(Just so you know, the following is full of sarcasm which I find as my comedic way of expressing myself and should not be actually considered as me being that upset about the events that occurred. I hope you all can see the humor as I do!)
Hello Everybody!
We had an ice storm this past week.
I hate Ice.
I really do.
I enjoy being able to stand in one spot and not move, fall, correct my balance repeatedly, or dread my own existence. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know.
Ice Storms, or freezing rain or whatever you want to call these evidences that satan exists, are things where it rains (that's the good part, and that should never be the good part of a situation) but then it freezes solid over everything: buildings, cars, stray pets, my enthusiasm, the sidewalk...everything. It makes everything look beautiful.
But so does fire and you don't see me asking for THAT to cover Knoxville.
Point is, the freezing rain came this past wednesday and, after attempting to Day-After-Tomorrow-ize Iowa, caused President Talbot to send out the call that all cars were grounded. After a few minutes of walking I quickly realized it was much more hazardous on the inch or so of ice on the sidewalks than the little bit of slush on the cleared-off roadways. We walked over an hour to our service place (The Rec Center. Home to Knoxville's Pool, which acts like a bar would to a recovering alcoholic. But all I can do is stare) to do about ten minutes of service. Since we had walked all that way I made sure we went the little bit further to get some Subway for lunch. On our way home we stopped by Ray's house and helped him with his sidewalk. He had fallen pretty hard earlier that day while out moving his car. While laying on the pavement he offered a quick prayer for help and right before hitting his lifeline button he looked up to see Brother Cupples, his friend from the Branch and the man who had baptized him, walking up. Brother Cupples usually didn't drive that way through town but had felt a prompting to do so that day. He helped him back into his house and then had called us to stop by to help him clear off his walk. Moral: Prayer Works, and follow promptings.
After shuffling back to our apartment, I called up president and told him what the road vs. sidewalk conditions were like and he allowed us to drive, which I was grateful for. Later as we were walking back to our car after tracting (and finding a pretty cool former!) I slipped on the ice pretty bad. I was pretty much done with the ice after that. My companion, however, is from Oregon and finds the ice exciting and interesting and loves walking on it and crushing it and all that. I was meant to be IN the water, not ON TOP of it. As faithless as that might sound to Peter....
This week was pretty good, despite my little tirade about the weather (still not a fan of it. I miss Washington Winters - AKA normal rain). We went on exchanges with the zone leaders! I went to a neighboring area that we are covering right now because it is currently closed to missionaries with Elder Winfield, who had actually served there with Elder McConnel. It was a fun exchange, but we learned quickly how lame it is to do work in an area we can't access so easily. We tried to visit old formers that he had taught. One was in bed on pain meds because a deck had fallen on her during the ice storm. Another was an awesome one that went to church and everything but was unwilling to be baptized for no apparent reason and was out of town, despite the fact we had set up an appointment with him. So we met with some Less Actives. One was a mother and her son, which went pretty well until it came time for prayer. Well, the son apparently is atheist, which meant he had to pitch in his 13-or-so-year-old halfwitted opinions and how there was no proof of God, which led to rebuttles by his mother who just went on and on about "visions" she had had that went anywhere from them of Christ on the cross to where to find paintings at what garage sale. After a long time of this and him Elder Winfield and I trying to just end it with the bearing of testimony, I got sick of it. I told him that there was no proof of North Dakota and that I didn't believe in it. He told me I could read a book to find out that it was true. I told him I had a book that did the same thing for God. He told me I could go visit it if I really wanted to. I told him I could go visit God whenever I wanted, but i didn't really want to. I told him to read and pray and ask God if what we said was true. He said he had done that. I told him that I had had to do it over and over again and I had gained my witness not in one go but over time. I also told him I had once been as angry of a kid as him but because I know for myself now that there is truly a God and that He loves me and that these things are true, I'm very happy. And even if it isn't true, at least I'm happier because of it, and that makes my life worth it. At that point, before his mother or him could say anything else, I told Elder Winfield to say the prayer and then got out of there. I don't know if that was led by the Spirit, but I didn't feel bad about it like I usually do when i do stuff because I'm just angry, and either way it shut him up and left him with something to think about. I also don't know if that's all I said, I wouldn't be surprised if there was more. I do remember saying earlier, though, how ridiculous it was of him to try to dispute my testimony (I wanted to say something more demeaning then ridiculous, I was so exasperated by the situation, but I think the Spirit constrained me....). We went on to other Less Actives but they, for the most part, were even less effective. We even tracted a little, but what can you say when you don't know when or if you'll be able to come back and you don't have much time? I mostly just invited people to visit the website on the back of the passalong cards and call for the Finding Faith in Christ DVDs. So, it wasn't exactly the most productive of exchanges, but we did the best with what we had....
