.
Don't get me wrong, this week wasn't bad, life doesn't suck, hell hasn't completely combined against me, and the North Koreans aren't out to kill me, but let's face a fact: Missions aren't easy. I know, that sounds depressing and all that junk. But it's fact. And the only way to overcome that fact is an optimistic outlook on how you can improve in order to improve your situation. Yes, you can be the best missionary the world has ever seen and never have a baptism nor plant a seed that ever truly comes to fruition in this life. But as PMG says, a successful missionary is not measured on convert baptisms, reactivated members, or if you invited 7,945 people to be taught this week. It's on your commitment to the work. And how committed is someone who eternally has a negative outlook on what comes next? So, yeah, this week's numbers didn't exemplify a missionary you might read about in the Ensign, but I'm committed to improvement. When you have the Savior beside you, and you live worthy of that, how can you fail? Even if your area doesn't improve, at least you will. And apparently that's the thing President appreciates the most about me. Is that a wordy and lengthy enough explanation?
Besides that, I had my first district meeting. It was all on love. Apparently they all liked that. Well, at least, those who responded, which was all but one. But you just can't make everyone happy. There's only one person I have to please and He's not the one who needs the advice.
We had a trunk or treat Saturday night. I didn't dress up, besides brinking my sunglasses and having a concealed nerf gun. We gave out cruddy bubble gum and pass-along cards.
We went tracting yesterday. We called it quits when the people started handing us candy. And yes, we did have restrictions for both sunday and saturday nights. We had to be either in by six or being driven around by members. On neither night did it effect us too much. Saturday we came in from the trunk or treat and all that at about the same time and sunday we came in by seven and then had to deal with all sorts of calls between the zone leaders and Quincy and stuff. I feel like the people who watch Dragnet and want to be a detective just to discover when they become one that it has a whole lot more to do with paperwork than fighting crime.
The stop smoking workshop we've been trying to set up fell through again for the I-Don't-Know-th time. It should work out now. Really. I hope.
Still teaching the same people. That's all going well. Nobody came to church this last Sunday, though. Well, at least not in the way of investigators. Thursday night we got a call from a less active I've been feeling an urge to visit but didn't know how to get ahold of him. Well, he called us and asked us to come over, which we did, and he told us he wanted to come back to church and just needed a ride. It was seriously the easiest less active work I've ever done.
Well, i think I rambled enough today. Hope you enjoyed it. If not, there are no refunds.
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
Monday, October 25, 2010
Greetings from Halloweentown, Missouri
Have I mentioned yet that I've finally officially discovered how to spell Missouri? I could never remember if it had two R's or two S's.... And did you know it's capitol is Jefferson City? I guess I just always looked at it as the chigger-filled anti-mormon mob-minded-citizens state I never had any desire to step foot in. I definitely have gained much more charity for this state and its inhabitants since I had that belief.
That was a bad way to start this off. The reasoning behind my topic is that this town definitely seems like a spooky town. It's scary to be in at night! All of the houses downtown are very old and with the big hills you get some interesting designs and precarious placements for the lots. Last night we went looking for a less active at night, but the house was empty with newspapers on the front porch from june and a yard completely overgrown, yet an erie light glowed in one of the upstairs rooms. And the house totally looked like it was from some remake of "The Haunted Mansion."
Anyway.
Oh, you probably want to know about my new companion. I feel like I get a new one a week nowadays so it's just normal. I'm running out of room in my pmg to write in their names (Number ten, eleventh transfer). I now have Elder England from Stockton, CA. He's a good kid it seems, and doesn't have any major illness besides a residual cough from a cold he had, but that's it.
While we have some good plans for the area and great things about to happen, not much really got done this past week. It really was sad to see such a dichotomy between our half of the district and Quincy's. That's ok, though, we'll be stepping it up a large notch due to no more days spent inside.
Oh, but in the way of stories, things did occur there. Like the halloween parade we went to, the most exciting part being a cool picture I got of a passing motorcycle. I also was sitting at the house of the part member family we're working with and their son was seated beside me with his head on my should, falling asleep. I thought it was cute until his father picked him up and realized he had not only peed his own pants but mine, too. So expect some money taken out of my account for dry cleaning. They want to pay for it, but we're more worried about their money going towards a marriage license right now than for their kid's accident. On the bright side, they have potty-trained their new puppy!
