November 18, 2013

Hola mis amigos!!

 

We have another baptismal date for the 30th of this month and 3 more investigators. It's kind of hard though, because some weeks, (like this one) we end up dropping investigators at the same pace that we receive new ones. The Lord works is mysterious ways!

 

Tuesday was an interesting day. First, it was 11-12-13 and at 2:15 for us, in military time, it was 11-12-13 14:15. Pretty sweet. Second, we were on exchanges again. I was with Elder Haney at our apartment. It was a little different, because he doesn't really ride a bike, and that's all we had. We went a little slower than I'm used to, but still it was good. We were able to stop by almost all of our investigator's houses for a visit. I had another conference call with the President and other missionaries that are new.

 

Wednesday, nothing big happened. The most exciting thing was watching a video in Spanish for language study. I didn't understand it all. Fun fun.... -_-

 

On Thursday, we walked a lot. The bike that I was on ended up getting a flat tire. That's two tires popped in the last 3 weeks that I have to pay for now. We met with Oscar, which was good, but the place we met him, was in the parking lot of a convenient store he used to buy spice at. I am almost 90% sure that he was there to buy more drugs. I hope he doesn't fall to temptation again!!

 

Every Friday, we do weekly planning. I conducted it this week, and it seemed like we accomplished more than usual. I think that's just because we have more problems to work through with our investigators. After, we got packages!!!!! Gotta love it. Every day we get mail or packages, it just seems to make the entire week better! So thanks to all who have sent me stuff! It helps tremendously!!! :) We also got our zone T-shirts! I'll be sending pictures probably next week. We also got really cool invitations to temple lights! I have taken pictures of those too.

 

I love Saturday, especially when we go to the Asian Buffet with a member once a month. This past Saturday was that day. Also, we made dinner appointments for Tuesday to get Sushi. Man i'm stoked for that!! During the day was a little tough. Because we didn't have bikes, we had to walk everywhere. We walked for close to 3 hours with no luck ANYWHERE!!! We finally decided to wait for the bus. We waited for almost 30 minutes and it never came. We walked over to a members house nearby and ended up giving their little baby girl a blessing because she has the flu. I finally memorized the 'script' for anointing the oil. And for baptism, but that hasn't happened yet.

 

I woke up Sunday morning with two Elders that don't live with us, sitting on my bed.... I guess their fire alarms went off around 5 am that morning, so they spent the morning with us. We went to a fireside with Oscar, and a family we have been working with. The family is doing great, and the fireside was really good, but Oscar....... :(

He has fallen into drugs and alcohol again!!! He doesn't know that we know, but we could smell it on him. He tried really really hard to hide it, using a bottle of cologne, and almost a pack of gum, but under all of that, we could tell. I KNEW it!!!:(

What can we do to help him? I studied about addictions and temptations this morning, and found great answers through Preach My Gospel and the scriptures. Hopefully we can help him realize the danger of it. There is also an addiction recovery class that we are going to invite him to. Other than that, we are allowed to help him overcome it.

 

Awesome things that happened this week!!!:

 

We made Banaan Pazae...(I don't know how you spell it) My family knows what I'm talking about.

 

I have lost 10 pounds since I left on my mission

 

I can ALMOST dunk the ball now

 

There is a Portillos here!! (If you are from Chicago or parts of Cali you'll know my excitement)

 

 

Love from AZ,

 

Elder Pilkington