Tuesday, April 25, 2017

4/10/17

4-4-17
We went around today and said goodbye to all the people that E. Volmar wanted to say bye to. All the ones he wanted to see were home, so he was happy about that. 

4-5-17
Transfers were today, which was sad to see E. Volmar leave. I wish I could've been with him for more than just a transfer. He went to the Columbia Zone which is where I came from when I was in Blythewood. He is a ZL there which is a Spanish area. My new comp. is Elder Guzman from San Antonio, TX. He shreds on the guitar and is super good at singing. Like E. Volmar, he is a Spanish missionary but now working English. When we got back to the apartment, 

4-6-17
We did some service for SBP today which was a lot of fun because we got to put up drywall. We have been working on the same house fire the past few weeks, so we have got to see all of the progress! We scrubbed the board for mood remediation, then put up insulation and then, drywall was today. When we got done with that, we got back to the apartment and got all cleaned up to go to Stake Council. We had to give a report on all of the missionaries in each unit and their key indicator averages for all last month. We also, put the whole Stake Council on date to have find for the missionaries to teach by the next council which will be in three months. 

4-7-17
Early this morning, we all met up at the church to play some basketball. Then, we came back and had studies and transitioned into weekly planning. We made some plans and then, met the APs at an Mexican restaurant for lunch which was super good. I had a cow tongue (lingua) taco and a pork one! Bro. Mumford texted us earlier asking for help picking up a washer and dryer from someone's house. We rode up there with him which took so much longer than we expected. It was a mixture of terrible traffic, bad driving and it was far away. We eventually, got back and headed straight over to Jerry's boxing gym to help him with that again.

4-8-17
We played basketball early this morning and the APs came over to have some of my buttermilk pancakes! After that, we finished up weekly planning and headed out for the day. We did a ton of finding today and had lots of success. We were able to meet some awesome people and some interesting ones. For example, we met a drunk raging Muslim getting in our faces saying that we are puppets and that there's no Christ. Then, we met a homeless guy outside of Cook-off asking us for a ride and money, so we bought him a burger instead. THEN, we met like the only hipsters in South Carolina named Peter and Hannah. Haha, Peter is a geologist... surprised? Lastly, we met a Chinese lady named Yuqi who is going to USC in study abroad. She had this really funny-looking dog and she named it some Chinese word for a "sweet BBQ meat." 😂  so it was a pretty good day to say the least. 

4-9-17
Church went well this morning even though we totally forgot it was fast Sunday... 😐 our investigator Ina was supposed to come, but she couldn't get to sleep last night. When she finally did get to sleep, she over slept. After church and ward council, we were walking out in the parking lot and a college student approached us asking where he can go to learn more about the church because he has some questions. We went inside and found a classroom to use. We had such a powerful Restoration/Plan of Salvation/BoM lesson. We covered a lot because he had so many questions. It seemed like he was really soaking it all in. He said that he wanted to know why his girlfriend (who is a member) broke down when she was expressing he testimony of the BoM and why she reads it everyday. He got a little emotional after we talked about the way the Spirit works. At the end of the lesson, we committed him to baptism and tried to set a date. 
He then said, 
"guys, I have to be honest with you... I'm actually, a member who has been inactive for years. My dad is a high counselor in Aiken and I just wanted to get a investigator's perspective to make sure if I want to reactivate or not. This really helped solidify my choice that I want to come back. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I was doing this for me and not just to appease my girlfriend."
That took us off guard a little bit, but we just shared our testimonies and related with him. We talked about finding your own testimony and the process. Nonetheless, It was a great lesson and the Spirit was very evident. He got a little emotional at the end. He's a really good guy and we invited him to ball with us some Monday. 
After we got back to the apartment, We set up some plans for the upcoming week and did some finding. 


-Elder Mitchell

Monday, April 24, 2017

4/24/17

4-18-17
The Zone had interviews with President Turner this morning and ours went really well. We always go first, so we were early to make sure everything was still set up and got to interview longer! After that, we went on exchanges with Newberry and I got to go with E. Oliver again. We had a good day of finding and got to meet some cool people to set return appointments with. Then, we ended the day with Ward Coordination. 

4-19-17
We went to SBP today and we sanded the walls on the house we've been working on. We were covered with the dust and we had fun while doing it! After that, we got back and showered and exchanged back. It was really great to see E. Oliver and catch up with him. I miss that kid! After we exchanged, we went to a couple appointments that we had, but they fell through. This evening, we met up with our ward mission leader (Bro. Jennings) and visited a member to put them on date to have someone for us to teach by three months. Bro. Jennings is such a stud! 

4-20-17
This morning we played basketball again which was tiring. Haha, then we had exchanges with Lake Murray. I went there with E. Wilkes and got back on the bike which wasn't too bad. It was hot today though! We met this old guy knocking around and he invited us in and politely tried to Bible bash us with his wife. His wife was like Satan himself, so I decided to just bring out the scriptures and unload on her. It probably wasn't good, but I was just fed up with it. They told us they weren't going to change, so what the heck! After we stumped them, we told them that we had to go and they gave us these little "Fisherman's Bibles" and told us to read the tabs on it. Then, we had to rush over to an appointment with a lady named Donna. The member they had scheduled to teach with us, went into some deep doc. with the lady so that was fun! 

4-21-17
We went to Lexington's DDM today with the APs which went a lot better than the last one we went to. That District has struggled with Maturity, but they have really stepped it up recently since we sat them all down and talked to them. After DDM, we went out to eat Mexican food with Lexington and Lake Murray. We came back and we met up with some Sisters so that E. Guzman and them could practice a musical number for Zone Conference next week. 

4-22-17 
Weekly Planning went down today which is always effective, but takes awhile. After planning, we had a couple appointments that fell through. We did get to teach a lady we met last week named Yuqi. She is from China and is going to USC for college. She does not have a religious background at all. The only time she had heard about God was when she came to the US for college and took a religion class. It was very different teaching a lady with a little bit of a language barrier and from a totally different culture. We taught simply as like we were teaching a little kid, but she's super smart and is going for her Ph.D. in school right now. We had a good lesson with her and set a time to come back! We are going to pass her off to the YSA Elders (APs). 

4-23-17
Church went well today and we were able to get two investigators at sacrament! Ina, our investigator on date was going to come, but she got off work at 7:00 this morning and was really tired from working overnight. After church, we had Ward Council and discussed the SCI and missionary efforts over the past couple weeks. We went back home and the Spanish Elders met us there to have lunch with us. We had some of this soup/gumbo/jambalaya stuff I made last night which is super good. I just took a bunch of random things from the cabinet and threw it in a pot! We had an appointment at 5:00 with a family we met a couple weeks ago, but we caught them going out the door. They had to go over to one of their parent's house due to a family emergency. After that, we went over to the Mumford's to help them move their washer and dyer. Bro. Mumford is the ward clerk, so we talked to him about cleaning up some of the old membership records that don't even live here anymore. 

-Elder Mitchell