Here's a little bio on my future mission president and his wife. Apparently was in the church news and was forwarded onto us by President Talbot:
Laurle Z. and Dirk O. Jergensen
Dirk Orme Jergensen, 59, and Laurie Zwick Jergensen, six children, Lake Poway Ward, Poway California Stake. Brother Jergensen serves as a temple ordinance worker and a Church Service Missionary for LDS Social Services and is a former counselor in a stake presidency, bishop, ward Young Men president, gospel doctrine teacher and missionary in the New Mexico-Arizona Mission. Founder/general manager, Omnicare of San Diego. Born in Rexburg, Idaho, to Orme M. and Ludeen Waldram Jergensen.
Sister Jergensen serves as a temple ordinance worker and a Church Service Missionary for LDS Social Services and is a former stake Relief Society president, counselor in stake Young Women and Primary presidencies, ward Young Women president and counselor, ward Primary president, counselor in a ward Relief Society presidency and ward Primary teacher. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to William Evert Zwick Jr. and Audrey McDonough Zwick.
So my comp just got some pictures from home that he's showing me. They mean something to him....
Anyway, I'm starting to see how people run out of things to say in their emails home. The work here is going great. Elder Heyborne and I are on the same page about how the work needs to go and that helps a ton. We may not have the highest numbers, but there's a lot of necessary work to be done that doesn't necessarily equate into huge numbers right away.
We had zone conference this week, which was awesome. The problem arose, however, while we were in zone conference. Some more stinkin snow decided to weasel its way into our weather and added up to a bunch of snow on the roads by the time we were headed home. This was my first time driving in a snowstorm for that long, so that was fun. It's only about forty-five minutes or so to the Des Moines Stake Center (usually) so it's not TOO far. It's not Yankton or Muscatine, that's for sure.
An elder in our district has been having some serious health problems and may go home. I hope this isn't the case, but it looks like it might be. We'll find out today. I'm thinking, thought, that if he does go home I may end up in another threesome companionship.
Cris is still on for baptism this coming saturday! She's really stoked for it. And our other progressing investigator is recognizing its truthfulness, and is wanting to start family home evenings with her kids and wants them there for the lessons, which is awesome. It was my first time teaching someone how to have family home evenings.
I think that's it. Snow's still coming. Usually it melts not long after coming down, only sticking around for awhile, but in this case it just won't leave. Snowblowers (I never really knew what that was until I got here. They're like lawnmowers for your snow! I always imagined them looking like leafblowers....) are having a hard time throwing the snow over the mounds that are already there. Sooo, that's fun. Woo.
Oh, and a little thing I've forgotten to tell you for a long time, when I went to Nauvoo in my first area, we had the privilege of having the Temple President speak to our small group. I know, random and a small tidbit, but still cool.
As I told Dad, but figured I might as well stick it in writing where Mom and Cari and whoever else you show the FPEO section to can see easily: President Talbot said in my interview with him that he really trusts me, and even if the numbers aren't high, he knows I'm doing what needs to be done here. He trusts me that I know what needs to be done here. He thanked me for the missionary I am and everything. I didn't know how to react to being bombarded by so many compliments.... That was a pretty humbling situation.
I love you all
Elder Gates
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Blessings of Blessings
Hello!
So I now have a new companion, Elder Heyborne from Vermont (we're keeping them Utahns out of here). He's a way cool guy and we get along very well. He's one transfer younger than me, so we've got some very young blood here in Knoxville. And before you start getting all excited for me being senior, let me just point out that it is, in my opinion, a simple numbers game: when you have groups of 10 or more missionaries coming out, and most groups before me are all just 3 or so or else all zone leaders, it kind of evens out where younger missionaries end up having to go senior and train. Elder Knapp, who came out with me, is training right now, and went senior a transfer before me. So, yeah, it just works out where I would be senior. Maybe there's more to it, but that's just how I see it. Either way, being senior includes more responsibility. I think it's just hit me how callings, even in the mission, should neither be desired nor saught after. Yeah, I'm good keeping this as my highest rank for a long time. But, with that whole numbers game, I'll probably be called to more stuff, unless I completely mess up.