Ray was confirmed on Sunday!...Yesterday! That was awesome to see and participate in. He's going to make an awesome member, that's for sure.
I also met our other baptismal date this week. His name's Jacob and he's an awesome 18-year-old from, get this, Nauvoo, IL. Yup! The thing about those church historic parts of the country is that people are either LDS or hate us. So, his family's sort of anti-LDS (and I don't mean in the Anti-Nephi-Lehi sort of way....). But he's still on for baptism! He's apparently been looking into the church since early on in high school (he's now in college in Pella [home of Pella Corp., which makes storm doors. So if you ever see Pella written on a storm door, that's in my area!] at Central College) and has even taken part in the Pageant. He's way solid and we basically just taught the lesson by asking him questions and having him teach it. THOSE are the best lessons. Not only do I not have to explain it, but you get to see just how solid your investigators are.
We also picked up a new investigator last sunday who we met up with yesterday and is doing great. She's an old former from years and years ago who almost got baptized but didn't due to some concerns she had. Now, however, we've been able to help her overcome those concerns. AND she sees a need for baptism! She's awesome and I feel good about how far she'll go.
That's about it in the news. Sorry I wrote so much, I just checked the clock and realized that I've gone over my hour for this.... Oh well, I get kind of sick of writing the same old "This Is What We Did This Week" sort of format and wanted to try having some fun with it. Guess I'll have to cut it down next time.... Hope it was as fun to read as it was to write!
Love,
Elder Gates
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
30+...Shorts and T-Shirt Weather
Just so you know, yes, in fact, I am wearing a T-Shirt and Shorts. We're going to play Racquetball in a bit and it feels good. I just have to throw on a jacket and it's perfectly comfortable. Think i'm crazy all you want it feels great!
Yesterday Brother Rayburn was baptized!! They put in a new water heater that is apparently able to never run out of hot water. It's about the size of a big computer tower and was able to make the water nice and comfortable for the baptism. It was an awesome experience to finally see a baptism in one of my areas, even if I had very little to do with him coming to it. I almost feel like we have very little to do with this work, in the grand scheme of things. We're just tools in the Lord's hands...I think I finally see what that means, since it has a lot more to do with the spirit and the people's willingness to listen and commit. We just have to make sure we, as tools, work right. Anyway, rambling, the baptism is unlike one I've seen yet. You see, the person who did the baptism is a great man who can't exactly move very well either, and they ended up both falling in.... But, it counted, and Ray felt so good and clean.
We've been doing so much tracting it's not even funny. We have a lot of return appointments, I just hope most of them pan into something. We also had a great person we knocked into yesterday who had met with missionaries before and had almost been baptized. She also recognized that we weren't there by accident, which I recognized as well, since I had definitely felt like we should knock that apartment complex. Tracting is also a good way to get a lot of weird stories, but I don't even know where to begin there. From someone that lets you in just so you can realize that he's an inactive with schizophrenia who rambles on forever about conspiracies and the holy ghost getting a body to people that yell at you for knocking on your door, but don't accept you kindly leaving either. And that was in the same small apartment complex.
We're also being able to get back in contact with our other baptismal date who's been down in Nauvoo with his family and in Mexico on a trip so lessons should be starting back up with him soon. Also, we've been able to get back in with another great investigator who is pretty solid.
All is well here.
