Hello Everyone! :-)
This has been a good week. A few things have happened this week that I would like to tell you about. Before I do that I would just like to say that I am enjoying this experience as a missionary. It is so nice to be able to bike around to look for people to help. I am getting buffer with all the biking we do and since the church is on a hill it takes us about 30 minutes to cycle each way! The members here are starting to trust us more and are definitely inviting us over way more for dinner :-D The benifits of a missionary are innumerable hehe. We have the rest of the month full with even a few lunches sorted. Today we are going to Costco with a member from the other ward who likes to take us there. She also likes to help pay for some of the items and takes us out for lunch. That is what I will be doing after we finish emailing today :-) The weather here is super nice! But it has been raining the last couple of days and we are back on track to get out of the drought. The only bad thing with the rain is that my bike doesnt have any things to cover the wheels yet. (We plan to fix this today) Talking about bikes, my companion's bike broke (Hahaha). He got a puncture in his wheel just after we visited a members house right on the border of our mission. It was raining and we walked back. It took just under an hour but it was a lot of fun as we talked about games and such. We got a member to fix it as we had no tools. We had a mission conference on Friday.
Elder Cook came and talked to the whole mission! We went over the bridge because the meeting was near San Francisco and we actually went through a bit because we took the wrong exit at one point which was fun because it was interesting to see all the people there. This mission conference took up the whole day and it was a good experience.
Just before it started a sister, sister Mitchell, came up to me and said hello. Then she went on to say, do you remember me? I said hmm no. She then said that she was the one who I told to shut up in front of the whole class! I then rememberd her since we were in the same business class a year ago! I did tell her to shut up in front of the whole class because she was flirting with a guy and I was teaching the class, and I asked her to be quiet so that I could teach. She has been out on her mission for 8 months.
Elder Cook came in and shook everyone's hands! It was fun and it was also fun to see everyone's smiles at the end of shaking the hands. Many things were talked about and the spirit was strong. But I would like to write a few things about what meant the most to me. When the Apostles decide where you go on your mission it is because they got strong feelings. There are three reasons why people go to a certain place. 1. It is to learn from the mission president and his wife. 2. Because of the people 3. Because of the influence it will have on your future life. I left my notebook at the apartment, and would say more but I write too much. Afterwards I had to meet with Elder Taylor becuase I did not pay my taxes for a gun show that I and a few friends sold at. The mission president gave me permission to call home to get certain numbers! Man! Unfortunately I forgot my mum's phone number and my old phone number was transferred to someone else. So if you want to call home just don't pay your taxes! - don't do that though. On the way home it took like an hour to move a mile! We got home way late.
This week has also been good. We have been talking to a lot more people and we are starting to ask good questions. A few weeks ago, we went to a potential investigator's home (someone who might be interested in the church so that we can teach them) and so we talked to this man. In the process of him telling us that he was not interested, I interrupted and asked if we could come by anyway because I need to practice teaching lessons. Funny, he accepted to help us. Now we get to teach him! We plan on visiting him soon. On another day we were having a hard day and everyone we talked to just was too busy or not interested. We decided to press on and keep going. When it was time to go home we went on the Iron Horse (a long trail we use a lot) and there was one man on there. We rode past him and it just felt wrong not to speak to him so I stopped and told my companion that we were going to talk to him. I started by asking if he went to college, and the conversation started. We got his phone number and he texted us later that night telling us that he had been praying for a sign... We were happy that we stopped and talked to him :-) The next morning we were cycling and a man shouted, "hey!" We stopped and he told us that he had a dream about going to church the night before. He had been to the church before in his life and told us that he wanted to attend church this week! he told us that he knew he was welcome, as is everyone to go to church.
We visited a less active member (someone who is still a member, but doesn't come to church). His name is brother Banks. There are two families that live in his house. Oh goodness! What an interesting man. He kept on talking about politics and people and thinking and all this kinda stuff. I am not here to be taught, I am here to teach. After like an hour of him talking and saying all these "pun" jokes all the time we shared a scripture about us being free according to the flesh. Of course he decided to test us. It was interesting and I learned how to better tell what that scripture said.
We also visited a man called Victor. He is a solid Christian. But he has been reading the Book of Mormon and has been comparing it to the Bible. He let us in and we had a lesson. It was my first real lesson and it was nice to feel the power that comes through as we taught him. We also visited the Little family who live way out there. They have been investigating the church for about 1 year now and we were able to get a feel for what they need. It was good and I think I am gaining weight! I mean they gave us a ton of food!
I have written too much! Last week we went bownling for a zone acitivty, it was good but it takes so much of your P-day! Oh yea, we also did a service project this week pulling weeds and making a chicken coop thingy. Elder Brown ate his first omelet! Well that is it for this week.
Till next week! (Hopefully I will be able to make these shorter and get more pictures)
Love,
Elder Kloosterboer