Thank you for the positives of being co-pilot for the rest of my mission, mom. My actual bet is that if I run into an occasion where neither me nor my companion can drive, they'll just have neither of us drive. Elder England keeps saying, when something almost happens but I warn him before it does, "Hey, you almost got your driving privileges back!" Yeah, doubtful.
I believe that's all! It's not a full week, so there's a lot less to write about. Sorry to disappoint. I'm happy to hear that Brad has grown so much. From the emails I would get here and there that he was sending home, it really seemed like he had changed a lot for the better. I'm also glad my D&C 127 quote is so popular and was used in sacrament meeting. But I have to be honest and give credit where it's due. I got that scripture from Rachel in a letter she sent and I really liked it.
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
That was a bad way to start this off. The reasoning behind my topic is that this town definitely seems like a spooky town. It's scary to be in at night! All of the houses downtown are very old and with the big hills you get some interesting designs and precarious placements for the lots. Last night we went looking for a less active at night, but the house was empty with newspapers on the front porch from june and a yard completely overgrown, yet an erie light glowed in one of the upstairs rooms. And the house totally looked like it was from some remake of "The Haunted Mansion."
Anyway.
Oh, you probably want to know about my new companion. I feel like I get a new one a week nowadays so it's just normal. I'm running out of room in my pmg to write in their names (Number ten, eleventh transfer). I now have Elder England from Stockton, CA. He's a good kid it seems, and doesn't have any major illness besides a residual cough from a cold he had, but that's it.
While we have some good plans for the area and great things about to happen, not much really got done this past week. It really was sad to see such a dichotomy between our half of the district and Quincy's. That's ok, though, we'll be stepping it up a large notch due to no more days spent inside.
Oh, but in the way of stories, things did occur there. Like the halloween parade we went to, the most exciting part being a cool picture I got of a passing motorcycle. I also was sitting at the house of the part member family we're working with and their son was seated beside me with his head on my should, falling asleep. I thought it was cute until his father picked him up and realized he had not only peed his own pants but mine, too. So expect some money taken out of my account for dry cleaning. They want to pay for it, but we're more worried about their money going towards a marriage license right now than for their kid's accident. On the bright side, they have potty-trained their new puppy!
Thank you for the positives of being co-pilot for the rest of my mission, mom. My actual bet is that if I run into an occasion where neither me nor my companion can drive, they'll just have neither of us drive. Elder England keeps saying, when something almost happens but I warn him before it does, "Hey, you almost got your driving privileges back!" Yeah, doubtful.
I believe that's all! It's not a full week, so there's a lot less to write about. Sorry to disappoint. I'm happy to hear that Brad has grown so much. From the emails I would get here and there that he was sending home, it really seemed like he had changed a lot for the better. I'm also glad my D&C 127 quote is so popular and was used in sacrament meeting. But I have to be honest and give credit where it's due. I got that scripture from Rachel in a letter she sent and I really liked it.
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Elder Gates the Gregarious: District Dictator of Quinnibal
Yep, transfers are this week. Sorry, I forgot as well that they were happening. Time really is accelerating quickly out here.... We got transfer calls on Saturday. We were in the apartment at 2 when President Jergensen called me, asking me to serve as the new district leader of the Quincy/Hannibal District (I will, from henceforth, refer to it as Quinnibal). He then let me know that Elder Bischoff was being transferred but to not say anything to him about it until the Assistants would call later that night. Well, Elder Bischoff overheard that and killed any amount of secrecy. Oh well. So, yeah, Elder Bischoff's taking off. We think he's going to Iowa City YSA from what the assistants were hinting at, and, if that's the case, puts him right next to one of the best hospitals in the area. He finally had an ultrasound this week for gallstones, so he'll be finding out about that soon. He had to have the info released to the mission office. I am also pretty excited about my calling as district leader, not because I'm a climber or anything, I really don't seek leadership, I just have the privilege to talk all of district meeting. Well, I did that already, but now I won't feel guilty!
