Daily Archives: April 15, 2013

Monday Gets Much Better…

After a rocky start, Monday turned out to be great. First I was able to get my iPad to find wi-fi sources. Then I went to the office and got to help out with some problems before heading to the Sprint store and get my phone up and running…never thought of taking out the battery to reset the phone, so I learned something for future use.

Then we prepared lunch for some very special guests.1 15Apr13 - Account Plow Stew 2 15Apr13 - lunch Ship Plow

While I was at the office in the morning the APs came in to make their accountability calls. Basically these are stewardship calls to the zone leaders to find out why some people did not get baptized, what they are planning to teach each district leader and share with the districts, and any exchanges they plan to go on for the week. If they feel it is necessary they do some suggesting and training. it is often a spiritual experience listening to these young leaders counsel with other young leaders.

After getting my phone working I came home and helped Mary get lunch ready for our special guests – the APs. Usually we have lunch with them 10 days before transfers but since we will not be here for the next transfer, we decided to have lunch so elder Plowman could share one with us. It has been many months since he came to a last lunch when he transferred out of the Fort Lauderdale zone.

3 15Apr13 - lunch foods on 4 15Apr13 - 4 for lunch

 

They got lasagna, salad, and garlic bread for lunch which was followed by pumpkin pie and ice cream. At least they look happy.

 

5 15Apr13 - Gust breaking up 6 15Apr13 - Stew Plow 7 15Apr13 - 3 of 4 Mary 8 15Apr13 - Plow for ride Gust, Ship Stew

 

After lunch they started sharing some stories and one of them completely broke up elder Gust. I can not remember what it was about but all of the elders joined in. I guess the last picture means the other three have to carry elder Plowman until he learns what to do.

9 15Apr13 - 4 with bikes 10 15Apr13 - 4 and us bikes

We then went to the office and who should show up in their p-day clothes and with their bikes but the fab four…we had to take some pictures and perhaps the last one with these four wonderful friends who are missionaries.

11 15Apr13- Gust Shirt 12 15Apr13 - no idea where to go

 

I noticed that elder Gust was wearing a T-shirt that I had not seen before. He inherited it and it seems to be one that the Fort Lauderdale Zone had printed at some time. If anyone knows when I would love to know they were the Kings of Zion. I took the last picture to show a car that was in the right turn lane and when the turn signal turned green she moved over into the middle of the intersection. I thought she was going to just turn right instead of left – I have seen this happen before at this intersection – but instead when the light turned green she went straight across. It is truly interesting driving in Florida.



Monday Morning….interesting!

I guess it is important that I have a memorable last Monday morning because it has been very interesting.

First when I got up to go to the gym I found that my new phone would not respond to any efforts on my part to wake it up. Annoying but nothing really terrible because I will take it in to Sprint and have them tell me what I did to make it not like me. Oh, yes it is charged!

Second I get to the gym and find that my iPad will not connect to the management office wifi. When that happened I realized that it would not work yesterday at the chapel either but that is not unusual since it is often down. Again no big thing because I have 3G and nothing was going to stop me from getting in my exercising. But when I got home it would not work on our system either.   Tried a number of things to get it to connect but without success. If I can not figure out what is wrong it means a long trip to the Apple store which I do not look forward to. Again no big thing but annoying.

But then when I was getting a little annoyed at the way the day was going I got on the Tembe Elephant park’s webcam and was greeted by this sight…

Screen Shot 2013-04-15 at 7.36.29 AM

 

If you have ever been to South Africa you will know what animal this is. Also you will laugh – I certainly did – because  it is amazing how often this is the view you get of many animals. When I saw the picture, everything kind of fell into place – do not sweat the little things, enjoy what you can.

I trust that all of you are having or had a wonderful Monday morning in this beautiful world that the Lord has provided for us! If not, read the experiences in the post below and you will certainly feel better.



Experiences from President Anderson’s Letter…

This week’s experiences focus on two principles that President Anderson taught in conferences and specialized training meetings over the last months. I am glad so many of you find them as uplifting as I do…

Using our members as part of the journey will get our investigators to their destination of baptism:

“We were thinking and praying this past week about how we could get one of our investigators to church and we decided that we needed to take over a certain older couple from our ward. As we took them over, they automatically hit it off because they are going through a lot of the same things. The brother that we took over has stage four cancer and is slowly dying and there is nothing that they can do about it. Although he has this challenge, he and his wife are both really happy people. Our investigator saw how happy he was even when he was so sick and she wants that exact same thing. The couple that we took over went and picked her up on Sunday morning, took her on a chapel tour, and took her home to eat between sessions. It was awesome to see that as we followed inspiration on who to take over we received the blessing and accomplished what we set out to do.”

As we magnify the great titles of missionaries, “Healers of Souls” for example, we will be able to change hearts and lives:

“We had an amazing experience yesterday acting as ‘Healers of Souls’. We knocked on a door and DJ opened it and before we could say anything told us, ‘Come on in, I have some time for you’. He told us his story about his girlfriend cheating on him and using him and he explained he had let his anger go and told us that he had an inescapable darkness and weight upon his heart. We promised him peace and a release from this during the blessing. We told him to focus on this peace. After the blessing he had tears and accepted the date without hesitation. He told us, ‘If you go the rest of the day and everyone slams the door in your face and you feel like you haven’t made a difference, know you have changed my life this day. I was going to go pour sugar in her engine later tonight, but now instead, I am going to go return the funnel and get my money back. I don’t have any anger in my soul’

The journey of progressing them to baptism will always result in miracles as we allow God to take us there with testimony and the Spirit:

“On Monday this past week my companion and I went to visit the family of 6 that we were lead to the previous week. We called a member that had introduced himself at church on Sunday and asked if he would come with us. He told us that it was his day off the next day and he actually wanted to get to know the family better. We showed up and the wife answered the door. She told us that her husband was asleep and that we would have to reschedule. We then introduced our friends that we brought along and told her that they wanted to get to know them better after meeting her on Sunday. We expressed our testimonies to her and she let us in to meet with her without her husband. The members were key in getting into the door. One of the amazing tools that we have learned to use as missionaries is identifying the spirit. We talked with her about church and she remembered the wonderful feeling that she had. We testified that that was from God and that he wanted her in his church. We reviewed the doctrine of Revelation with her and what the spirit’s role is in that process. By the end of the lesson she was committed to be baptized this Sunday. When she was committed we taught her another commandment that would help her receive more revelation, the word of wisdom. As we recounted Joseph Smith’s first vision she felt the spirit she accepted it right away and promised to stop drinking Coffee and Tea. It was great to see her feel of the spirit and make commitments. Then we set up an appointment for Wednesday. Wednesday rolled around and we went by again with our member and we had a great lesson planned to teach the whole family. We ended up teaching the doctrine of the Gospel with a wonderful parable that related perfectly to them. The spirit was so strong as they understood the Doctrine of Christ. That is one thing that I have learned. As people understand eternal truths they are so much more desirous to act. After teaching that we taught them all the commandments that they needed to know and they committed to them all. It was such a wonderful experience. Friday we brought the whole family to another members home to have a family home evening. Their friendship was essential. They bonded quickly and their children had a blast together. After a spiritual powerful lesson and teaching the rest of the things that they needed to hear, they were so excited, and the whole family got baptized on Sunday. The Bishop and members were in tears during the service.”

I love the power we have as missionaries as we link ourselves to the vision of who these great souls can become. God will give us power and answers to all things as we become obedient:

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