Elder Gates
Yesterday Brother Rayburn was baptized!! They put in a new water heater that is apparently able to never run out of hot water. It's about the size of a big computer tower and was able to make the water nice and comfortable for the baptism. It was an awesome experience to finally see a baptism in one of my areas, even if I had very little to do with him coming to it. I almost feel like we have very little to do with this work, in the grand scheme of things. We're just tools in the Lord's hands...I think I finally see what that means, since it has a lot more to do with the spirit and the people's willingness to listen and commit. We just have to make sure we, as tools, work right. Anyway, rambling, the baptism is unlike one I've seen yet. You see, the person who did the baptism is a great man who can't exactly move very well either, and they ended up both falling in.... But, it counted, and Ray felt so good and clean.
We've been doing so much tracting it's not even funny. We have a lot of return appointments, I just hope most of them pan into something. We also had a great person we knocked into yesterday who had met with missionaries before and had almost been baptized. She also recognized that we weren't there by accident, which I recognized as well, since I had definitely felt like we should knock that apartment complex. Tracting is also a good way to get a lot of weird stories, but I don't even know where to begin there. From someone that lets you in just so you can realize that he's an inactive with schizophrenia who rambles on forever about conspiracies and the holy ghost getting a body to people that yell at you for knocking on your door, but don't accept you kindly leaving either. And that was in the same small apartment complex.
We're also being able to get back in contact with our other baptismal date who's been down in Nauvoo with his family and in Mexico on a trip so lessons should be starting back up with him soon. Also, we've been able to get back in with another great investigator who is pretty solid.
All is well here.
Elder Gates
Monday, January 11, 2010
Knocking in Knoxville... Knocksvilling?
Hello,
So, remember that baptism that was supposed to happen yesterday? Yep, no go on that one. But that's only because the water heater was broken, again [FPEO: Dad, now I can see why you love the FM Group so much ;)], so it has been put off until next sunday. We didn't think putting a 79-year-old man into ice-cold water was a good idea. But Marissa's baptism back in Yankton went through! I called up Elder McConnel last night and it sounds like everything went really well. I wish I could have been there for it, but as Elder McConnel told me, it counts as "my baptism" (I always feel weird "tallying up" people's choice to take the first big step towards eternal life. It makes me feel like some fighter pilot with markings on the side of his jet....) as much as anybody else's. I still wish I could have been there for it, though.
We had zone conference this past week. It was all about planning. It was a good zone conference, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go home and have no idea what to do with myself. I'll keep reaching into my back pocket for my planner to see what I should be doing and end up planning out the next day every night and the next week every friday morning. I'll be such a bigger geek than I already am.
The temperature's warming up. It's supposed to hit FORTIES this week. That's pertinear T-Shirt and Shorts weather! The snow's started to melt some from the heat wave. You might think that's a good thing. That's a very bad thing. Snow turns into water which turns into ice on the road. And Elder Havice is from Eugene, OR and has never dealt with weather anywhere close to this.
We've picked up some cool new investigators this past week. One is this man who we now realize has some big problems with short term memory loss so teaching him might be pretty dang tough. There is also this media referral who is an awesome little lady who loves to comment on everything (which is so different than most people, who just sit there as robots nodding their heads if you don't ask them enough questions. I like it so much more when they will actually just ask you questions or comment back). And then there's this lady we knocked into who already knows that we lived with God before this life and that apparently there's some Ancient American saying that is nearly exactly like one of the Psalms (hmmm...I wonder why?). She seems great.
Well, that's about it. I can't believe Brother May passed away! It's good that he's no longer suffering, but it's so weird to think that he's gone.... At least we know that all will be well with him.
Elder Gates
So, remember that baptism that was supposed to happen yesterday? Yep, no go on that one. But that's only because the water heater was broken, again [FPEO: Dad, now I can see why you love the FM Group so much ;)], so it has been put off until next sunday. We didn't think putting a 79-year-old man into ice-cold water was a good idea. But Marissa's baptism back in Yankton went through! I called up Elder McConnel last night and it sounds like everything went really well. I wish I could have been there for it, but as Elder McConnel told me, it counts as "my baptism" (I always feel weird "tallying up" people's choice to take the first big step towards eternal life. It makes me feel like some fighter pilot with markings on the side of his jet....) as much as anybody else's. I still wish I could have been there for it, though.