To answer your questions:
1) I apologize for not explaining better about losing my driving privileges. That will be for the rest of my mission. Yep....
2) Elder Bischoff is well enough to drive, but it's probably better to keep him off the bike as much as possible.... Which is funny, since if he is going to the YSA that means no car, just walking and biking and riding busses. He's...the same as always, as far as wellness goes. I'm sad to see him go, but excited for a well missionary that can help us achieve the wonderful potential Hannibal has.
3)PLEASE send me my ballot. I forgot I would still have a say in this election, which I most definitely keep hearing about. Please also send the voter pamphlet, as I will otherwise just vote for people with the funniest name in the local elections. (Anybody willing to go outside and even run for the public office of Assistant to the Senate's Note Taker's Coffeemaker with a name like Cord Heimerdinger or Turd Ferguson has my vote)
Things are going great here in the way of the work. A family that we're working with has had us over to eat twice now and wants to feed us before each lesson. The father has really been the only one sitting in on lessons, but the mother is interested too and the kids love us. They are unmarried though, something we didn't know, and the husband she's still married to left her and completely disappeared on her a couple years ago. So marriage and baptism will take some time, but I feel very strongly that they will be baptized eventually. There are seven children there, so it's a pretty full house. It's an interesting situation, but, sadly, a situation that is a lot less uncommon than I ever thought before I came out on a mission. We'll also need them to quit smoking. But a strong testimony of the gospel needs to come before anything else. We watched the Restoration and the Testaments with him this week, and we gave him both so he could watch them with the kids!!
Besides that, the week hasn't been too much different than normal. I took the extra time inside this week to clean, work on my Plan of Salvation visual aides, peruse through a Deseret Book catalog that an former missionary serving here signed himself up for with this as the address (I'm working on my christmas list with it), read old Friend's, and accidentally beat Elder Bischoff at chess.
That's about it in the way of my week. Good job Lorena! Soke in all of the attention you can for walking. Pretty soon people will be expecting it out of you and it won't be as exciting. Nicole Ellis' Farewell, eh? Crazy. She'll do good. Now, maybe, God will get her back for the time she stuck a rat in my apartment at college. And no worries about missionaries freaking out when they see you with your name tags, we do the same thing when we see others wearing them. We always silently cross our fingers that they're new proselyting missionaries. And just because you're not a proselyting missionary doesn't mean you can't not tract, as some members in one of my areas did that. But believe me. We'd prefer you'd leave that up to the pros. Welcome home, Brad! You'll have to let me know what it's like to be an RM.
The weather's definitely changing and Halloween's coming fast. I don't know if there is a creepier town to stay in for halloween. Don't get me wrong, Hannibal's a wonderful, beautiful town. But at night....
Well, Charity you all!
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
To answer your questions:
1) I apologize for not explaining better about losing my driving privileges. That will be for the rest of my mission. Yep....
2) Elder Bischoff is well enough to drive, but it's probably better to keep him off the bike as much as possible.... Which is funny, since if he is going to the YSA that means no car, just walking and biking and riding busses. He's...the same as always, as far as wellness goes. I'm sad to see him go, but excited for a well missionary that can help us achieve the wonderful potential Hannibal has.
3)PLEASE send me my ballot. I forgot I would still have a say in this election, which I most definitely keep hearing about. Please also send the voter pamphlet, as I will otherwise just vote for people with the funniest name in the local elections. (Anybody willing to go outside and even run for the public office of Assistant to the Senate's Note Taker's Coffeemaker with a name like Cord Heimerdinger or Turd Ferguson has my vote)
Things are going great here in the way of the work. A family that we're working with has had us over to eat twice now and wants to feed us before each lesson. The father has really been the only one sitting in on lessons, but the mother is interested too and the kids love us. They are unmarried though, something we didn't know, and the husband she's still married to left her and completely disappeared on her a couple years ago. So marriage and baptism will take some time, but I feel very strongly that they will be baptized eventually. There are seven children there, so it's a pretty full house. It's an interesting situation, but, sadly, a situation that is a lot less uncommon than I ever thought before I came out on a mission. We'll also need them to quit smoking. But a strong testimony of the gospel needs to come before anything else. We watched the Restoration and the Testaments with him this week, and we gave him both so he could watch them with the kids!!
