LIVING THE LIFE IN LANSING

LIVING THE LIFE IN LANSING                                                                         1/11/16

Another great week here in Lansing. I say that, but I spent about half the week not in Lansing, since I was away on both of our trade-offs this past week. I got to go to Wyoming (south of Grand Rapids) and back to CMU with Elder Tubagus. This week has included a lot of prep for our upcoming Zone Conferences on Wednesday-Friday and it has just been altogether a great week!

We had MLC (Missionary Leadership Council) it was so great. We discussed why things die out. Like, we have really good things implemented and then over time, they just die. We came up that a lot of it is change in missionaries and leadership and we drop the ball in following up on those things consistently. We also set a goal for 280 baptisms for 2016, it was a really spiritual experience disucssing and setting the goal. We were all really unified and it was a great meeting! I drove with Elder Clark to Wyoming for trade-offs after that. We taught these two African teenagers and one of them, Wimbo, his mom fed us some food. It was casava leaves and fufu, a traditional meal from the Congo. It was pretty good, and the most exotic food I've had here in Michigan! We then picked up a former investigator, which was great!

While doorknocking on Wednesday in Wyoming, we met this girl and she needed help changing a tire, so after being persistent, she let us help her and we talked to her for a while and got a return appointment out of it which was sweet. We had some great lessons after that. Elder Haddock picked me up and we headed over to Mt. Pleasant where we spent the night.

I spent the day with my old companion, Elder Tubagus at CMU. We did our usual morning routine of boxing and spent most of the day on campus. We got shined by a potential investigator that shined me at the beginning of last semester while I was there, so that was sort of funny, also unfortunate that we weren't able to meet with him. I love the CMU campus. We also got to go see Keith and that was great. Keith is super fun to be around, we are buddies. He wouldn't let Elder Haddock break one of his cigarettes again. He still associates Elder Haddock with that. ha.

We got to see a few less active members on Friday. They live up in Dewitt. One is named Adam who was on a mission for a few months and returned home early. We had a great lesson with him and he even asked us for a blessing. We also got to see a recent convert named Jake who is struggling with some questions he has encountered from unfavorable sources. We met with Austin, our awesome investigator. He is on fire and we moved his baptismal date up 2 weeks Feb. 6th. He says every time he comes to church or meets with us he feels better and better about his baptism.

Most of the rest of our time was spent preparing for Zone Conference in various ways...

Things have been great serving in East Lansing, I love the close association with President Jacobsen and being able to learn from him. I love my companion!

We were able to watch President Nelson speak in the worldwide devotional last night. I really like the things he shared, especially how we need to expect and prepare to do the impossible. Last night, we were doing our weekly report and we were changing some things and it got all messed up, it was getting late at night, and I prayed that we could figure things out and finish it, and then everything just came together and we got it done 5 minutes later. It was a little thing but I know that the Lord is mindful of all the little things we do and that we can do the impossible, big or small!

Love,
Elder Chalmers

MLC-Missionary Leadership Council

Visiting Keith