Thank you for the
emails and pictures. It looks like everybody had a great Thanksgiving. I
guess I will tell you how awesome my Thanksgiving was!
So the first thing we did was tracted! HaHa. Some people were mad, but most were chill. We just asked people what they were thankful for. There were still some people who wouldn't listen, but we had a couple of good lessons. Then we went to Cristal's house at 2:00 for dinner. I have no idea where she got all of her food because she barely has enough to feed herself, but she made a feast. She fed four missionaries, her two sons, her brother, her nephew, and her daughter. We had a great time and we enjoyed each other's company. You can imagine a Thanksgiving with a bunch of young black guys. HaHa. Definitely different, but it was awesome.They were so funny and we just laughed our heads off the whole time. Cristal was talking about her Thanksgiving traditions and Bobby told us stories. So all of the food was on this table so everybody ate in the living room except for Big Tony. He just plopped right down at the table and started eating everything from there. He didn't even fix a plate. He ate for like 45 minutes and when he was finally done, he said, "Big Tony is leaving the table!" HaHa. My biggest regret is that I didn't get a picture with everyone there. I guess I will just have to remember it in my head. Shortly afterward, we had another Thanksgiving dinner. This one was quite different. This was with Sister Logerstedt. She married a Vietnamese man who is less-active now. His mom just died so he and a lot of family visiting from Vietnam. So there were nine of us and I think five of us knew English. This dinner was different, but the Spirit was still there. None of them are members, so the spiritual thought was interesting. We just had everybody say what they were thankful for with Brother Logerstedt translating. Then we showed the first vision on video. It was a great Thanksgiving and I am so thankful for all of the people here who made it great.
Here
is the update on our investigators. Julia passed her interview! She is
on for December 6th. She came to church yesterday as did her husband!
She is all in. Her daughter is doing much better. Junior basically told
us that he is going to wait until he doesn't have to work nights anymore
and then he will get back to us. He is still reading from the Book of
Mormon and looking into it. Bobby came to church again, but we still
have to refer him over to the missionaries in Portland. I swear he is
going to be a bishop someday. We had a good talk at Thanksgiving and he
just knows that this is right. R. Craft messaged me on Faceboook and
told me to tell you thanks for the the letter. I think that she has been
doing some serious thinking about the church. Hopefully she continues
to pray about it. So we finally split up the area geographically. We
have been knocking on doors that the other Elders had just knocked on.
We actually didn't change that much. The other elders will be teaching
Josh now.
My
companion is still struggling. His girl is a little brat, actually. She
wants him to email her more than his family and to write her a letter
every week on top of an email. He basically just told her that he can't
and I guess she kind of freaked out. I was amused, but now I feel really
bad for Him. Elder Kelly is so ticked. HaHa. He wants to write her and
tear her up! The sooner it ends, the better.
I
can't believe that basketball has started already. Be sure to keep me
posted on the ups nad downs. Did they ever find a c-team coach? I'm not
sure which Bonneville kid you are talking about. All of the ones I
remember already graduated. That dunk sounds pretty sweet though. Nice
job on getting the Christmas stuff out. It sure is Christmas time here
in Gresham. All of the stores are decorated and ready to go. There were
people camped out with their tents outside of Best Buy on Wednesday
waiting for the Black Friday sale. Crazy stuff. Any Black Friday
shopping for you guys? I doubt it! haha.
Nice
job on the Christlike attributes. The best thing to do is just to ask
Heavenly Father to help you. The one that I chose is actually charity
and love. In fact, I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about it. It more
like a testimony. The second counselor asked us Saturday night to
prepare a short talk about how love relates to missionary work. I
basically talked about how the more love you have for people the better
missionary you will be. Love leads to care, care leads to concern,
concern leads to help, and help leads to Jesus Christ. I kept it short
ans sweet. Sister H. McGil talked after us. She just got back from a
mission in South Korea. It was weird watching her walk around and talk
to everybody before and after the meeting. I couldn't help thinking of
me going around and talking to everybody in the Tetonia 1st ward right
after I get back. It was weird actually. Anyway, she did a great job on
her talk. She said some really good things. Here are some quotes that I
wrote down from her talk: "love God before you love people";
"disobedience is thinking you know more than God."; "forget yourself and
you won't feel lonely";"people are motivated to change when they feel
love.". I really like the McGil family; they are great missionaries.
Just
a side note, we are having our Christmas program tomorrow evening. I am
not sure what time. Fred is filming and I am not sure if you can watch
it live or afterward, just wanted to give you a heads up. I got my coat
on Monday. Tell Renae thanks for sending it. It is a good thing because
it got really cold here. I think that is it for this week! Thank you for
your missionary efforts at home. By praying and loving me, you are
helping me to be an instrument in the Lord's hand. Have an awesome
week!
I love you,
Elder Reiley
No comments:
Post a Comment