Besides that, the week hasn't been too much different than normal. I took the extra time inside this week to clean, work on my Plan of Salvation visual aides, peruse through a Deseret Book catalog that an former missionary serving here signed himself up for with this as the address (I'm working on my christmas list with it), read old Friend's, and accidentally beat Elder Bischoff at chess.
That's about it in the way of my week. Good job Lorena! Soke in all of the attention you can for walking. Pretty soon people will be expecting it out of you and it won't be as exciting. Nicole Ellis' Farewell, eh? Crazy. She'll do good. Now, maybe, God will get her back for the time she stuck a rat in my apartment at college. And no worries about missionaries freaking out when they see you with your name tags, we do the same thing when we see others wearing them. We always silently cross our fingers that they're new proselyting missionaries. And just because you're not a proselyting missionary doesn't mean you can't not tract, as some members in one of my areas did that. But believe me. We'd prefer you'd leave that up to the pros. Welcome home, Brad! You'll have to let me know what it's like to be an RM.
The weather's definitely changing and Halloween's coming fast. I don't know if there is a creepier town to stay in for halloween. Don't get me wrong, Hannibal's a wonderful, beautiful town. But at night....
Well, Charity you all!
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
Monday, October 11, 2010
Ten TEN ten tEn teN 10 Tenn Tten Ttenn..Dtenn? 10 Tens!
Yesterday marked The Tenth Day of the Tenth Month of the Tenth Year of the Tenth Century (ok, maybe not, but whatever). I hope you celebrated just as much as I didn't. Oh, and Happy Columbus Day! I think? I don't know, people don't celebrate him like they used to. They would if they had the Book of Mormon. I'll work on that.
This week was one of those rollercoasters you read about. Where do you read about such rollercoasters? My emails. If you notice something about rollercoasters, they neither really go up or down if looked at over the long scheme of things. Over time, the rollercoaster will not have continued its upward movement anymore than its downward movement. Now, life is not, entirely, that way. But, I believe, it is against some eternal law for us to take some rocketship straight upwards, continuing forever, nor an eternal fall into some dark abyss. We are ment to continually go up or down; but for us, the general trend of whether it will, in the grand scheme of things, go farther upwards or downwards, is up to us. Not to mention that, over time, the rollercoaster of our lives changes, so that the scenery and style of the rollercoaster is not constantly the same. And so, I like to think that, inch by inch, my life's rollercoaster is being jacked up so that, over time, I will continually get higher and higher, spiritually, emotionally, and personally speaking. However, the rollercoaster does not, necessarily, completely change each circuit around.
Now, if the circuit of a roller coaster is, say, a week, there is not too much of a major difference between this circuit and the last few. Some of my downs this week are similar to my downs of last week; namely Cabin Fever.
More time was spent this week indoors. The hospital has still not contacted Elder Bischoff pertaining to his possibly deadly illness, leaving us uncertain as to whether he will be good to go from one day to the next. And, as I believe I've mentioned before, if you ever want to depress a missionary who actually wants to be out here doing the work, you just have to keep them inside. And one common sign of depressive feelings is apathy (which, hilariously enough, has an adjective brother named apathetic. Pathetic is right). Apathy set in pretty good this week, so that even in little spouts mid-week when Elder Bischoff could work, I just didn't care. That changed, however, on Thursday, when we went to a lesson with a part member family on track for being a full-member family and their friend. Their friend started asking questions into much deeper doctrine than somebody who is unsure of the validity of the first vision needs to delve into. It didn't help, either, that he was being goaded on by his member friend. I finally had to call it all to a halt when an argument started to break out between the member and the friend over the nature of the Godhead. I told him the only way he could know of anything was if he knew the first vision was true, recited it to him, bore testimony not only of that, but of the nature of God and Christ and my sacred calling to be His representative and told him to read from the Book of Mormon and pray about it. I said I said it, but that's wrong. I love how the Holy Ghost speaks through me the most when I get frustrated with someone. He takes control and says what God would have them hear. Someone might say that it's just adrenaline or something I feel, but I know it's not. If it was me defending those points, I would be much more worked up, I wouldn't feel a tenth as good, and I would be using many more unkind adjectives with people. Hearing words coming from my mouth testifying of my sacred calling as one of Christ's representatives effectively dispelled all depressive feelings and its subsequent apathetic tendencies. Which was good, because the next day I never left the apartment.