We had zone conference this past week. It was all about planning. It was a good zone conference, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go home and have no idea what to do with myself. I'll keep reaching into my back pocket for my planner to see what I should be doing and end up planning out the next day every night and the next week every friday morning. I'll be such a bigger geek than I already am.
The temperature's warming up. It's supposed to hit FORTIES this week. That's pertinear T-Shirt and Shorts weather! The snow's started to melt some from the heat wave. You might think that's a good thing. That's a very bad thing. Snow turns into water which turns into ice on the road. And Elder Havice is from Eugene, OR and has never dealt with weather anywhere close to this.
We've picked up some cool new investigators this past week. One is this man who we now realize has some big problems with short term memory loss so teaching him might be pretty dang tough. There is also this media referral who is an awesome little lady who loves to comment on everything (which is so different than most people, who just sit there as robots nodding their heads if you don't ask them enough questions. I like it so much more when they will actually just ask you questions or comment back). And then there's this lady we knocked into who already knows that we lived with God before this life and that apparently there's some Ancient American saying that is nearly exactly like one of the Psalms (hmmm...I wonder why?). She seems great.
Well, that's about it. I can't believe Brother May passed away! It's good that he's no longer suffering, but it's so weird to think that he's gone.... At least we know that all will be well with him.
Elder Gates
Monday, January 4, 2010
New Decade, New Area
Good morning, family, friends, and fans!
I'm now in the great city of Knoxville, Iowa. Population: 7,000. World Capitol of Sprint Car Racing. Strangely enough, it's not the largest town in my area. That honor would be reserved for Pella, a town the size of Yankton that is sort of the Leavenworth of Iowa, just Dutch instead of Bovarian. It's an interesting area, for sure, and the first time yet I haven't been on the outskirts of the mission. My area is also much, much smaller and much, much easier to explain the boundaries of: It's just Marion County. We're about an hour from Des Moines. I'm now companions with Elder Bill Havice from Eugene, OR. He's an interesting character but definitely seems like an awesome missionary. The weather is much more mild here, they got a lot less snow from the blizzard, but it's been quite cold lately. Which has made it perfect weather for us to do the amount of tracting we've done! <--(sarcasm) When people say "It's too cold for you to be out!" I just want to reply with "So then let us in." I especially love the good natured people that decide to inform us that it's cold outside. "Really?? Holy crap I had no clue!! Thank goodness you told me, I could have made the mistake of freezing my butt off knocking on doors!" Too bad I'm a nice person. There have been a few people, though, that have let us in, which was very nice of them. Some Community of Christ people let us in for hot chocolate and cookies. They nearly gave us coffee but they remembered we don't drink it.
And while I left Yankton's baptismal date for this coming saturday, I seem to have fallen into another one for the same saturday! Way cool. There's also another baptismal date and also another progressing. This definitely seems like a good area, and I'm stoked to be here. The members here are legendary for being awesome, which is perfect. I should hopefully be here for a normal amount of time. We'll see.
Elder Charlie Gates
I'm now in the great city of Knoxville, Iowa. Population: 7,000. World Capitol of Sprint Car Racing. Strangely enough, it's not the largest town in my area. That honor would be reserved for Pella, a town the size of Yankton that is sort of the Leavenworth of Iowa, just Dutch instead of Bovarian. It's an interesting area, for sure, and the first time yet I haven't been on the outskirts of the mission. My area is also much, much smaller and much, much easier to explain the boundaries of: It's just Marion County. We're about an hour from Des Moines. I'm now companions with Elder Bill Havice from Eugene, OR. He's an interesting character but definitely seems like an awesome missionary. The weather is much more mild here, they got a lot less snow from the blizzard, but it's been quite cold lately. Which has made it perfect weather for us to do the amount of tracting we've done! <--(sarcasm) When people say "It's too cold for you to be out!" I just want to reply with "So then let us in." I especially love the good natured people that decide to inform us that it's cold outside. "Really?? Holy crap I had no clue!! Thank goodness you told me, I could have made the mistake of freezing my butt off knocking on doors!" Too bad I'm a nice person. There have been a few people, though, that have let us in, which was very nice of them. Some Community of Christ people let us in for hot chocolate and cookies. They nearly gave us coffee but they remembered we don't drink it.