Besides that, there's not much to report on. Really. It's kind of been a normal few days around here. Last week Elder Havice was all drugged up, so we didn't get out much before transfers. He was on 800 milligrams of ibuprofen 3 times a day to help with some foot problem and apparently it got him pretty messed up. So I spent half of last week sitting around the apartment. If you want a sure way to feel depressed on a mission, sit around and do nothing.
Yesterday we gave a blessing to both of our progressing investigators. One had fallen down pretty hard and the other was just plain old sick. The second one was the same investigator who had had a sick child we had blessed. It was pretty cool to get the chance to bless both of them, and afterwards she was crying and said it was cool. She wants us to come over this week when her children are there, which is a first, so it would be really cool if they started investigating as well. Our Branch President gave the one to our other investigator, the one that has a baptismal date, and that was good, too. She slipped this past week and smoked a cigarette her friend had offered her and drank some coffee. I contribute it wholly to us not visiting her more this past week.
It just keeps snowing here. I'm ready for spring.
Elder Gates
So I now have a new companion, Elder Heyborne from Vermont (we're keeping them Utahns out of here). He's a way cool guy and we get along very well. He's one transfer younger than me, so we've got some very young blood here in Knoxville. And before you start getting all excited for me being senior, let me just point out that it is, in my opinion, a simple numbers game: when you have groups of 10 or more missionaries coming out, and most groups before me are all just 3 or so or else all zone leaders, it kind of evens out where younger missionaries end up having to go senior and train. Elder Knapp, who came out with me, is training right now, and went senior a transfer before me. So, yeah, it just works out where I would be senior. Maybe there's more to it, but that's just how I see it. Either way, being senior includes more responsibility. I think it's just hit me how callings, even in the mission, should neither be desired nor saught after. Yeah, I'm good keeping this as my highest rank for a long time. But, with that whole numbers game, I'll probably be called to more stuff, unless I completely mess up.
Besides that, there's not much to report on. Really. It's kind of been a normal few days around here. Last week Elder Havice was all drugged up, so we didn't get out much before transfers. He was on 800 milligrams of ibuprofen 3 times a day to help with some foot problem and apparently it got him pretty messed up. So I spent half of last week sitting around the apartment. If you want a sure way to feel depressed on a mission, sit around and do nothing.
Yesterday we gave a blessing to both of our progressing investigators. One had fallen down pretty hard and the other was just plain old sick. The second one was the same investigator who had had a sick child we had blessed. It was pretty cool to get the chance to bless both of them, and afterwards she was crying and said it was cool. She wants us to come over this week when her children are there, which is a first, so it would be really cool if they started investigating as well. Our Branch President gave the one to our other investigator, the one that has a baptismal date, and that was good, too. She slipped this past week and smoked a cigarette her friend had offered her and drank some coffee. I contribute it wholly to us not visiting her more this past week.
It just keeps snowing here. I'm ready for spring.
Elder Gates
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Google Doesn't Do A Subject Space??
That's my subject.
Anyway.
Nope, I'm not getting transferred! Congrats to Elder Sodenkamp, though, at getting Zone Leader! I'm getting bumped up to Senior Companion. Which, if nothing else, means I get to drive!! That's the big thing. It will probably be to an elder that will just be one transfer younger than me. So...we'll definitely be relying upon the Spirit to guid this area! So, as any normal transfer P-Day would be, we get to do all sorts of running around and crap.
But this is an amazing area right now! We just saw the baptism of Jacob on Saturday!! He's a great kid and will go far. He really has gone through a lot just to get to this point and be baptized and seeing it finally happen for him was amazing. I nearly cried. He truly was glowing. And then on sunday we had the best fast and testimony meeting of my life, when he and Brother Rayburn stood up and bore their testimonies. Nearly cried again. Got pretty teary-eyed. The spirit was so strong and being able to feel the strength behind their testimonies, even though they were simple, was amazing.
