April 20, 2011

At the beginning of my emails I list questions for Blake and he replys to them.  Usually I don't include them in the blog, but I thought I would give you an update of the lost scriptures.

Anyone return your scriptures?
-- No I have not... I have searched alot for them. I am almost positive no one stole them, I didn't even go back into the church building and the lot was completely empty, only walked about 50 feet to talk to some other missionaries. I am still pretty devistated, they were the best mission scriptures and marked perfectly for a missionary. I could look at any chapter in the BOM and tell you what it was about, and just tons of cross references. I had a card on in them with all my info about home, like home address. So I wouldn't be surprised if they just showe up in a package at home one day, or who knows. Anyways I've moved on and Sis. Park bought me new ones. Shes so nice. They are my dream RM scriptures and I treat them as that. I mark them completely different and its more of a personal study set and than good for teaching. They are the High Priest style, separate bible and triple comb. and the huge ones! I love them, I thought I would get them incase the other ones show up, then I have my RM ones already. So thats that on scrips.
------------------------------------------

April 20, 2011 - Week 5 of Transfer 10
This past week has flown by! I remember Sunday rolling around and I was just completely confused. It sounds like you guys had quite the week as well! Isn't it weird to think a year from now I will be home for these family dinners! For Grandma's birthday! Happy Birthday Grandma, I love you and miss you. I have a long list of events I would like to share so hopefully I can hit all of them, I must keep them brief. So here we go!

Elder Atwood and I were walking in our area when we discovered an unknown (at least to me) skate park! As you know I love skate parks so I pleaded to Elder Atwood to go check it out with me. We hadn't had lunch yet and were dying of hunger so jokingly we told each other we weren't going to talk to anyone because we had no energy. Well we got there and only two people are there but we put off our natural lazy man and decided to proselyte like we should. One of the guys was actually preparing for his mission and in the process of filling out his papers. Well we asked the famous question, "who do you know who you could invite to meet with us?" It turns out he is dating a girl who is not a member of the church. Her dad died two years ago and the Lutheran church she attends with her mom just isn't cutting it for her. So he invited her to meet with us and so we did this past week. It was amazing at the beginning of the lesson she said she was "lost and confused" and at the end of the lesson she said she felt "hope and a sense of direction". We invited her to be baptized on May 7th and accepted it but is having a hard time with opposition from her mom. We will see what happens in the near future!

After District meeting last week Elder Atwood and I did a mini exchange for a few hours with a companionship who are struggling. Elder Atwood took one of the missionaries to the post office to send home some things and I went tracting with the other in their area. I can't even begin to tell you of the blessings that the Lord poured out upon us in such a short period of time. The whole time I had a prayer of gratitude in my heart. We set up two new lessons with people who wanted to learn more. One women told us she doesn't know why she recently moved to Utah other than she wants to change her life here... Well we can help her with that! The other lesson had about three people who are not of our faith who have been wanting to learn. We handed out three Book of Mormons to other people who want to read them and were OK with us coming back and talking about their reading! The members we talked to gave us great referrals, and the list just goes on. I love tracting and finally our mission is starting to realize it is successful! It was even talked about in our last ZLC.

Last week I spoke on the Atonement and missionary work but focused on Christ, rather than sharing the Gospel. I don't like to preach missionary work from the pulpit as a missionary, because it is what everyone expects! The main message was, if we can just partake of the Atonement sharing the Gospel becomes natural. I used some stories/experiences in my life where I realized this. Something I could really use for the talks I give are stories of my or your childhood. Or just any story that could be used to teach a principle, I find this most effective. It is so hard to create a new talk each week with no computer! I am constantly searching my long term memory for some epic story that will quickly grab peoples attention.

