Hiya
Fam!
I'll
be honest: New Years is not the same without fondue. I missed it. But it was
still good!
We
had a good week, a good New Years, and a Fantastic Weekend!!! I can't wait to
tell you all about it! :)
It
was weird going back to work after having a whole weekend of just relaxing, I'm
sure you've all felt the same way! On Monday we met with St. It was raining
pretty hard before, during, and after that appointment! We literally had a
whole week that rained every day, from Christmas till earlier this week. Not
exactly what Bing was thinking of when he sang "White Christmas" haha
Anyways,
our lesson with St went really well. We just went over how the church was
organized: Prophets, Apostles, Bishops, Stakes, Branches, Seventies, etc. He
said it made sense, that it was like a business company. We agreed, but did
point out that the Prophet isn't the CEO, and also that no one gets paid for
their work. But it is nevertheless a good enough explanation! Unfortunately we
never met with him after that. Holiday season, ya know?
On
Tuesday we had our first District Meeting in a whole month! We normally arrive
at the church a lot earlier than the other missionaries because of the way the
buses run, so we usually sit outside the church gates playing Book of Mormon
Baseball. But this time I brought that R-2 Bop-It! And when the other
missionaries came along, they loved it! So thanks for that one! District
Meeting itself was good. It was weird for our District Leader, Elder McCappin.
I dunno if I've told you about his situation, but he's been without a companion
for almost 2 weeks!! He's had to be with members all day long!! It's been
really tough for him, but he is an absolute champion! He got his new companion
on Saturday.
We
also met with P on Tuesday. We challenged him to act on his fast, and to pay a
Fast Offering to help with his testimony for tithing. We also challenged him to
read from the Book of Mormon every day! He said he'd try.
On
Wednesday we taught M. We read from Alma 30 with him, the chapter about
Korihor, the Atheist of the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately it didn't turn out
that well. He saw Korihor as the hero and Alma as a hateful villain. It went
completely against what we were going for. We tried to tell him about all the
terrible things Korihor was doing, but he wasn't having it.
For
New Years Eve, we spent our evening with the J's again. It was a really fun
evening! I told the J's about our predictions tradition. We played CatchPhrase, which was a
little difficult for the kids, but it went well overall. We barely lost! They
pulled a fantastic turn around.
Our
neighbors had a New Years Party. It was pretty loud. Didn't have to set an
alarm for midnight! But oh well.
Then
on New Years day we went by P in the morning, the B's in the afternoon, and the
R's in the evening. It was a fun day! We also got to watch Shrek 1&2 and
Home Alone 1&2. It's weird relaxing as a missionary! Ha!
Mom asked what a "sick pack"
is - So if a missionary is really sick, we're talking
cannot-leave-the-flat-for-several-days sick, the Mission Home sends them a
"Sick Pack", which simply contains church movies, including "The
Other Side of Heaven", and "The Best Two Years". I don't know
the details about it, though. I've never gotten it.
Okay,
so the weekend was so fantastic, I have to tell you personally. But it was
pretty cool!!! :) (Mike's Mom says:
"He sent a recording which I will include in a future post.")
We dropped F. H's mother just had a miscarriage,
which has obviously been devastating for their family. We actually bumped into D and M earlier this week! We'll be meeting with them
later in the new year. St is doing all right. We couldn't get a hold of
him most of the week, which was scary, but he came to church and apologized. A is good!
She's not interested in joining the church, but she did say that if she was
looking for a church, she'd join this one! P yeah,
same as ever!
Funny story though! Last week, we were
asked by this member to come out to her house to give her really sick little
daughter a blessing. She's not LA, she just lives very far away from the church
building. We're talking she lives on the edge of our boundaries!! So we go out
there, give the blessing, and then we head back to our bus stop, and then we
find out that the bus doesn't come for another hour and a half or something
like that!!! And we had an appointment to catch! So we had no other option but
to take the Luis, which is the tram that goes into Dublin city center, which is
NOT in our area, and then take a train from Dublin down to Bray. While we were
on the tram, I mentioned to Elder Stoker how funny it would be if we bumped
into any missionaries!
And what do you know, there are the
Sister Training Leaders!!! The sisters in our District!! They teased us a bit,
but it was actually really good because they were completely out of pass-along
cards, so we gave them ours. And then, while we're talking to them, ANOTHER
team of missionaries walk past, do a double-take, and then join the gathering!!
It was pretty funny!
We stopped English class over the
holidays, but it's been good!
Oh no! What happened to your Mini??? And this is what I have to say about Claire getting her
license: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe it. I'm not there for
Christmas, and it snows!! Bummer.
You know, your advice, that was exactly
what I needed to hear, thanks! Have a great week! Thanks for the pictures! I
didn't bring my camera with me on New Years day, so sorry!!
Anyways,
hope you guys are having a great week! Happy New Year! Be sure to look up
"Remember Lot's Wife". It's a talk Elder Holland gave at BYU a few
years ago about the new year. It's really good! Love you guys!!! :) I've told practically everyone I know
about Kate being pregnant! Ahhhhh I'm so excited for them!!!
Love
you lots!
Elder
Bates
No comments:
Post a Comment