We also have a new baptismal date! It's a lady named Cris. She actually has had a date before, but now seems right on track for it. She has given up her Tobacco, alcohol, coffee, tea, everything. Even chocolate because it causes her to do the other stuff! Pretty crazy. It's been a lot of fun carrying that stuff around and flushing it down the toilet. I'll try to include some of my favorite pictures from flushing it all. It's good to destroy the stuff and have them see it destroyed so they know it's gone for good. Still, never thought the first time I'd walk around all day with tobacco in my backpack or have open alcohol in my home would be when I came on my mission. But Yeah, her baptismal date is set for the 27th, and more baptismal dates are on the way soon, I'm sure! We've got some great investigators. One is a woman I think I've mentioned before who investigated the church about ten years ago. She called us up this past week to ask us to pray for her child who was sick and I, not willing to pass up the opportunity, asked if we could give her child a blessing. She agreed after I explained it and we got the opportunity to bless her! It was way cool. She's progressing a lot. She wanted to come to church this past sunday but was really sick.... She's reading and praying still, which is great, and she's just...better. You can see the change in people when they start reading the Book of Mormon. It's nearly palpable. I LOVE it.
It's been snowing more. Yay. This is an especially bad winter for here. Woo. It's not as cold as Rexburg was, but with the humidity it's made worse and the fact that here I cannot just go inside all day or just go outside when I absolutely have to. But yeah, more snow means an even higher amount of junk to trudge through and even more runoff in the spring. There will be massive flooding this spring, I know it. Does anybody remember the massive flooding that happened here in Cedar Rapids a couple years ago? It caused equivolant, if not more, damage, money-wise, than Katrina. But it didn't hit the news as much. Hmmm....
Anyway, that's it really for this week's update!
-Elder Gates
Anyway.
Nope, I'm not getting transferred! Congrats to Elder Sodenkamp, though, at getting Zone Leader! I'm getting bumped up to Senior Companion. Which, if nothing else, means I get to drive!! That's the big thing. It will probably be to an elder that will just be one transfer younger than me. So...we'll definitely be relying upon the Spirit to guid this area! So, as any normal transfer P-Day would be, we get to do all sorts of running around and crap.
But this is an amazing area right now! We just saw the baptism of Jacob on Saturday!! He's a great kid and will go far. He really has gone through a lot just to get to this point and be baptized and seeing it finally happen for him was amazing. I nearly cried. He truly was glowing. And then on sunday we had the best fast and testimony meeting of my life, when he and Brother Rayburn stood up and bore their testimonies. Nearly cried again. Got pretty teary-eyed. The spirit was so strong and being able to feel the strength behind their testimonies, even though they were simple, was amazing.
We also have a new baptismal date! It's a lady named Cris. She actually has had a date before, but now seems right on track for it. She has given up her Tobacco, alcohol, coffee, tea, everything. Even chocolate because it causes her to do the other stuff! Pretty crazy. It's been a lot of fun carrying that stuff around and flushing it down the toilet. I'll try to include some of my favorite pictures from flushing it all. It's good to destroy the stuff and have them see it destroyed so they know it's gone for good. Still, never thought the first time I'd walk around all day with tobacco in my backpack or have open alcohol in my home would be when I came on my mission. But Yeah, her baptismal date is set for the 27th, and more baptismal dates are on the way soon, I'm sure! We've got some great investigators. One is a woman I think I've mentioned before who investigated the church about ten years ago. She called us up this past week to ask us to pray for her child who was sick and I, not willing to pass up the opportunity, asked if we could give her child a blessing. She agreed after I explained it and we got the opportunity to bless her! It was way cool. She's progressing a lot. She wanted to come to church this past sunday but was really sick.... She's reading and praying still, which is great, and she's just...better. You can see the change in people when they start reading the Book of Mormon. It's nearly palpable. I LOVE it.