We found a new person to teach this week, but I'm still uncertain of her devoutness to learning. She's looking for a church for her daughter to go to. We street contacted her while tracting her street and she invited us back. We taught her on the doorstep as her hamsterdog ran around the yard chewing thorn-covered plant stems. We found a lot of people in that area who invited us back. I'm pretty sure it's because it's a low-income area. You have to hand it to Alma, he was right in turning to the humble people. They listen...mostly.
We went to a funeral this week for a member I never met. I realized while I was there that faithful Latter-Day Saints don't die, they just get transferred.
Oh, I almost forgot. This week would have had far more ups than downs if I had. Friday I got a call from our mission vehicle coordinator informing me that he had gotten a letter from Salt Lake informing him that I needed to have my driving privileges revoked due to me being in a "serious" preventable accident. The mission vehicle coordinator was surprised, and really apologetic, about revoking my driving privileges, as I had, up to that point, no marks on my record and it wasn't, in neither his mind nor mine, a serious accident. But the people a thousand miles away and unconnected to the situation do. But I can be justifiably bitter that I, a granny driver most of the time with these blessings of vehicles, can lose my driving privileges when others who intentionally drift around every corner and do crazy stuff in the mission vehicles do not; or I can let it go and be happy. Back to that whole "we choose the eternal path of our roller coaster" analogy.
I think that's about it. It was a good week. I consider my rollercoaster higher than the week before.
--
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
This week was one of those rollercoasters you read about. Where do you read about such rollercoasters? My emails. If you notice something about rollercoasters, they neither really go up or down if looked at over the long scheme of things. Over time, the rollercoaster will not have continued its upward movement anymore than its downward movement. Now, life is not, entirely, that way. But, I believe, it is against some eternal law for us to take some rocketship straight upwards, continuing forever, nor an eternal fall into some dark abyss. We are ment to continually go up or down; but for us, the general trend of whether it will, in the grand scheme of things, go farther upwards or downwards, is up to us. Not to mention that, over time, the rollercoaster of our lives changes, so that the scenery and style of the rollercoaster is not constantly the same. And so, I like to think that, inch by inch, my life's rollercoaster is being jacked up so that, over time, I will continually get higher and higher, spiritually, emotionally, and personally speaking. However, the rollercoaster does not, necessarily, completely change each circuit around.
Now, if the circuit of a roller coaster is, say, a week, there is not too much of a major difference between this circuit and the last few. Some of my downs this week are similar to my downs of last week; namely Cabin Fever.
More time was spent this week indoors. The hospital has still not contacted Elder Bischoff pertaining to his possibly deadly illness, leaving us uncertain as to whether he will be good to go from one day to the next. And, as I believe I've mentioned before, if you ever want to depress a missionary who actually wants to be out here doing the work, you just have to keep them inside. And one common sign of depressive feelings is apathy (which, hilariously enough, has an adjective brother named apathetic. Pathetic is right). Apathy set in pretty good this week, so that even in little spouts mid-week when Elder Bischoff could work, I just didn't care. That changed, however, on Thursday, when we went to a lesson with a part member family on track for being a full-member family and their friend. Their friend started asking questions into much deeper doctrine than somebody who is unsure of the validity of the first vision needs to delve into. It didn't help, either, that he was being goaded on by his member friend. I finally had to call it all to a halt when an argument started to break out between the member and the friend over the nature of the Godhead. I told him the only way he could know of anything was if he knew the first vision was true, recited it to him, bore testimony not only of that, but of the nature of God and Christ and my sacred calling to be His representative and told him to read from the Book of Mormon and pray about it. I said I said it, but that's wrong. I love how the Holy Ghost speaks through me the most when I get frustrated with someone. He takes control and says what God would have them hear. Someone might say that it's just adrenaline or something I feel, but I know it's not. If it was me defending those points, I would be much more worked up, I wouldn't feel a tenth as good, and I would be using many more unkind adjectives with people. Hearing words coming from my mouth testifying of my sacred calling as one of Christ's representatives effectively dispelled all depressive feelings and its subsequent apathetic tendencies. Which was good, because the next day I never left the apartment.
