"Changes"

Woot!

I'm done with my In-field training and I am now a fully trained missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! :)

As for the week, we had a great week in terms of people who we were able to teach this week, and our lessons with our investigators have gone pretty well. With the Oon family, we were ably to teach Brandon and Christopher, the two younger brothers of Alex. For some reason, Alex seems to have lost interest, but Brandon is doing great! He has been getting his Mom to bring him to Church every Sunday for the last few weeks, so we are definitely very happy with his progress. We will just have to continue working with him and hope that his parents consent to him being baptized when the time comes. We got caught in the rain on the way down and got pretty wet, though we were able to stay sufficiently dry, because a woman who was walking happened to have two umbrellas. We were able to talk to her and she said that she had already met with the Sisters before. Hopefully, this particular meeting will re-spark the flame in her.

Elder Nixon, one of our Zone Leaders, headed back home yesterday! It was definitely sad to see him go, but we now have Elder Tuckfield, and he is also a great person. Went on an exchange with him on Monday, and that went really well, especially since we have a lot of the same interests. In addition, he is also good friends with one of my best friend's family.

We were able to go over to our Elders Quorum President's home for dinner on Thursday, where we able to discuss less-actives. In addition, I was able to talk to his inactive son, who I knew very well and who used to be very active in the Church. Unfortunately, he has fallen by the wayside, so we'll just have to try and get him back on the path again. He is still a great kid, and says that he remembers the good feelings that he had at Church. Unfortunately, he doesn't really know what to do about it anymore.

Taught, Alex, my grade-school friend once again. We don't really know what to do anymore since he won't commit for Church, and since he's already been taught so many lessons. I guess that we'll just have to try and work with him on that, though he is in Thailand for the next week or so.
Aravin, the member's boyfriend, gave a us a surprise when we met up with him late last week. We had been pondering whether or not to ask him how he felt about the Church and whether or not he wanted to be baptized. Before the lesson, he told us that he needed to tell us something, and we weren't sure what to expect. He said then that he wanted to be baptized! Oh! That was wonderful! He just has to work on his family, but he is a legal adult so he doesn't need their consent. He has to figure out how to explain to them his decision, because there are certain rituals that he wants to do one last time, like fire walking! We know that he will receive an answer as he prays about it, and we hope that that answer will be good.

Changes! Elder Pace S. is being transferred to P.J., Malaysia, tomorrow. It definitely is bittersweet because he is/was my first companion, and we did alright together, though these past couple of weeks, and especially these past couple of days have been pretty stressful. He wasn't working too hard, and the leaders started noticing, so we talked to him about it, and since then, has been a very angry person, and it has been very tense between us, such that I got sick, and have had high blood pressure because of that. But, I still think he is a good guy, it will be nice to have a change though. My new companion, Elder Pace T. comes in tomorrow. The members are going to have a ball of a time when they see that they have the same last name. Change is definitely good. And I guess we just all have to accept that wherever we are, they is a reason for it, and we have to look at the bigger pictures. Changes can really be for better or for worse, but I guess we just take them as they come. Perhaps what I have learned the most in these past three or so months, is as Victor Frankl said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

We will be having Stake Conference on Sunday, so that definitely should be great. District meeting was wonderful as per normal. Elder Colvin taught a lesson on what our purpose as missionaries really is, and that was a good refresher, to remind us what our purpose and duty as missionaries.

I guess that we'll have to see what this week brings!