Elder Chalmers: I am I am...a real religious man

Hello everybody! July 21, 2014

This week we didn't get to teach very much, but we did a lot of finding, and had some really cool things happen to us.

On Monday, I mean P-Day we played soccer in the morning, and Elder Anderson and Finlayson sorta got into an argument, since things had gotten a little too intense during the many games we played, and it didn't help that it was really hot and humid. I was mainly mad because I lost the second to last game we played, so I went 6-1... :( haha. Then we e-mailed for a super long time, then we went to the mall. Elder Hess went to get a new suit, and we were there so long that I bought a new pair of slacks that are pretty dang sexy and were on sale. I also bought some protein from GNC, so I can continue on #operationswoll. We went to the Jenkins' house for dinner. They made the Ling Ling pot stickers and orange chicken, it was awesome! They are probably my favorite family here. They have 5 kids all 10 or younger, and currently they have a 6 and 4 year old I think, who both have broken arms. ha. Their 4 year old, Kade, and I are pretty good buddies. He kept throwing his napkin at me during dinner, it was funny. We taught them the Restoration using the cups to "build" the true church, it is really fun to do with little kids. They are solid members. Then we went over to Blake's house. We got him to open up to us a lot about his family, and we also painted our miniatures, which is pretty hard stuff, but it's really fun.

On Tuesday we did a lot of finding earlier in the day, and it was also our last day with bikes, which is a relief, you get way less work done on bikes... Later in the day we did teach Nick, our 13 year old investigator. We moved his baptismal date up to July 26! After that we had dinner at Curt and Patty Cormiers. They are the coolest people ever, she made apple crisp for dessert! YUM! We were super psyched about Nick, but then the Sister Missionaries, Sister Cox and Procopio, called us and told us that they were over at Nick's house with his mom, Heather. Heather is going through a divorce and her settlement requires her to move to Saginaw to be closer to the dad, so she is going through a really hard stressful time. So they called and told us that Nick had stolen his Mom's credit card and bought a $200 skateboard. So now we can't baptize Nick for a while, because he has some repenting to do, obviously.

On Wednesday we had District Meeting, which was really good, we talked about "Treasure up the words of Eternal Life" from David A. Bednar's talk, "Becoming a Preach My Gospel Missionary". Sister Cox in our district has tourettes, so every time she "yurps" we all move a chair to the right, it's pretty funny. For district lunch we went to Taco Bell, and we scored some sweet freebies, Mirror by Justin Timberlake, Lucky by Jason Mraz and Colbie Cailet, and even some John Mayer. hah. Then Elder Finlayson and I were on trade-offs, so I was in the Midland 1st ward area. We had to study, and since I'm new and doing the "first 12 weeks" training thing, we had to watch 2 hours of The District, and I fell asleep. ha. Then we went and knocked doors for a while, and met this lady who was super anti-Mormon. She told us she had read some stuff from former members of our church, then we told her we believe in the Book of Mormon, and she told us "don't believe everything you read" I wanted to chew her out and call her a hypocrite... but I can't do that as a missionary... Then we went to the Klopf's house for dinner, she made enchiladas, they were the best ones I have ever had, then she gave us a mountain of strawberry shortcake and ice cream, it was amazing. Then we went to Stephen's house, for a little bit, his whole family was baptized like 20 years ago, but he's addicted to smoking, and doesn't believe it's true yet...

On Thursday we went to help the M1 sisters move a potential investigator, but when we got there they were pretty much done, so we just went and got donuts. We then traded back. We went to the Open Door, a charity place for people who are out of jail and trying to get back on their feet. We were going to meet Patty there, but she never showed up, so we just helped them out anyway. We saw Ben Guffy today. We taught him about following the Prophet. Halfway through the lesson his mom showed up to bring him a blizzard. Ben then said stuff like "I try to impress my mom with my words" and "My mom changes her mind a lot" then his mom was like "what do you mean?" So Bro. Lindauer, who we had brought with us, explained that we understood what Ben meant. But for some reason he just couldn't get his words out, it was the funniest thing ever. He was stammering and didn't make any sense. Ben's mom was probably really happy that we brought someone like Ben with us. haha. Then we went to see David Clark, who is a less active. Once we got back to our apartment we got a call from Blake, and he really needed a ride so he could go pick up his girls from day-care. So we called David Clark since him and Blake are really similar, and he was happy to help. It was awesome, we got Blake a fellowshipper, and got a less-active more involved. Then we weekly planned, and it went really well. Then we went to Blake's again and painted and talked with him.

On Friday I shredded my Bi's and Tri's, which was awesome. hah. Then we visited Dale, who is less active, and he told us that he got $1 million dollars from a motorcycle accident settlement, and had blown it all! After that we went to the Tridge, since this Weekend was River Days, which is a big festival put on by the city to raise money. After lunch and a nap, we started knocking doors. While we were knocking, we got a phone call from a number from Ohio. So I answered. It was a guy named Chris, who grew up in Midland. He asked us for a Book of Mormon and Bible, because his sister had agreed to get them from him, since she isn't a member. So we had to scramble to get a Bible, but we found one then met him at the 7-Eleven parking lot. He was a super cool guy, he was super passionate about missionary work, and he bought us pizza and drinks. He told us some of his mission stories, and then told us to stop by his sister's house, so we got a referral! It was so awesome.! After that we went to the Tridge the rest of the night.

On Saturday we went over to Bro. Jones house to do service. We broke up concrete again and then dug a hole in his crawl space. It was some hard labor, but I loved it! He also fed us the same breakfast as last week with buttermilk pancakes, blueberry syrup, and bacon. It was so good.! We were super dirty after, but I had a blast. After that we cleaned up and went to Nick's house and helped him pack since he's moving, but he's still in our area. We had a good discussion with him, he's a super smart guy. Then we did our studies, and went to the Tridge for River Days. We tried an approach with the other elders. We tried conducting a survey to get more investigators. The people in charge kicked us out since they had "rented the park" so we just kept going on the other side of the Tridge but we gave up on the surveys.

On Sunday we went to church and during Priesthood the lesson was on eternal marriage. All the guys were making a ton of jokes and stuff, it was pretty funny. Then we did our companion study on prayer and it was a really good study. We decided that if you don't pray with real intent, it's sorta a waste of your time. Then we had a speed dinner at the Krueger's house because we had to pick up the other elders and we went to St. Brigid Catholic Church with Alexis, one of their investigators. It was really interesting. And the Priest was preaching and said "I am I am" and we started singing the song from Nacho Libre, after we had left of course. haha. Since it was evening mass, nobody was dressed up, and we were in suits. hah.

Overall the week was a pretty good one. I am having to learn to be really patient out here, and it's hard, but it's good for me. Being with a companion 24/7 can be tough, even if you get along with them really well. Alma 34:31-35 are great scriptures on Our Earth Life, and how we need to take advantage of the time we have here. Being away from all of you has made me realize how much I really do love you. I'm so lucky to have you all as my family. HE LOVE!!!!

Love,

Elder Chalmers