It's been snowing more. Yay. This is an especially bad winter for here. Woo. It's not as cold as Rexburg was, but with the humidity it's made worse and the fact that here I cannot just go inside all day or just go outside when I absolutely have to. But yeah, more snow means an even higher amount of junk to trudge through and even more runoff in the spring. There will be massive flooding this spring, I know it. Does anybody remember the massive flooding that happened here in Cedar Rapids a couple years ago? It caused equivolant, if not more, damage, money-wise, than Katrina. But it didn't hit the news as much. Hmmm....
Anyway, that's it really for this week's update!
-Elder Gates
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
6 Months: I Like It, I Love It, I Want Some More of It
The second part of that title is exactly what our recent convert said about the gospel. I love that man.
This week has been better in weather. But it seemed much worse. We ran out of miles on the car for the month and so we walked most of the week. We spent all day saturday walking. I think the Casey's and Kum and Go got sick of us using them for the restroom or snacks. We just got tired. At one point I just gave up and laid down on Ray's porch (he was not home) to just relax my back. It felt so good, even if it looked awkward.
Jacob is still on for baptism. He's taught us both the restoration and the Plan of Salvation for the most part, with us just asking questions to kickstart his memory. He's even resolving his own concerns and everything. He's a great guy. He's having people fly in for the baptism and has requested Elder Bright, the missionary who left just before I came in, to baptize him, so we had to figure out how to get him down here for this coming saturday. The branch doesn't really even know what to do with two baptisms right in a row, and more dates sure to be set here soon. But they're an amazing branch so they'll do great. They fellowship like CRAZY and it's perfect. One investigator who we're teaching now explained her experience of going there (and this was even ten years ago) a lot like how Glenn Beck explained his first time going to church. But it's the members' responsibility to be the friends to the people, because they'll be around much longer than us missionaries, so it's good they're doing that here. We've even been seeing a major boom in Less Actives coming back to church, which is AWESOME. The boom, I believe, has little too do with us, beyond just the fact that hardworking missionaries in an area do loads for the area anyway. And I'm not claiming to be hardworking myself, that's just what a member told us we were yesterday in PEC. So that's always good. You also know it's a good sign that members like you when they start teasing you (which they do a lot of here).
We had District Meeting here in Knoxville this week so we had it in our branch building. Well, I had gotten letters that morning so I took them with me there to read before and after the meeting. But, I made the mistake of leaving one of them behind. My branch president found it on the pulpit sunday morning and, seeing it was from a girl, found me in the hall where I was greeting people and continued to threaten to have me read it aloud. I tried a few times to grab it from him, but it doesn't really help that he's in the National Guard Reserves, so the only way I would have gotten it back would have been by tackling him and using the unfair tactics I've learned from water polo to get it back. Finally, when he saw I was thoroughly embarassed, he handed it over. TOTALLY seems like something Dad would do. Which is why it's good Dad granted me with the sense of humor to think that was hilarious and not just embarrassing.
We also had exchanges this week and I ended up staying here and going to Pella with our District Leader. We had a whole line of stuff arranged and after the first two appointments fell through I admit, I lost some hope on our second to last one (the last one being jacob, and I knew that couldn't fall through). So when we got carried away talking to some Baptist Missionaries (way cool thing I noticed. They never once bore their testimony on what they were saying. This girl was going to school for three years and knew all sorts of interpretation of scripture but could not just say I know this to be true because I've asked God and received a confirming witness, as we can. The spirit is always so strong with testimony, and people don't know what to do with that. They're always just based on knowledge and suppositions.) and ran into another appointment's timeslot, I just allowed it to. Well, the appointment that we only ended up having about ten minutes for was with this guy who had seemed sort of interested when we first met with him and taught him a first lesson. And in this second appointment, he went on about how he's been to church before because his now deceased wife was LDS and has read 60 pages or so out of the Book of Mormon and considers it scripture and accepted a soft baptismal commitment...yeah, he was way cool. Even tried to reschedule work so he could come to church. Well, I guess we see what happens when I assume.