And while I left Yankton's baptismal date for this coming saturday, I seem to have fallen into another one for the same saturday! Way cool. There's also another baptismal date and also another progressing. This definitely seems like a good area, and I'm stoked to be here. The members here are legendary for being awesome, which is perfect. I should hopefully be here for a normal amount of time. We'll see.
Elder Charlie Gates
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Leaving the Frozen Tundra
Yep, I'm moving. Not really happy about it, I'm not going to lie. It stinks. But it was bound to happen at some point.
As will most likely be a theme with my mission, I get to leave just before a baptism can go through. Marissa, the girl we've been teaching, now has a baptismal date for the 9th. That's way exciting. But I won't be here for it. Figures. Not really sure where I'll end up, but McConnel will be training. That'll be good. He'll be a good trainer. He's been a great companion to have and it's hard to leave after one transfer of us rockin this place.
This past week's been a tough one, work wise. Christmas made it difficult to do much of anything, plus we had a legitimate blizzard, which blew in a lot of snow and blew out any chance of doing much work. When you're on the edge of town with no sidewalk because nobody had plowed it out and no car (either because it was grounded due to weather or because we had left it at a member's home due to the weather) we couldn't really go much of anywhere. Walking on the icy road was suicidal, and wading through waist deep snow through fields was a death sentence. We got out as much as we could but not much could be accomplished. Church was even cancelled. It ended up being twenty inches in a few days.
Our other investigator, being the stubborn man that he is, was committed to be baptized...but said it would only be after he finished the Book of Mormon. Not a date, nor the regular way of going about it, but it's a start. We read through an Isaiah chapter with him and helped him understand it. I learned a ton myself. Half the time I feel like even if the investigators don't learn anything from what I say I sure did.
So monday I'll email you, letting you know where I am! Hopefully it has snow.... Places like Des Moines only got rain. Those turds.
Elder Gates
As will most likely be a theme with my mission, I get to leave just before a baptism can go through. Marissa, the girl we've been teaching, now has a baptismal date for the 9th. That's way exciting. But I won't be here for it. Figures. Not really sure where I'll end up, but McConnel will be training. That'll be good. He'll be a good trainer. He's been a great companion to have and it's hard to leave after one transfer of us rockin this place.
This past week's been a tough one, work wise. Christmas made it difficult to do much of anything, plus we had a legitimate blizzard, which blew in a lot of snow and blew out any chance of doing much work. When you're on the edge of town with no sidewalk because nobody had plowed it out and no car (either because it was grounded due to weather or because we had left it at a member's home due to the weather) we couldn't really go much of anywhere. Walking on the icy road was suicidal, and wading through waist deep snow through fields was a death sentence. We got out as much as we could but not much could be accomplished. Church was even cancelled. It ended up being twenty inches in a few days.
Our other investigator, being the stubborn man that he is, was committed to be baptized...but said it would only be after he finished the Book of Mormon. Not a date, nor the regular way of going about it, but it's a start. We read through an Isaiah chapter with him and helped him understand it. I learned a ton myself. Half the time I feel like even if the investigators don't learn anything from what I say I sure did.
So monday I'll email you, letting you know where I am! Hopefully it has snow.... Places like Des Moines only got rain. Those turds.
Elder Gates
Monday, December 28, 2009
...If Only In My Dreams.... (Dec 21)
Merry Christmas!!!
This week wasn't very productive, but I'd consider that mostly due to the car accident we had on monday.
Oh, and in response to your email, that is AWESOME that grandpa is doing indexing for people from Yankton County!!! The counties out here are tiny and Yankton County is just a few miles larger than the city, so that's just amazing! Anyway. Way cool.
