12/28/15

What a week. The theme of this week was service. On Christmas Eve we went caroling for days! The highlights included a woman in the front cussing us out, an old lady who was so touched she needed to kiss my cheek. A cool experience was going to a members house and having ten missionaries sing to her outside her house, the high was 73 degrees that day. When we started she was overwhelmed and started crying. Awe heart.

Caroling at Veteran's Place


Christmas Eve night we went to Brother and Sister Pope's house. We made some awesome gingerbread houses. I forgot how much I struggle with making gingerbread houses when hot glue guns aren't available. So the time lapse shows the sloppiness and a gummy bear tower falling over a couple times. It was a good time.

Christmas Day also was great! I got to Skype with my family! It was pretty awesome, I miss them and their quirky humor that you just don't see anywhere else. Probably cuz we're the only ones who like dry humor that's seasoned in sass. I also got some cool presents, one being Lego Star Wars, a photo album with pics from the mission so far, and some long cat ties. After I was kind of in a slump because we just lounged around for like 6 hours that day. But a highlight was riding the train outside of Pittsburgh to the end of the line, where we then got picked up to go to the mission home. I suddenly found myself in a bizarre world called NOT Pittsburgh. Some days this place feels like a movie set, like the movie "The Truman show" because I can't leave, there's rivers and tunnels to leave the city. Anyways Elder Masina and I found ourselves outside a movie theatre welcoming people to the movies and saying merry Christmas. To find out information on a movie I didn't know of I'd say. Oh that's the one with...and then they'd answer and I said oh yeah right her. So that was a good time. We had a fun time at the mission home with the ping pong robot.

On Tuesday we were going to get some quarters to do laundry. We saw Jonny, a really old homeless guy. He was struggling that day with walking because he's got cancer and he's old. (Like his 50's. Just kidding suckas.) point is he asked us to walk him across the street to their camp. Across the street he was slowing down and we decided to pick him up. We did a fireman carry and to get him up we skootched him onto our arms. He had a cute smile as we picked up the pace substantially. We got him situated in his bed, put his covers on him, gloves, beanie. Everything was good except I had poop all over right leg from Jonny! But honestly I wasn't too distraught as I thought I would've been. It was really humbling to help someone like that. Obviously we took pictures so enjoy that. Then went back and got quarters and pop tarts, and ice cream.

So there's you have it. Another week in the life of Elder Simmons.

Timelapse of walking from Northside

12/21/15

Hey people, this week was crazy!

On Tuesday I went in an exchange into Northside with Elder Syndergaard. We turned out to have a stacked day and with some extra exerted effort we got a rather above average lesson day. It showed me that A.) We can always have something to be doing. And B.) Setting mini goals during the day can also be really effective.

Caroling


The second highlight of this week was the fat amount of caroling I got to do. Our zone activity was awesome. Elder Montgomery was my companion for the day due to the car accident of Elder Bell. Which was awesome. We were going and Bell had a which way to turn folly. As he started turning right a truck came from our right and we bounced off it. It was just some scrapes, and the guy was super nice. So that was fun. Elder Bell got red-dotted, so on our blitz he couldn't drive! ANYWAYS Montgomery and I got to do some awesome street contacting before going to a hospital to sing. When we got there early a guy stopped us by saying BYU? Sure BYU what's up. Turns out his wife was in the hospital and their nephew is serving in Spain. So a smaller group went up and sang to her. Then her next door neighbor because she heard the singing too. That was a really cool experience.

The zone activity was quite fun, we did a white elephant gift exchange. That was pretty entertaining, I almost got stuck with a shake weight. That would've been useless.

The third highlight was a blitz with Oakland on Saturday. I got to drive for the first time since coming out, but luckily it was a Corolla! Just like at home so I felt no problems driving. Also TiWi never talked to me. We got an awesome new investigator from that day, which was nuts. We got to her door and she just opened it! She was super solid and we'll be teaching her this week. Turns out we wouldn't have been able to ring the doorbell and her number was jank. That was totally lined up by God.

In other news this Pday morning we went to a museum that had 6 floors. We pretty much just saw the WW2 section, the sports, and visited the Mr, Rogers wax figure. All in a hour. Last time I ever go to a museum.

