18 January 2011

Hey family!

I hope you all had a great week. I had a good one, kinda average, but an average week isn't bad.

Yesterday was a pretty bad day, I dunno if it was my worst one, but one of them for sure. We were really excited because we had about 6 solid appointments throughout the day, and everything was going to work out. We got Elder Bailey some new bike stuff and we were really excited to work. We came outside and it was about 85 degrees (much hotter than it has been so you could definitely notice) and no clouds. We got to the bottom of a very long hill on our bikes, and then out of nowhere my bike tire explodes. The air was gone in about 2 seconds. We walked back up, patched the tire, pumped it up, and were all set to go, rode down again, and then it exploded again... in a different place. We just put our bikes away and decided to walk. We walked all the way across Escondido to John's house, (about the distance and "difficulty" of walking from our old house to Timpview) and he is always there 100% of the time for lessons, but he wasn't there. Frustrated, we went a little further to Zion's house for a lesson, and he was there. He didn't pay attention to 90% of the lesson and just smoked the whole time we were there. We'll probably drop him. He just doesn't care about anything we're saying. More frustrated, we walk back to John's house, and he's still not there. So we walk back across town and back up all the hills to dinner at home, where a member was going to drop off food. She forgot. So, we ate an orange and a glass of water and then got dropped off at the church for another appointment after. The lady we were teaching was MIA for about an hour, so we missed that, and she called us later at the end of the night. Another missed appointment. Then we saw Billy, but he spent the hour talking about himself again, and didn't have one second of silence for us to cut in and teach. We almost walked out of the lesson. Finally we shared a scripture and left. We went to another appointment (Donna) and she wasn't there either, and of course didn't answer her phone. So we walked back up the hill again to the Boroughs (at a quick pace it's about 25 min about a 30 degree angle) and finished our day.

Other than that my week was good though!

Our investigators are doing okay. We are meeting with Jamie tonight. We haven't seen her in a while, but she is doing super well. She is dating a new guy now. He came to church twice (he is a member for Carlsbad) and helped us move stuff once. He is way nice, and will be good to Jamie.

John is doing okay as well. We are still trying to get him motivated to quit smoking. He wants to be baptized still. We see him mostly every day. I don't know if I said but he looks like Jeff Foxworthy. We had taugh him about the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and the Gospel (faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, endure), and he is consistenly reading and enjoying the Book of Mormon.

Zion doesn't seem to care about anything, so we're probably going to stop teaching him soon.

We are teaching Shai [edit last name], who is August's [edit last name] (a recent convert and less-active member) daughter. August has been trying really hard to meet with us and come back to Church. He also wants to baptize Shai, so he is working with Bishop to get that squared away. Shai can't wait to be baptized. She is 12 and a ball of energy. She loves to draw and understands the plan of salvation really well. She has a short attention span, but she is fun to teach.

Billy is having a hard time overcoming his own pride. He loves (LOVES) to talk about himself, and how awesome his past was and all that stuff. He has interesting stories, but it's easy to get tired of them after a while. We can squeeze in a couple minutes of lesson in, then he tells another story--that originally is relevant--and then gets us off subject again. It's been kinda frustrating. The high priest group leader, Brother Zierden, who is a former cop and a large man that just sounds like he has a lot of authority in his voice, has felt inspired to work with Billy on these exact problems. He couldn't have started at a better time. I will let you know how Billy's heart changes! Billy still loves the church and meeting with us, but has a very weak testimony, despite what he says.

We have met a couple less-active or inactive people that we are now teaching. One of them is Malina, 30, who was baptized last April in like Virginia or something. She has been inactive but still reads her BoM, and wants really badly to come back to church. She is a lot of fun to teach. We're still getting to know her.

We also had our first appointment with Suzanna, another inactive since she was married at 18 (raised in the church). She wants really badly to quit smoking, so we're excited to work with her.

That's about it for now!

I appreciate your prayers and love. We're staying pretty busy. I love you all. Have a great weeK!

Jon