Wednesday was the prepare for zone conference day it turned out. Time was spent on cleaning, mainly the car. Wasn't my favorite but oh well. We did go out to a tiny town called Birmingham. We started to knock some doors but the place was dead. We talked to a lady and she told us that this is a girls trade school town, so during the summer it's pretty empty but during the school year there's girls everywhere. Not sure if we missed out or lucked out there. But we looked around the school and it was pretty impressive. We had a 45 min dinner at the Huffs, it went so fast. We walked in, were escorted right to the table and we ate, had a message and we're out in no time. The APs came and slept over for zone conference, we played some fun rounds of pirates dice together.
Thursday we had zone conference. I enjoyed seeing a lot of friends again. I also felt some good things. President Johnson really touched me when he told us that he had some bad attitudes while on his mission and was miserable. I don't want to be miserable so I decided to change somethings I had been giving a half effort before. I can't say the work is fantastic now, or that were teaching tons. But I can say that I'm happier because I'm striving to be better. Oh other news is that dinners with missionaries from other wards going with you is highly discouraged, it should be a rare case to have groups of missionaries now. There's a number of reasons for that. One concept is always having your line in the water. I'm not crazy over that phrase, but it's a reason to some people. Another reason is picking up other missionaries and dropping off is a waste of miles. That's very true. The university sisters weren't happy about it, Pres Johnson specifically called out our situation, and said sometimes you have a area that doesn't feed you well. He also said, I'm not here to make friends. Pretty crazy but it was by far the best zone conference of my life. It'll be hard to break it to the ward, but they can drop off groceries still. After the conference we normally would've gone to Texas Roadhouse but we had a dinner with Sherry. I had 4 hot dogs and 3 servings of baked beans. I paid for the baked beans soon after when we went to Laura Beth's house. We read the BOM with her, and I also got to talk baseball with bro Reed. Mets fan.
Friday's highlight was one the sisters put up their "Meet the Mormons" sign along with a poster of the first vision. The wind was blowing and the poster would try to run away. And the sisters would have to try to set it back up, they eventually gave up, but not before I got funny videos of them trying. Their "Meet the Mormons" movie night that was being advertised to the general public had a whoppin 13 people. 3 investigators and the rest members. Success? Sure, may as well be. We went and played with the drumming group for a second time. Elder Haroldsen loved it, I liked it as well. It's a dang good way for people to see that were not freaks but normal people. There was a girl there who saw her friend playing with us so she came over and watched. She was wearing a Dodgers shirt so after I had to ask. Her dad is a Dodgers fan and she's been to LA once to watch them. I got to tell her where I'm from and the question of why are you here always comes up. Then she asked what do you teach people. So I told her about the BOM, what it is and why we have it. She was so surprised and said, oh I didn't even know that existed! She went to a catholic school but is obviously willing to branch out after she accepted my offer for a BOM. Next week she said she'd be there and I'll give her one then. It was awesome because I got to talk to her and gain trust like she I would with a friend, then be able to talk about the BOM without her feeling like I'm a salesman. That's a nice feeling.
Saturday we had the adult session of stake conference so that was a good time. They had some recent converts talk about the temples. The feminist recent convert got-I wouldn't say controversial but it was uncomfortable at times. Especially because I was sitting next to Ronda and Roger the whole time. I kept thinking, please don't say something ridiculous, one of my two investigators are here. Temples are awesome though that was the theme for Sunday as well. Now I just want to go to an area where I can go to the temple. We'll find out this week if I'm leaving or not!
Elder Simmons
No comments:
Post a Comment