March 9, 2010

March 9, 2011 - Week 5 of Transfer 9

Hello Hello!

Its good to hear from you! It actually feels like it has been awhile since I last wrote. Weird. So I had the same thought as you guys the past couple of weeks, that is "its time to do something about this weight". From some inspiring letters from Lindsay I decided to curb pop/soda for the rest of my mission! It has been almost two weeks and its not tough at all. I have also tried to stay away from all fast food and watch where we go to eat. My groceries have become alot healthier than a few weeks ago as well. Now 1% milk, bananas, fruit and 100% whole grain (basically bird seed) bread are the staples. Every once and a while fill up on healthy cereal or pure basic Quaker oatmeal. Elder Dick and I just renewed (if that makes sense) our goal to jog 1.5 miles every day. I almost died the first time... It felt like my gasps for air were scraping fat off my lungs causing blood to attempt to flying up my throat. Maybe a little to descriptive... But it should be good, we are real slow right now, around 17 minutes, but we will cut it down. This should be good, plus working out makes studies 10x as good.

I forget if I mentioned last email but, Stephen B. Allen (spoke to me in MTC) came to train the leadership of our mission this past Friday! He is the managing director of the missionary department of the church and he was unreal. He actually lives in our mission. I just loved everything he had to say. He gave it to us in "plainess" or without the sugar coat. Our mission this past month hit the lowest (110 approx.) it has ever been in six years as far as monthly baptisms goes. It used to range from 150-200 baptisms a month. He covered four main things that he determined we needed. He studied the statistics of the mission, shadowed the assistants for a day and met with President Miller also. I definitely learned alot. My favorite was when he talked about obedience. He told us, we think we are obedient but we aren't. We are MOSTLY obedient not exactly obedient and that won't cut it. Now President Miller has increased the obedience of this mission big time but we still aren't there. So it was great, my favorite part. Through out the entire meeting every time we received "revelation" or realized something we need to change he had us just quickly raise our hand and write it down. It was cool to see these hands just randomly pop up throughout the meeting, which was 6 hours long. Good stuff!

Now, alot of great things happened this week as well but here is something sad. We have been teaching Charles (28 years old) for the past four weeks and everything has been great! Going to church every week, in 2 Nephi 10 in his reading and hanging out with ward members on the weekend but we have not heard from him since Friday! He was suppose to get baptized this Sunday, and was excited about it, but nobody can get in touch with him. He just didn't show up for our lesson, church, won't answer the phone or door. Its pretty upsetting... I hope we figure out whats going on. That's missionary work for you though.

Although this past week Shelby Hackett did get baptized and it was great. It has been quite the experience to see the sudden change in her. From having no desire to change her lifestyle to not being able to wait to be baptized! It was like the flip of a switch, the Book of Mormon is powerful.

So the past two days (Monday and Tuesday) just may have been the most challenging days of my mission. Felt like an emotional roller coaster. There is a companionship in our zone who are really struggling, not between each other but in the work and keeping mission rules (nothing outrageous). I went with the new missionary, who's being trained, in his area and Elder Dick took the trainer in ours. Without sharing to much information the trainee was not to happy about the exchange. When we were starting he almost got physical with Elder Dick and for the first six hours! Of our 36 hour exchange he didn't say one word to me. After those six hours he apologized for everything and we were back to normal. There is a few other stories than just those six hours but no need to share. I don't think I've ever tracted an entire day on my mission yet but the Lord blessed us. We found a few potential investigators, found one solid one who we set up a new lesson with. We also gave there one and only investigator a baptismal date, which she accepted! At the end of the exchange we were having great time and he completely opened up with whats going on. Hopefully we can fix it. He has a great heart and he will be an excellent missionary, once properly trained. We finished with a hug and everything!

That is really my week, except this week we taught 25 lessons! Many great experiences within those lessons. I'm grateful for my area and glad I'm back with my companion. It didn't help it was snowing all day Monday and my right shoe on the big toe has a hole worn down to my sole so my foot was cold and soaking wet all day. I'm working on getting some new shoes once all the salt is cleaned up, I don't want to ruin the new ones. To be honest all I want to do is TRAIN! If I get a wish at the end of my mission it will be do to exactly as E. England did with me. White-wash train for my last two transfers... that would be my dream come true. OK I love you guys! Have a great week. Say hi to the two munchkins of the family and Jace the infant for me! Thank you, and you guys are the best!

Love Elder Pizzey