After speaking we received a phone call from a lady thanking us for our talks. She went on to tell us her husband is not a member of the church and she felt extremely impressed to invite us over for dinner with her husband. I guess he has met with missionaries before and only likes the Canadian ones! So we are sure excited, speaking is a great opportunity for us to gain the trust and confidence of the members here in our stakes. I am grateful for the opportunities even though it causes such a headache throughout the week. We speak again this week and the Bishop has suggested the topic "keeping the commandments" and I am clueless on where to go...

This past Sunday we had a few moments between a ward council we attended and the sacrament meeting we were speaking at, so we dropped by one of the ward buildings. Right as we walked in, the sacrament meeting ended and we walked in to meet people. Right as I walked in my attention was drawn to a guy about our age sitting in the back in a grey shirt. I whispered to Elder Atwood "grey shirt, grey shirt" and we slowly made our way over there. It turns out he isn't a member of the church but has been attending for the past seven weeks with his girlfriend. He has wanted to meet with missionaries but has been to scared to get in contact with any, well we helped him realize were are normal guys who would normally were vans at home just like him. We set up a lesson and taught that lesson last night. He is completely ready and prepared by the Lord. Praying daily, reading the Book of Mormon and loves attending church. We invited him to be baptized on April 30th! I have never given someone a baptismal date for that soon!

OK... I just had a pause in writing for a few minutes. Really cool experience. Let me share. I am just sitting here beside Elder Atwood typing away. This girl (20 years old) comes up to us and asks us for the phone number of the Sister missionaries. I was just thinking, she must have just got home and wants to go out with them. After some questions she told us she would like to investigate and that she has been attending church for awhile now.......! She lives right outside of our area and wants to be taught by sisters so she can meet with them one on one and we definitely can't do that! Thank goodness for that rule. So that was really spiritual, I have never been OYM'd (open your mouth) by a non member before, man! We almost extended a baptismal date right here as she sat beside us! That was nuts, I'm excited for her and the sister missionaries. They are great.

So the University 7th Stake that I used to cover is being dissolved on May 1st and all the young single adult wards are being re-organized into YSA stakes. That means they are being taken out of the family stakes and there will be separate overlaying stakes for just young single adults. The stake presidency (Pres. Forysth) in the Uni 7th Stake gave us word about this quite awhile ago but now its happening. It will solve so many problems and help the work move forward. No more separation between University students and young single adults, everyone attending the same ward. There will be 6 new stakes to our mission and President is giving them to the Zone Leader area's (6 of 9 will get them) for a few reasons. He has already called and told us that we will be covering the Riverton Stake (YSA stake that is) and as asked me to give a training at the next ZLC on effective ways proselyting among young single adults. Any suggestions? He asked me to also include how we can best stay focused with the way some girls are dressed lol! That is a funny topic but very important because its true, these stakes would not be good for some missionaries. My advice would be to, one only look at their face, never look below and second get a cute girl at home so the temptation isn't even there! haha, its true though. But I am excited to cover three stakes and be extremely busy. We are almost in over our heads with the people we are teaching in the two family stakes but a YSA stake! That's intense.

I hope that was a good update for the week. We also had someone brake into the barn one night. Someone was on the roof and things were taken from our home, Elder Atwood got on the roof to check it out and some brown guy came flying at him! He punched him twice and the guy ran and JUMPED off the roof! I followed run the field and down the road with a flashlight... we were in shock. Then we came back in and heard someone down stairs so we went to investigate. We were about to head down the stairs but I had this feeling to check a hidden corner at the top before we did, we both crept around with the flashlight and Someone in a wife beater and tattoo's jumped out at us! Our reaction was to just punch and Elder Atwood got him right in the face, he fell back and took off and ran! No one messes with us, we were like detectives that night. Immediately sensed something was off and caught onto it.

Have a great week! Thank you for the wonderful package and great emails! I love all of you hope you enjoy Easter Sunday. We have no clue who we are eating with, probably the Parks but it will all work out! And by the way, the two who tried to rob us turned out to be missionaries pulling a prank and dressed up as hoodlum's. Back fired on them haha!

Love your boy, Elder Pizzey