Ok, so I'm a terrible son and just wanted to make that all a cliff hanger about the accident. We just backed over a rockery curb thing on Monday going out of a members' driveway. Since we drive a little Toyota Corolla, it popped out the bumper and apparently broke the window washer resevoir. We knew about the bumper pretty quickly, and it was fixed easily enough at an autobody place, but the resevoir we didn't know about till we tried to put new washer fluid in and it just poured out the other side. Sooo, yeah. We spent a good part of a day or two this week getting that all worked out, and we're still waiting for the call from the office to let us know the new resevoir is in in the dealership in Sioux City to take it there. Kind of a pain in the butt.
Christmas seems to be pretty well set for us. I got the packages thursday this last week and Elder McConnel got his too, so our little charlie brownish fake tree has presents around it now. [FPEO thank you for the stuff to Elder McConnel, he was pretty stoked about it and thought it was funny you'd send him something, but I wasn't about to tell him the truth behind it] We are also set for Christmas and Christmas Eve, we have dinner with our Branch Mission Leader Christmas Eve and Christmas morning we're going to a member of the branch presidency's house for calling home and then to a young couple in the branch's house for dinner. If that doesn't make much sense, just know I'm covered. It's been a 180 since thanksgiving and it's awesome. People are trying to figure out ways to feed us now. And I nearly cried and hugged the Sister who invited us over to call home from her house on Christmas, since it had been up in the air how we would pull it off. But she said we could use her basement for privacy and take as long as we wanted. I nearly hugged her. Her and her husband are awesome. And their youngest son, who's just a little younger than me, just came home from college and looks a lot like me. Kind of creepy. Everybody in the branch kept thinking he was me, and so did Elder McConnel.
Yesterday we got the chance to deliver gifts to people from "Santa," and it was a cool experience. They went to people in the branch having hard times and we were asked to help deliver them. It helped to meet with some people and also was just cool to see. It's helped me see the real side of christmas, since all we've got to do much of lately is tick people off by interrupting their christmas season by knocking on their doors and bringing them out into the cold, or so it seems. Some people may be more receptive, but most are just too wrapped up in the season to be annoyed by people most of them don't consider christians (people don't make the connection that we introduce ourselves as being from the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints, or that it says JESUS CHRIST on our nametags in big letters, or that we say we'd like to share a message about JESUS CHRIST with them. But, as we've been told, we're going to burn in eternal Hellfire and Damnation [FPEO would it have been bad to say "See you there?" I almost did on accident....] because we worship a different Jesus. But mostly that You're Going to hell stuff just makes me laugh). So Elder McConnel and I plan on doing just a little door-knocking christmas eve morning with santa hats on.
We had an awesome lesson this week on prayer with our investigator who used to have a baptismal date. We hope he's either received his answer now that we've taught him how to pray more in-depthly with scriptural references and committed to do it. We also have an appointment with the investigator who was in the hospital. We're hoping to set a date with her since she's received her answer. We also are probably going to be having a family out of the huge pile of elect people in Vermillion moving here soon, and they are set for baptism. Just remembering to look on the bright side of life!
The weather is pretty nice right now, just upper twenties or so, perfect for my new best score in disc golf this morning (14. Not bad here) but snow is coming and storms apparently, too. Woo! So i'll have a white christmas for sure! We went out on the Missouri this last week. It's frozen over in parts and was really flippin thick. Don't worry about me in the cold, I'll be good. As long as we avoid curbs.
Well, Merry Christmas Everybody! This is my last monday P-Day, so I won't be sending another one for a week and a half. I still can't believe how fast this transfer went.... Thank you everybody who has sent me christmas gifts!!!
Love,
Elder Gates
This week wasn't very productive, but I'd consider that mostly due to the car accident we had on monday.
Oh, and in response to your email, that is AWESOME that grandpa is doing indexing for people from Yankton County!!! The counties out here are tiny and Yankton County is just a few miles larger than the city, so that's just amazing! Anyway. Way cool.