We found a new person to teach this week, but I'm still uncertain of her devoutness to learning. She's looking for a church for her daughter to go to. We street contacted her while tracting her street and she invited us back. We taught her on the doorstep as her hamsterdog ran around the yard chewing thorn-covered plant stems. We found a lot of people in that area who invited us back. I'm pretty sure it's because it's a low-income area. You have to hand it to Alma, he was right in turning to the humble people. They listen...mostly.
We went to a funeral this week for a member I never met. I realized while I was there that faithful Latter-Day Saints don't die, they just get transferred.
Oh, I almost forgot. This week would have had far more ups than downs if I had. Friday I got a call from our mission vehicle coordinator informing me that he had gotten a letter from Salt Lake informing him that I needed to have my driving privileges revoked due to me being in a "serious" preventable accident. The mission vehicle coordinator was surprised, and really apologetic, about revoking my driving privileges, as I had, up to that point, no marks on my record and it wasn't, in neither his mind nor mine, a serious accident. But the people a thousand miles away and unconnected to the situation do. But I can be justifiably bitter that I, a granny driver most of the time with these blessings of vehicles, can lose my driving privileges when others who intentionally drift around every corner and do crazy stuff in the mission vehicles do not; or I can let it go and be happy. Back to that whole "we choose the eternal path of our roller coaster" analogy.
I think that's about it. It was a good week. I consider my rollercoaster higher than the week before.
--
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
Monday, October 4, 2010
Make Every Day a Tuesday
Since laziness is more of my style, I just figure I will copy over my journal entry from tuesday to explain the reason why I want to make every day like that one.
"Okay, so, today was hilarious. We went down south to Louisiana, just shy of Mexico, after dropping Elder Bischoff"s poop samples off at the hospital. Louisiana has MOUNTAINS! Well, hills, but it still got me all sorts of excited. We had lunch at a little diner run by this cool black grandma named Izola's Place and had it all paid for by a sort-of investigator that we are still trying to teach a lesson to. When our food came out we realized we both liked the looks of the other's meal, so we switched, to the surprise and confusion of the waitress. We followed the almost-investigator... to a worksite for no real reason before deciding to try and teach another time. We tried to find an old potential but instead found a giant white bunny. We then set off on a mountain-ish highway looking for a referral named Eliazar. It was a beautiful day so we had the windows down, blasting MoTab. When we were unable to find the referral, we began to head back. Despit the fact the road said 'Semi's use alternate route,' I saw up ahead a largte semi come around a corner. At first I was frightened by the driver's apparent inability to keep the truck in his lane, I quickly became aware of another horror: dried corn flying out of his trailer. Afraid of what grain would do to our open-windowed car, I yelled, 'We're gonna get grained!' [to warn my companion of our doom.] A shower of seeds landed on our car, but didn't enter. We began laughing almost too hard for me to drive. I then asked my companion to call the referal, whose address was a Louisiana, MO, address, to find out his location, but when he typed in the phone number it said it was a Louisiana State area code. This person resides far outside our area. More laughter. We then went to a town named Bowling Green and got barked at by a man in his house while knocking on his door. Laughter. On our way to the next town, maps in the backseat attempted, on two different occasions to decaptiate me, one even suicidally leaping out the front window. In order to forestall any further murderous plots, I rolled up the windows and turned on the air conditioning. Soon we found ourselves up a single lane, mountain, forest trail that was marked on a map but not in real life. Broken farm and construction equipment lurked behind trees, along with the sad remains of a couple three houses, one of which being a trailer home perched on a hill, both ends sticking out in open space. Elder Bischoff got scared of the potential of zombies and almost convinced me to turn back when we saw a house with this referral's last name on it. And a cowardly dog. Nobody was home, so we left the requested item with a not. We then left, elder Bischoff insuring his door was locked on the way out. ON the way to Hannibal, I found out why my camera charger was missing, but Elder Morris promised to have it delivered to me from Elder Shelman at Zone Conference. We stopped by Lover's leap on the way in.... We then had dinner with a member family...who didn't fully appreciate the humor of the day as we did. We then taught a new member lesson to a child whose mother is blessed with patience. And now I'm running out of ink. I bought this pen yesterday! Oh, we also played bing pong tonight. I never knew all those rules! Also nearly unintentionally played chicken [or, as my companion calls it, turkey] tonight. Not my fault! G2G2Bed.
