May 21, 2013

May 21, 2013

Hi again,

     It’s been a great week this week.  So now that the sun has come around it’s getting warm... really warm, maybe even too warm at times.  This is great because it just so happens that people in New England get a lot nicer when the weather is warmer.  We went tracting this week and almost every person we met greeted us and listened to us until we were done.  Unfortunately people still say the common phrase "I'm all set" no matter what the weather is like.  Now that things are warming up, more opportunities for us to help people have also arose.  An example of this is when we helped a member in our ward move.  We had a huge turnout of members and even some less active members come to help with the move.  Funny story about the move is about a member that we brought with us who we have been working with for a while.  So because I misunderstood the time that we were going to start the move at, we ended up an hour off schedule.  Now for those that have helped move you might be thinking well coming an hour late to a move is fine.  This is true, except we showed up an hour early!  Luckily they were mostly ready for us and it went fine, it was just kind of funny when we showed up and no one was there.

     While I'm on the topic of this member we brought with us I would like to talk about him.  His name is Bro. G... and he is the father of the Y... nine year old girl who was baptized not to long ago.  We have been working with all of them trying to reactivate their family, and have been successful.  As of a couple of weeks ago they are officially active members, Yay!  The reason I am talking about them this week is because we have been seeing them a ton after Elder B... got here.  This is because they all speak Spanish as their first language and we did not have much success in communicating with them before now.  But because of our zebra companionship of awesomeness, we are now working with them to get family home evening happening in their home every week and helping them to read their scriptures every night.  We also have got to know Bro. G... very well because after he helped us with the move he thanked us and asked us if he could get us some food and then if we could hang out with him for a while.  We ended up spending most of the day hanging out with the whole G... family.  To explain what a zebra companionship is, it is a companionship where both the elders speak different languages.

     Well I don't have much else to talk about so I will just finish with some random funny stories this week.  The first one is about a recent member who has over time become less active slowly.  We decided that it would be a good idea to go and see her.  When we did we could not go in because there was no male in the home and so we rescheduled an appointment and got her home teacher to come with us.  So everything was good and the member came on time and we all knew what we were to go over and all the stars were aligned just right.  Then we knocked on the door and her son answered and said he would go get his mom.  Unfortunately this is how the story ends because we sat there for 30 minutes waiting for her.  The funny part was when the member we brought said that he thought he saw her around the corner and then duck and hide.  

Next funny story is about my companion during our district meeting.  So we meet once a week as a district to train and collaborate.  Our District Leader thought it would be a good idea for us to role play some problems we have when we visit with members.    The best part about it was that Elder B... and I got to be the members with one of the sisters in our district.  We decided that Elder B... would be a hyper 7 year old, the sister would be his aunt, and I would be an 80 year old man.  With a set up like this what could go wrong?  :P  We got really into our roles. I was completely deaf and the missionaries had to yell at me to hear anything.  Elder B... at one point in the lesson slowly started to tip over on his chair and we all watched as he slowly crashed to the floor.  This awesome experience was a testimony to me how by the weak things the Lord works miracles among the world.  I hope you all let the Lord work through your weaknesses and trust in him with all your heart.

Elder Erb