Ok, so I'm a terrible son and just wanted to make that all a cliff hanger about the accident. We just backed over a rockery curb thing on Monday going out of a members' driveway. Since we drive a little Toyota Corolla, it popped out the bumper and apparently broke the window washer resevoir. We knew about the bumper pretty quickly, and it was fixed easily enough at an autobody place, but the resevoir we didn't know about till we tried to put new washer fluid in and it just poured out the other side. Sooo, yeah. We spent a good part of a day or two this week getting that all worked out, and we're still waiting for the call from the office to let us know the new resevoir is in in the dealership in Sioux City to take it there. Kind of a pain in the butt.
Christmas seems to be pretty well set for us. I got the packages thursday this last week and Elder McConnel got his too, so our little charlie brownish fake tree has presents around it now. [FPEO thank you for the stuff to Elder McConnel, he was pretty stoked about it and thought it was funny you'd send him something, but I wasn't about to tell him the truth behind it] We are also set for Christmas and Christmas Eve, we have dinner with our Branch Mission Leader Christmas Eve and Christmas morning we're going to a member of the branch presidency's house for calling home and then to a young couple in the branch's house for dinner. If that doesn't make much sense, just know I'm covered. It's been a 180 since thanksgiving and it's awesome. People are trying to figure out ways to feed us now. And I nearly cried and hugged the Sister who invited us over to call home from her house on Christmas, since it had been up in the air how we would pull it off. But she said we could use her basement for privacy and take as long as we wanted. I nearly hugged her. Her and her husband are awesome. And their youngest son, who's just a little younger than me, just came home from college and looks a lot like me. Kind of creepy. Everybody in the branch kept thinking he was me, and so did Elder McConnel.
Yesterday we got the chance to deliver gifts to people from "Santa," and it was a cool experience. They went to people in the branch having hard times and we were asked to help deliver them. It helped to meet with some people and also was just cool to see. It's helped me see the real side of christmas, since all we've got to do much of lately is tick people off by interrupting their christmas season by knocking on their doors and bringing them out into the cold, or so it seems. Some people may be more receptive, but most are just too wrapped up in the season to be annoyed by people most of them don't consider christians (people don't make the connection that we introduce ourselves as being from the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints, or that it says JESUS CHRIST on our nametags in big letters, or that we say we'd like to share a message about JESUS CHRIST with them. But, as we've been told, we're going to burn in eternal Hellfire and Damnation [FPEO would it have been bad to say "See you there?" I almost did on accident....] because we worship a different Jesus. But mostly that You're Going to hell stuff just makes me laugh). So Elder McConnel and I plan on doing just a little door-knocking christmas eve morning with santa hats on.
We had an awesome lesson this week on prayer with our investigator who used to have a baptismal date. We hope he's either received his answer now that we've taught him how to pray more in-depthly with scriptural references and committed to do it. We also have an appointment with the investigator who was in the hospital. We're hoping to set a date with her since she's received her answer. We also are probably going to be having a family out of the huge pile of elect people in Vermillion moving here soon, and they are set for baptism. Just remembering to look on the bright side of life!
The weather is pretty nice right now, just upper twenties or so, perfect for my new best score in disc golf this morning (14. Not bad here) but snow is coming and storms apparently, too. Woo! So i'll have a white christmas for sure! We went out on the Missouri this last week. It's frozen over in parts and was really flippin thick. Don't worry about me in the cold, I'll be good. As long as we avoid curbs.
Well, Merry Christmas Everybody! This is my last monday P-Day, so I won't be sending another one for a week and a half. I still can't believe how fast this transfer went.... Thank you everybody who has sent me christmas gifts!!!
Love,
Elder Gates
Many are called but few are frozen (Dec 14)
Boy am I lucky to be one of the elect few in that case.
Dang it.
Yes, it has been absolutely miserably cold this week. And it's technically not that bad for here. Nor should i really complain because there's always somewhere that's worse. But, it's cold.
Elder McConnel is from Boise, Idaho, and handles himself just fine in the snow while driving. So no worries, mom!