Notice:
No drugs were used in the making or writing of this day. Besides Zyrtec."
Maybe this recitation of the events of this day are much like many others I send home. You just had to be there. Besides that day, things were fairly uneventful. We spent a good amount of time preparing for the Stop Smoking Workshop on Thursday, a guaranteed way to stop smoking in seven days. The lesson, due to our high amounts of preparation and the Spirit, went great, despite things that could have otherwise been very distracting. It really did a lot in building trust in the members there, we believe. And the people we taught it to? Well, they've already given in and smoked. But they've recommitted themselves to start again. Kind of disappointing. But what can ya do?
Went to zone conference. It was good. Got to hear from our mission doctor on how to be healthy and all that jazz. Had a sister missionary in the Nauvoo Mission take a picture of our district next to the temple. It's kind of weird having a mission inside our mission just for Nauvoo, kind of like how temple square inside the Salt Lake City Mission.
GENERAL CONFERENCE was amazing. Didn't see it? Fix that. Watch it. I really liked President Uchtdorf's talk on pride. And Jeffrey R Holland's. And all of them, for that matter. An investigator came to part of the sessions! The first investigator I've had at church for five months. Yyyup....
Well, that's about it!
--
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
"Okay, so, today was hilarious. We went down south to Louisiana, just shy of Mexico, after dropping Elder Bischoff"s poop samples off at the hospital. Louisiana has MOUNTAINS! Well, hills, but it still got me all sorts of excited. We had lunch at a little diner run by this cool black grandma named Izola's Place and had it all paid for by a sort-of investigator that we are still trying to teach a lesson to. When our food came out we realized we both liked the looks of the other's meal, so we switched, to the surprise and confusion of the waitress. We followed the almost-investigator... to a worksite for no real reason before deciding to try and teach another time. We tried to find an old potential but instead found a giant white bunny. We then set off on a mountain-ish highway looking for a referral named Eliazar. It was a beautiful day so we had the windows down, blasting MoTab. When we were unable to find the referral, we began to head back. Despit the fact the road said 'Semi's use alternate route,' I saw up ahead a largte semi come around a corner. At first I was frightened by the driver's apparent inability to keep the truck in his lane, I quickly became aware of another horror: dried corn flying out of his trailer. Afraid of what grain would do to our open-windowed car, I yelled, 'We're gonna get grained!' [to warn my companion of our doom.] A shower of seeds landed on our car, but didn't enter. We began laughing almost too hard for me to drive. I then asked my companion to call the referal, whose address was a Louisiana, MO, address, to find out his location, but when he typed in the phone number it said it was a Louisiana State area code. This person resides far outside our area. More laughter. We then went to a town named Bowling Green and got barked at by a man in his house while knocking on his door. Laughter. On our way to the next town, maps in the backseat attempted, on two different occasions to decaptiate me, one even suicidally leaping out the front window. In order to forestall any further murderous plots, I rolled up the windows and turned on the air conditioning. Soon we found ourselves up a single lane, mountain, forest trail that was marked on a map but not in real life. Broken farm and construction equipment lurked behind trees, along with the sad remains of a couple three houses, one of which being a trailer home perched on a hill, both ends sticking out in open space. Elder Bischoff got scared of the potential of zombies and almost convinced me to turn back when we saw a house with this referral's last name on it. And a cowardly dog. Nobody was home, so we left the requested item with a not. We then left, elder Bischoff insuring his door was locked on the way out. ON the way to Hannibal, I found out why my camera charger was missing, but Elder Morris promised to have it delivered to me from Elder Shelman at Zone Conference. We stopped by Lover's leap on the way in.... We then had dinner with a member family...who didn't fully appreciate the humor of the day as we did. We then taught a new member lesson to a child whose mother is blessed with patience. And now I'm running out of ink. I bought this pen yesterday! Oh, we also played bing pong tonight. I never knew all those rules! Also nearly unintentionally played chicken [or, as my companion calls it, turkey] tonight. Not my fault! G2G2Bed.
