December 16, 2013

Whazzup? :)

 

So yeah the whole sick thing just lasted for a day. Monday night I took some Nyquil and just passed the crap out haha. The biggest thing I'm bummed about it the fact my record of not spewing has to start over. (I just got the Wayne's World scene where he pulls out the little cup haha) anyways. So the product is called "Hardstyle" It's like a gel/paste thing. I dunno. Ask Judi Schofield where you can get it for cheap. I haven't been able to find it out here though. But yeah. It's like a small black tube with red on it if that helps. Thanks for the money. I'm glad I can start seeing better again (Like instantly improved vision isn't at the top of my "to-do" list ;P) also any clues as to what Calvin wants? I have some ideas.. But just let Mike know so I can get the memo. Actually. Nvm.. I have to buy it today to get it.. JK. Thanks for that though anyways. I'm glad you're talking to Liz. She's great and I miss her and Tommy. They were a ton of fun. I keep in contact with Mike. I wish I could be up in Westland or that area to see him more. Oh well. I'll just see him a ton after the Mish.

 

So In all honesty. This past week was brutal. It seems like everything we have tried with our investigators doesn't quite work out and they're progressing but ever so slowly. It's frustrating. The mission has been pushing hard to the finish line but we're pretty much not going to get a baptism in two weeks. We could but it'd take a freakin miracle. We're changing small things to do better this week. You live and you learn. But it's like stressful because everyone is in such a crazy situation that takes a lot more than us to help with. But we did have a couple sweet lessons this past week at the beginning. But the end of the week just kinda tanked... I mean Church was even cancelled I don't think you can get much worse than that! The stupid parking lot was all iced over cause it was all snowy/slushy and no one plowed it and it all froze over and had a ton of ice.. So yeah. We were gonna have a good day at church but Satan can fall in a hole. Homeboy's fighting hard against us and at times I wish I could just smack him... One day. haha. So I'll just touch over a couple highlights that's been going on this past week.

 

Monday I was all sick and achy and just needed to rest. But I still walked around and did missionary work. Nighttime was great cause I got to crash hard. But Wednesday after District Meeting E. Montgomery bought some Pizza and we had lunch as a District. We have a sweet group of people and we all talked for like an hour and a half just getting to know each other more. We did first impressions. (Either people didn't know who I was or they thought I was a crappy missionary from rumors they heard from the stupid fire. So a lot of them know what's up and how I'm pretty misunderstood. It's amazing what goes around but you just gotta roll with the punches and know in your heart things are ok. [it took a couple days after that cause I'm just so tired of dealing with crap and the past couple weeks I've been doubting myself and who I am as a missionary, two reasons, People have that preconceived notion and the work is slow here.. Once people get to know me things are ok. but I'm glad I get to prove people's opinions wrong.]) E. Chhay and his last companions baptized like 5 families and left us with nothing and the people we have are so close to baptism and they want it. They just have huge obstacles in their way. They'll get it soon. I know the will. After D-Mtg we had E. Montgomery down with us and E. Spaulding went to Huber Heights 3 with E. Cook. It was pretty good. E. Montgomery isn't personable and he's so stiff and gets pissed off over dumb little things.. I'm sure he hates all of us cause we laugh and have fun and are normal around people. So yeah. His problem. But we taught a super sweet lesson with Genevieve. We watched a couple clips from the Christmas Devotional (since we haven't seen it) and we finished with Elder Nelson's talk I think it was? With the kids singing and such. Anyways that was a powerful talk and it was what I needed personally. Cause I've just been wanting to know that things are ok with me and God. Since I feel I'm just bringing things down (I'm prolly not and I'm just beating myself up again but still) it helped a ton and it brought the spirit super strong. So we were putting a lot of emphasis on making sure her moving (this Friday btw) to Pennsylvania is really what God wants her to do. It's the most important factor in all of this cause they don't even have a house yet. Both of their divorces aren't finalizing and they still want to get married. And I think with her last husband she prolly feels she can't get better. Josh (her BF) is a good guy and all but the whole agnostic/ "I can never believe in God" crap isn't the best to be around if you're trying to build even more faith in God. He's a dingle berry. So anyways. She decided to move and continue on with her plans (which I'm having faith that God will still take care of her and help her get baptized. Cause she wants it and knows this is true) So we're trying to prep her for missionaries down there and such. We're going to watch the Chastity talk by Elder Bednar and It talks about Cohabitation and such and maybe that will help? It has to. So yeah. Stressful! Anyways. While on exchanges we went sledding with Adrian (there's pics) I got funny videos too but it was a good time and we enjoyed ourselves with that. :) Adrian needed it too. He's 12 and a good kid. Just getting use to new hormones like the rest of us. :) haha cause I was a punk. honestly... I straightened my hair.. you can't get worse than that.

 

We tried to find more this week so we went knocking around and got a lot of sweet potentials (all of them were street contacts). One turned into an investigator and we found her cause we were knocking and there was an icicle hanging down and I was tall enough to where I can bite it off. So we got a picture (it's included) and Adena walked by and said in a classic black lady tone "I saw dat!" "What you doin eatin that. Don't you know dat's dirtay?" So we laughed and talked and met again later in the week and taught her and had a good lesson. I think she'll progress well. She's 18 and lookin for answers apparently. :) She's funny.  

 

We had meetings with the Stake President and President Nilsen and the other Zone Leaders, and we also had the Ward Christmas Party on Friday since it cancelled last week. It was good and we had a good turn out! Pretty fun evening. A lot of non-members and inactives showed up (there would have been more last week but what can you do) So I mean it was a pretty decent week but at the same time it seems like not a whole lot happened. And it's not like we're not working either. Just no one is home. Winter is harder too cause no one wants to open the door. Which is fine. It is pretty friggin cold so I don't blame em. haha

 

Saturday we watched Nathan Lewis' baptism cause he loves missionaries. We helped with the interlude part of it. The sisters here in Huber Heights 2 were gonna have a baptism but she couldn't make it cause she got stuck in Dayton with an Ultrasound. President and Sister Nilsen were gonna show up to that too! haha and now she dropped off the grid... It's nuts. Satan is just messin everything up! This battle is so real. You just can't physically see it. But you can see it's effect's.

 

So we did receive some good news last night from Sis. Lewis. She updated us on Cindy, Dave, and her daughter Anna. They were talking and said that they want to have us over at their house (Cindy's) for dinner to meet with them. Dave is opening up more and has questions for us and Anna feels bad for us cause E. Spaulding and I both got "Dear Johned" (sp?) and wants to meet as well to prolly see why we give up so much even people back home. Ha who knew that would help me with missionary work in that way pretty cool stuff. So future events look great. The past is the past and there's not much we could do about that but hey fun stuff. We make it fun and laugh. We get along pretty well and make light of dumb situations. E. Spaulding is going to tour our Zone to strengthen each of the Elder's areas to help them with those they have on date since we're prolly not going to get one. We'll just help others. E. Beverley and I are gonna tackle our area and we'll blitz some of the Sister's areas to help them out. So it'll be a hectic but good week. I got lots of pics. Some are from bowling a while back. and just other fun random ones. We all got mustaches from little 25 cent dispensers and then E. Spaulding and I bought some at the dollar store. I also made some "Chex Crack" to give to people and it all settled to this one giant clump! The picture is the smaller broken portion. It was like twice that size. And there's also some pics from our little photo shoot (I don't remember if I said something about that in my last email.) So fun stuff. That's pretty much it for this week. I love and miss you all! I hope you all have a great week especially with Christmas coming up! Merry Christmas!

 

Love,

Elder Derrek Bowler