Things are going well here. Just working hard as always. This is the last monday Prep-Day of the transfer, so I'll talk to you in a week and a half!
Elder Gates
This week has been better in weather. But it seemed much worse. We ran out of miles on the car for the month and so we walked most of the week. We spent all day saturday walking. I think the Casey's and Kum and Go got sick of us using them for the restroom or snacks. We just got tired. At one point I just gave up and laid down on Ray's porch (he was not home) to just relax my back. It felt so good, even if it looked awkward.
Jacob is still on for baptism. He's taught us both the restoration and the Plan of Salvation for the most part, with us just asking questions to kickstart his memory. He's even resolving his own concerns and everything. He's a great guy. He's having people fly in for the baptism and has requested Elder Bright, the missionary who left just before I came in, to baptize him, so we had to figure out how to get him down here for this coming saturday. The branch doesn't really even know what to do with two baptisms right in a row, and more dates sure to be set here soon. But they're an amazing branch so they'll do great. They fellowship like CRAZY and it's perfect. One investigator who we're teaching now explained her experience of going there (and this was even ten years ago) a lot like how Glenn Beck explained his first time going to church. But it's the members' responsibility to be the friends to the people, because they'll be around much longer than us missionaries, so it's good they're doing that here. We've even been seeing a major boom in Less Actives coming back to church, which is AWESOME. The boom, I believe, has little too do with us, beyond just the fact that hardworking missionaries in an area do loads for the area anyway. And I'm not claiming to be hardworking myself, that's just what a member told us we were yesterday in PEC. So that's always good. You also know it's a good sign that members like you when they start teasing you (which they do a lot of here).
We had District Meeting here in Knoxville this week so we had it in our branch building. Well, I had gotten letters that morning so I took them with me there to read before and after the meeting. But, I made the mistake of leaving one of them behind. My branch president found it on the pulpit sunday morning and, seeing it was from a girl, found me in the hall where I was greeting people and continued to threaten to have me read it aloud. I tried a few times to grab it from him, but it doesn't really help that he's in the National Guard Reserves, so the only way I would have gotten it back would have been by tackling him and using the unfair tactics I've learned from water polo to get it back. Finally, when he saw I was thoroughly embarassed, he handed it over. TOTALLY seems like something Dad would do. Which is why it's good Dad granted me with the sense of humor to think that was hilarious and not just embarrassing.
We also had exchanges this week and I ended up staying here and going to Pella with our District Leader. We had a whole line of stuff arranged and after the first two appointments fell through I admit, I lost some hope on our second to last one (the last one being jacob, and I knew that couldn't fall through). So when we got carried away talking to some Baptist Missionaries (way cool thing I noticed. They never once bore their testimony on what they were saying. This girl was going to school for three years and knew all sorts of interpretation of scripture but could not just say I know this to be true because I've asked God and received a confirming witness, as we can. The spirit is always so strong with testimony, and people don't know what to do with that. They're always just based on knowledge and suppositions.) and ran into another appointment's timeslot, I just allowed it to. Well, the appointment that we only ended up having about ten minutes for was with this guy who had seemed sort of interested when we first met with him and taught him a first lesson. And in this second appointment, he went on about how he's been to church before because his now deceased wife was LDS and has read 60 pages or so out of the Book of Mormon and considers it scripture and accepted a soft baptismal commitment...yeah, he was way cool. Even tried to reschedule work so he could come to church. Well, I guess we see what happens when I assume.
Things are going well here. Just working hard as always. This is the last monday Prep-Day of the transfer, so I'll talk to you in a week and a half!
Elder Gates
Monday, January 25, 2010
Water and Hearts: Two Things That Turn Hard When Cold
(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
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 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
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