The snow and cold, and the fact that Iowa was hit the worst out of any state, led to us being told to stay inside tuesday night. Well, Elder McConnel and I had an appointment with one of our main investigators that lived about ten minutes away, and we got the news to stay in half an hour or so before the appointment. So, we took the matter to President Talbot and got it approved to go as long as we were positive we'd be safe. Luckily, a member from the branch drove who is from northern Minnesota and had an SUV, so he drove. I've never seen a near-whiteout going sideways. Anyway, that's probably more news than you wanted to know, Mom. The next day our cars were grounded so we were made to only walk. THAT stunk, since we live on the edge of town (Literally. We're on the corner of 8th and CITY LIMITS Road). So we walked to our Branch Mission Leaders house and used that as our base to head out and do stuff. We mostly just went and shoveled some sidewalks that day. By the way, you know it's bad when a midwest town cancels school due to weather. But it was sunny that day, and not too terrible, just in the single digits or so, plus a ten mile an hour or so breeze. Plus I was bundled up really well. I wore sunglasses, too. Big mistake. Our branch mission leader thought i looked like the unibomber. But, yeah, it was cold. Especially that night when we walked home. Elder McConnel and I had to check each others faces for frost bite. Not to mention that a conman of a duck caused us to try to free it from the ice just to find out it wasn't stuck anyway. Most people think we're crazy for being out in the cold tracting. But we gotta, can't cut out on the work just for some cold. But we do have a chart that keeps track of temp and wind speed and lets us know how fast we'll get frost bite, and we'll definitely come in if we need to. We went disc golfing in the snow again this morning. Today was very freakin cold. But at least we had spray painted my white discs read, so we didn't lose them as much.
This week, strangely enough, despite the cold, was mostly spent finding. And with all of our searching we only set up two return appointments. But we taught like six lessons to members and had about that many meals fed to us. It was great.
Keep warm, everybody. I'm trying my best....
Elder Gates
Dang it.
Yes, it has been absolutely miserably cold this week. And it's technically not that bad for here. Nor should i really complain because there's always somewhere that's worse. But, it's cold.
Elder McConnel is from Boise, Idaho, and handles himself just fine in the snow while driving. So no worries, mom!
The snow and cold, and the fact that Iowa was hit the worst out of any state, led to us being told to stay inside tuesday night. Well, Elder McConnel and I had an appointment with one of our main investigators that lived about ten minutes away, and we got the news to stay in half an hour or so before the appointment. So, we took the matter to President Talbot and got it approved to go as long as we were positive we'd be safe. Luckily, a member from the branch drove who is from northern Minnesota and had an SUV, so he drove. I've never seen a near-whiteout going sideways. Anyway, that's probably more news than you wanted to know, Mom. The next day our cars were grounded so we were made to only walk. THAT stunk, since we live on the edge of town (Literally. We're on the corner of 8th and CITY LIMITS Road). So we walked to our Branch Mission Leaders house and used that as our base to head out and do stuff. We mostly just went and shoveled some sidewalks that day. By the way, you know it's bad when a midwest town cancels school due to weather. But it was sunny that day, and not too terrible, just in the single digits or so, plus a ten mile an hour or so breeze. Plus I was bundled up really well. I wore sunglasses, too. Big mistake. Our branch mission leader thought i looked like the unibomber. But, yeah, it was cold. Especially that night when we walked home. Elder McConnel and I had to check each others faces for frost bite. Not to mention that a conman of a duck caused us to try to free it from the ice just to find out it wasn't stuck anyway. Most people think we're crazy for being out in the cold tracting. But we gotta, can't cut out on the work just for some cold. But we do have a chart that keeps track of temp and wind speed and lets us know how fast we'll get frost bite, and we'll definitely come in if we need to. We went disc golfing in the snow again this morning. Today was very freakin cold. But at least we had spray painted my white discs read, so we didn't lose them as much.
This week, strangely enough, despite the cold, was mostly spent finding. And with all of our searching we only set up two return appointments. But we taught like six lessons to members and had about that many meals fed to us. It was great.
Keep warm, everybody. I'm trying my best....
Elder Gates
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