Also it snowed once this week, it was sweet. And now it's gone, which is great because I don't like being outside in the cold.

But still Merry Christmas

Elder Simmons

We helped a girl pack all of her stuff

12/14/15

This week has been pretty long, let me tell you. First off we had an awesome zone conference. President Johnson's sister made nose warmers for every missionary in the mission. And these things are epic. They make for hilarious pictures whether you're trying or not. We talked a lot about Christmas and we also got to watch the new mission video!

And of course this week was Nick's baptism! Saturday morning we went to the church and filled the font with mildly warm water. By the time the baptism rolled around the water got slightly chilled. As we walked in we were both shivering a bit. Turns out we didn't go over the dunkage part well enough. After I said the prayer we went down and he went straight back. Not much knee bending happened, so he went straight back near the wall. I made sure he went all the way I see. Now, you all should know the font is pretty tiny. On his was up he smacked his head on the faucet...! The whole crowd went OOOH. He was ok but he got a good gash. Of course I cut this guy's head! But it's all good, there's been some good jokes about it. Also President and Sister Johnson was there too. Another profound thing that happened is when Nick came up the water was noticeably warmer! We both noticed it, it wasn't just our bodies had adjusted we could feel the warm pockets. That was pretty cool. I want to say God warmed it a bit but it's not doctrine.

Sunday is always a highlight as well. It was the Christmas program and all of us missionaries in the ward sang in the choir. I enjoyed trying to sing to the good people. The coolest part of Sunday was seeing Nick in a white shirt and tie. That was the first time I saw him dressed that nicely. That's where things came full circle and I could see the change in Nick's life more than ever. Elder Howard confirmed him a member, it was also Elder Howard's birthday. I really hope I'm not leaving Pittsburgh. We find out a few days after Christmas who's peacing out. Also we got to go to a concert at Carnegie Mellon University. Jeez this people could make music. It was pretty awesome. That about sums up my crazy week.

See ya,

Elder Simmons

12/7/15

Hello again, this week started off really slow. I have been in a rut of not knowing what to do when there is open time in the day. So we did a lot of walking. It was hard and not too fun. Then we did exchanges on Wednesday and Elder Masina helped me out a lot and now it feels like there's too much to do and not enough time! I learned how vital weekly planning is. I've also been doing better with my mornings, I promised God I'd work out every morning. So I have, but it's tough to get into the habit.

Other highlights include Tony getting a baptism date! I might be out of the area by then but as long as it happens that's what matters! Tony is great and Nick is still going good for his baptism. Testimony meeting was amazing this week, there were so many spiritual testimonies that just rocked everyone's heart. We also watched most of the Christmas devotional with Nick last night. He really loved the music. (P.s. I predicted that the last song was going to be Silent Night.} Nick's baptism is coming up fast! I'm super excited! It hasn't snowed yet, which is good and bad. It'll feel like Christmas but I have to walk in it all day. Also we set up our quaint little spruce the other day.

Our beautiful Spruce

I've also gained a lot more confidence tracking. The goal is to say something profound before some one says no to you. So one house I knock I start off just stumbling all over the place, not making much sense. The I paused and said, I'm not good at this door thing, but we're missionaries blah blah blah eternal salvation. After that most of the fear went away, these houses still have real people in them. And by their standards we are the weird ones. I always get anxiety when they come to the door but I've gotten a lot more confidence an courage to talk. All thanks to the Man upstairs.

We got volunteered and lied to by other missionaries to go to Linda's house for dinner. We were told she was getting pizza, which was the lie. So we got there and we had quite the interesting time.. needless to say I'd rather eat school lunch food for two years then go over there once a week. So that's my week in a quick flash, the weeks go so darn fast it's insane. This Saturday, Nick's baptism, will be my 4 month mark! WAT? I have two thoughts, that was fast, and this is going to take forever. But I'll just keep taking it hour by hour and week to week.

Elder Simmons

The double piggy back. Slightly uncomfortable, but worth it in the long run.

Headlights are kewl

Pizza with Kevin