Bye Bye King George, Va

This is me and a member we helped come back to church after being not too active for a while

 September 21, 2015

So first-off, I am transferring and my companion is training a newbie.

yeahh.... bye bye King George, Va....

 Tuesday we went with a member to lunch and his wife is not a part of the church but he is, their house was 20 minutes away so they asked if we could drive to their house and then we would hop in their car to go to lunch, we looked at the map and the area that they were in never really had missionaries work there too much so we had a list of people to go and see and streets to go knocking afterwards. Turns out that they drove us back to near 2 minutes away from where we live and we had lunch over in that area, then drove all the way back. Afterwards we taught a lesson and he showed us his Gun collection and ammunition collection that he had been collecting since before Kennedy was shot. He also has some really really nice cars........ but he showed us a bit of how to make a gun, but we had to go because time was running short. We went “finding” around the area then drove all the way back to our next appointment (which fell through) but then a member came and took us to Arby’s for dinner!! Its really nice when we have coupons too. We went by another part member family's house and Miracle! The people who are not members have set a date for Oct. 19th to be baptized! We had little time left in the day (8:15pm and we head in at 9) so we went to stop by another member of the chuech who requested us to come by for some help. Apparently he needed help with his car and he also needed guidance to find out how he can share the gospel better with his family.

Wednesday we had a District Meeting and my companion and I both gave  training. We had an interesting meeting because we accidentally arrived slightly late to the meeting because of some complications with our driver's minivan. It was only 10 minutes so it wasn't too bad. District meeting was a "spiritual feast". We picked up lunch at the Wawa (a local gas station) and because our District leader had an interview with someone being baptized we were not able to have lunch with the full Elders of the district. We came back home afterwards and cleaned our apartment for inspections and the Elder inspecting it, first thing he did when he came in was "alright so there is the normal inspection and there is the added personal inspection and whoever wins on the personal inspection gets lunch for free, I was in the Navy so my inspections are similar, but my wife will help you if she says its clean then there is no 'ding' and no points deducted, if you get A + for points that cancels out “a ding" and we got +3 after the entire inspection giving us +2 total... I am a demon when it comes to tidying up stuff for an inspection (since my mission) every single inspection we have had the people inspecting have always said "wow this is the cleanest I have ever seen this apartment and its only since you or your companion got here that its been this clean" BOOYEAH! From there we went to a member's house and discussed with the mom that she wants her child baptized as soon as possible and her child is done waiting (he is 10 years old now), after that crazy discussion we went to another area where we were going to have dinner and decided to stop by a potential investigator's house and lo and behold they were there and we had a doorstep lesson with them and they (all 3) agreed that they wanted to be baptized!! We had dinner with a family that was less active but because of the previous lesson we were late (oh no!) for our dinner appointment and they had already eaten but we were still fed and we had a great conversation with the dad who just received a new calling that actually brought him back to church! After we stopped by a former investigator's house and he let us right in! Although little did we know that he is still not prepared for the message, he just kept on talking about his stuff he got with his new job and a Dj speaker system. He talked about how all his hard work got him where he was at and no one else ever helped him... not prepared for a message that involves being helped and relying on Jesus Christ. Ah well, maybe in a future day.

Thursday we “weekly planned” for most of the day and around 4:30 we received a phone call from an investigator who was headed out of town Friday saying that all this crap had happened to him and he didn't know what to do. We asked him about how we could help and he said that being baptized was the best thing that could help him now. That man went from Atheist, to hating Deity to ending the phone call we had with him saying "God Bless you boys” and “I am relying on God for this". After we went to the sign "Virginia is for Lovers" and got a photo there during dinner then we talked with a few individuals about the Gospel of Jesus Christ by the beach that separates our mission and the Maryland Baltimore mission by the Potomac River. After which we went to visit members in the area and got lost along the dirt roads of Virginia.

Friday went tracting in the morning and met this awesome Pastor. We pretty much quoted scriptures back and forth about sharing the gospel. He was a nice guy! Then the next guy we met was an atheist that kept telling us that God was the universe and not an actual being with a physical body. He wouldn't even let us talk so we just left. He had a cool car though.... After lunch we tracted some more. We have been talking to people about their favorite bible stories lately and it has been an awesome way to learn more about people! We saw a pretty big miracle Friday night. We had an appointment for dinner with a recent convert at 4:30, an appointment with another recent convert at 6, and with a member at 7. The first two appointments were in the top of our area and they canceled. So we texted the member to move our appointment up and then went and tracted in that area. (Also towards the top of our area)Then we get a text canceling that appointment. We then realized we were really needed somewhere that was NOT in the top of our area. We head to an area that we hadn't worked in a long time and start tracting. We meet a guy that has recently wanted to get back into Christianity after leaving it behind for a while. He very graciously accepted a Book of Mormon! At this point it was after 8 and no one wants to talk to us after 8 so we didn't want to keep tracting. We were trying to decide what to do and were about to head home when I said there is still someone we need to see here. Go to the trailer park. When we pulled in and saw the first trailer we knew it was that one we needed to go to. We knocked and it was a former investigator that lost contact with the missionaries. She told us she wants us to come back because she wants to hear our message! What a big blessing!

Saturday we again volunteered at the Opp shop. It is always an adventure. Not a whole lot happened until right before dinner. We went to visit a potential investigator but ended up talking to her brother and his kids for a good long time. They were a really cool family and said we could come back. He has agnostic beliefs but seems to be seeking and his family is very important to him. Awesome!! Then we visited some members for a few minutes. We left their house and then 2 minutes later they call us and invite us back for dinner! We then had an awesome lesson with a less active member that has really been struggling. He has gone through a ton and the lesson we had really helped him realize some things. Off to do some more tracting. We have been in need of people to teach lately! We started talking to these drunk guys playing “cornhole” (bean bag toss) and they were pretty nice but would make slight jabs at Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon every now and then. Interesting guys though... Transfer calls came while talking to them. So we went back to our car and called President Wilson back.

 Dang thats a long email.....