Hello family!!
How is everyone!! I can't believe this is only week 2 because it feels like this is what I've been doing forever! The week flew by because we keep so busy all day from 6:30 til 10:30. Mom I can not believe that you witnessed a shooting!! That is so so crazy! And it was so close to our house!! So it was just you in the car when you heard the gunfire? Wow...I am glad you were kept safe! I'm glad you all are enjoying the weather and the bike rides! That sounds so amazing! We have really nice weather here as well. Last Pday after emailing you Sister Awerkamp and I got milkshakes at Stew Lenards and drove to a park to layout and enjoy the sun and I ice cream. It was so relaxing! Today for pday we have a zone gathering to play soccer and volley ball. I am so excited to play!! We have some really awesome pdays planned for the future. We are planning on going to the zoo next week and then the week after we wanted to go on some hikes and maybe go fishing if a member had some gear. It really is so so beautiful here. The trees are mostly bright bright lime green. Then there are some orange, red and yellow as well. It is just so pretty and I am way excitedto go hiking! Then in the near future we want to make a trip into the city to go to the temple. So we have some fun plans ahead. We do a lot of work in the mission and it can be hard, but we sure know how to make it fun as well along the way. I love that I can have fun with my companion. :) Oh speaking of fun times, this week Sister Awerkamp and I went out for dinner. We wanted to eat at a Mexican Restaurant but we didn't know of any. So we find a random one on our GPS. We can't even see the Restaurant from the street but we get out of our car to see if we can find it.We finally found it and walked in. It was completely empty and dead silent. We about walked out when a lady appeared behind the counter. She reassured us that they were open so we sat down at a table. She kindly turned on some techno music of all things for us to listen to as we ate our mexican food. It was kinda fun being the only people there and we got a good laugh from it.
Well I took lead on all our lessons this week and of course my first real lesson was with Vasu about the Law of Chastity. Luckily I have got pretty comfortable talking about sexual intimacy from all my marriage classes for my major but it can still be an uncomfortable lesson. Luckily it went smoothly and the member helped us out and shared how the Law of Chastity has blessed his life and marriage. We only need to teach two lessons or so before Vaus will have all of his lessons. I hope he feels ready to make the commitment to be baptized! I met Mary this week who is a hilarious black lady. She was recently baptized 2 weeksago but hasnb't been to church since because she doesn't have the money to get there.She loves joking with us and it is just so fun meeting with her. She gives everyone nick names. Sister Awerkamp is known as soulja and she said she'll have to think of a name for me but that it will have to do with my blue eyes. :) We meet with the Simmons this week as well. They are an older couple who moved from South America to New York. They can't come to church because of their work scedules but they want to so badly! Brother Simmons is trying to work a deal with his boss to give him one sunday a month off so he can go to church. The thing I have loved the most so far about the mission is getting to know the members and less activies. In many cases they are less active because due to circumstances they can't get to church. They all have such incredible faith and they just love it when we come into their home and read scripture with them and leave them with a mesage. But what I have found is that so many times I have come into thier home thinking I am going to teach them but really they end up teaching me. Their faith is truly inspiring. Some people have given up everything to be a member of the church because they knew in their heart it was true. After hearing their stories it just really makes me reflect on what I am willing to sacrifice for what I know to be true.
Well as usually we did a lot of less active look ups and it is so hard because people don't answer our calls or text messages or they cancel on us or they are never home. It can be so hard! Sometimes it feels like we are getting nothing done because it is so rare that we ever actually get to share a message or get a return appointment. Yesterday we had a less acitive sister to look up. we knocked on the door and she asked us who it was. When she heard it was the sister missionaries she opens the door and starts talking to us and I immediately notice that she is not wearing and pants. We just go on like normal and about 2 minutes of conversation she apologizes for not having pants haha it was pretty funny. And we got a return appointment too! Yaya!
Dad you will be happy to know that Sister Awerkamp and I tried your door apporach! I was so glad you sent it because tracting really did seem like a waste of time. No one has been mean to us or slammed doors but no one has been willing to listen either. This apporach wasa little scary for both of us because it was a little more bold and direct but we decided to try it. We handed out two copies of the Book of Mormon to the first two doors that opened! We were so excited! I think mostly it was jsut exciting that we could share any message at all! Usually people kindly refuse before we even share anything. But with this approach quite a few would hear the whole message and they would be very engaged with the pictures and were fasinated with why we are called Mormons. Even if they didn't want a copy, we were still able to share some of our beliefs and it was so cool! We will keep trying it for sure:)
This Monday we were able to do service in Danburg Conneticut at a Church owned camp site. We were there with maybe 40-50 other missionaries so it was really fun. We got so much done in onlya few hours. I got to meet some other missionaries including an Elder who plays on the BYU soccer team and another Elder who moved from Brazil who also played soccer. I had fun juggling an old basket ball we found with them. I love whenever we get to do service. We do service every week helping this lady with remodeling her house but this week we also got to clean the camp site. It was a lot of fun being out in the sun and working with other missionaries. Well, I can't think of much else to tell you all. Things are going good here, they really are :) I sure miss you all! Thanks for keeping me in your prayers!!
Much love, Sister Lounsbury
No comments:
Post a Comment