Notice:
No drugs were used in the making or writing of this day. Besides Zyrtec."
Maybe this recitation of the events of this day are much like many others I send home. You just had to be there. Besides that day, things were fairly uneventful. We spent a good amount of time preparing for the Stop Smoking Workshop on Thursday, a guaranteed way to stop smoking in seven days. The lesson, due to our high amounts of preparation and the Spirit, went great, despite things that could have otherwise been very distracting. It really did a lot in building trust in the members there, we believe. And the people we taught it to? Well, they've already given in and smoked. But they've recommitted themselves to start again. Kind of disappointing. But what can ya do?
Went to zone conference. It was good. Got to hear from our mission doctor on how to be healthy and all that jazz. Had a sister missionary in the Nauvoo Mission take a picture of our district next to the temple. It's kind of weird having a mission inside our mission just for Nauvoo, kind of like how temple square inside the Salt Lake City Mission.
GENERAL CONFERENCE was amazing. Didn't see it? Fix that. Watch it. I really liked President Uchtdorf's talk on pride. And Jeffrey R Holland's. And all of them, for that matter. An investigator came to part of the sessions! The first investigator I've had at church for five months. Yyyup....
Well, that's about it!
--
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
Monday, September 27, 2010
Elder Bischoff"s Misery in Missouri
Another week is by, and still no improvement on Elder Bischoff. He has actually been worse off. There were a few days of not doing much at all due to him feeling completely nauseous and in pain. The doctor's appointment was useless. After a month of waiting, all they did was tell him that as far as they could tell, he was perfectly healthy, and gave him stuff for a stool test and sent him on his way, never doing the ultrasound he came in for in the first place. So now we have to go turn in the stuff and wait some more for them to test it all. And, in the mean time, Elder Bischoff suffers and I get bored. So, many of you who have been waiting for letters back will get replies shortly. I'm sending off four letters today that I wrote on saturday alone. We still somehow pulled off three member presents this past week, but that was the only number that was worth anything. Not that I'm a number monger in the slightest, I've been companions with number whores and know what it's like to be with someone that only cares about looking good to President, but it shows we still did something this week to serve others. One was with a couple that are going to take the Stop Smoking Workshop that we're starting this week, another was a part-member couple that also needs to quit smoking and get married and they kept asking questions about ghosts and possession and all sorts of stuff that I know very little about and which I am not very concerned about, and the third was with a fifteen-year-old and we took another young man with us whom he clicked with well. The stop smoking workshop will be done this week and we'll be able to get about six people to become nonsmokers, which will be great. I wish there was more to report on, but there really isn't. We're being fed well, and I got to visit Palmyra for the first time. My area here has a lot of places named after others (Louisiana, Paris, Philadelphia, Palmyra, and just outside of our area is Mexico. I also enjoy that Hannibal was the conqueror of Carthage, another obvious area in our Zone.) I can travel the globe without leaving my area. I was all sorts of confused when my companion was telling me about people in all of these places. It took me awhile to realize that they were names of towns here. I still get confused when somebody says they went to Mexico or that somebody worked in a plant in Mexico. I hope I don't sound despondent, I'm not... mostly.
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Love,
Elder Charlie Gates
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Love,
Elder Charlie Gates
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