Week 18! Thanksgiving!

Hello All!

Happy late Thanksgiving! Last week was actually really cool. For some weird reason everyone decided they were going to be nicer to us. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen till after Thanksgiving? Anyways, people were much nicer.
-On Tuesday we taught a less active family named the Collins, they are super nice and have a desire to come back they just need a little more work and they'll be ready. We'd actually been trying to meet with them for about 3 weeks but they always had to cancel and move the appointment either due to his work or her school but we finally got in there, Bishop actually requested that we visit them so it just made us try to get into their home even harder.
-On Wednesday we had District Meeting and talked about how to become better Preach My Gospel missionaries, it was really good. The District Leader is Elder Trappett and he has a much different way of holding our meetings than the previous District Leaders have but they are still always good and the spirit is always felt. Afterwards we had dinner with the Bishops family and the Sisters, it was a really great visit and Elder Fia and I got to try deer and something I'd never even thought of eating, bear. The deer was good but I have to say that I reallllly liked the bear, it was super good and we got to bring some home. Don't judge me but bear is probably in my top three meats, I kind of want to try a bear burger now. Anyways, afterward we got to help the Bishop pick up a fridge that they bought and move it into his home, he thought it was going to take forever but with Elder Fia and I (mostly Elder Fia) it actually went quickly and easily. The drive to the place was kind of long but it gave us some really good time to talk with him and discuss what he would like us to do for the Ward. All in all it was a really good and productive night. We did end up missing the Book of Mormon class we hold on Wednesdays. We usually switch off every other week and it was our turn last week but the Sisters picked up our slack and taught it instead.
-Thursday was great! Thursday's are our weekly planning days so we did that and then walked to the Beyers for Thanksgiving. It so happens to be a two hour walk but we took the hiking trails there and got to talk to a good amount of people who all were very nice to us. One woman liked that we were taking a "Jesus Walk." I think I'm going to start calling our Proselyting taking our Jesus Walk. When we got to the Beyers home there were a lot of people there all of whom we knew but it was good to see a lot of people at a members home. Before we ate Brother Beyer shared a message about Thanksgiving and how we are to give thanks to God. I'd never really thought of like that but I guess that is who we are giving thanks to which is kind of funny because people will say Thanksgiving but they won't let us say Merry Christmas even though it all means similarly the same thing really...oh well, I can't pick and choose what people get mad at. Afterwards Brother Anderson took us home and then we just did some stop-bys.

-On Friday we did service at the YMCA, which we normally do every Friday. Afterwards we had a lesson with an investigator named Alexis. She referred herself to get a bible but when we went there the first time she told us that she has a ton of Bibles so she wasn't sure why she requested another, she just felt like she should. (I wonder what that feeling was...;) Anyways, we've been teaching her for a little while and she seems to be starting to get what we're saying, we've pretty much taught her all we can about the necessity of the priesthood and why we have it so all she can do now is pray and ask for herself. After that we went on exchanges. I went to Ottawa with Elder Trappett and it was a really good experience, I learned a lot. 

-On Saturday while on exchanges we did service at a thrift store and it was super fun. There were a bunch of old ladies there that just loved us. While we were upstairs cleaning some stuff out one of the ladies turned to Elder Freitas and I and told us that she was losing faith and that she had been looking for a church. So Elder Freitas invited her to church and she seemed interested in taking lessons with them. She said that for some reason she just really likes us, she said "there is just something about you boys." Or something like that. One of the other ladies kept calling me Bob and for some reason I kept responding to it, I guess I forgot what my first name is. Afterwards we went to McDonald's to download a video and two guys asked if we were J-Dubs and we told them we were the Mormons. They then proceeded to have us sit down with them and they started asking a bunch of questions and we tried our best to answer them but we were late for an appointment so we had to set up another time to talk with them, I'm not sure if the lesson went through or not, I'll have to find out. We then went to a lesson with a woman who is on date. She is super ready and I just know that she knows this gospel is true. Afterwards we exchanged back.

-On Sunday Alexis came to church! That so happens to be the first time on of my investigators has come to church...it felt good. I don't think she really liked it though. She's used to baptist style churches where it's loud and everyone says amen every other sentence. Which is not how it is at our church. Pretty much everyone said hi to her and were very friendly but she just wasn't used to a church like ours. She also said that since she's been going to her church they've never done the sacrament...and they use the Bible, but they don't do the sacrament. Anyways, now that my little rant is done. We had over 100 people at church on Sunday. There were two baby blessings and the chapel was filled. I'm assuming all of the wards had combined third hour where they had part two on keeping the Sabbath day holy? Anyways, it was really good and I kind of want to focus on that a little more with the ward families so that we can help them do just that. We also had dinner with Brother Anderson and this time the Sisters were there, which means I got to hear all of his stories again. Which is a good thing, he has an awesome conversion story and has had an amazing life, one that I can pretty much tell you all about now, probably word for word. He then gave us a tour of the community he lives in, which was new for me, I'd never seen it all before but now I think I want to live there. The last great thing about Sunday was that anew Christmas initiative was started. "A Savior is Born" is the title and the video is a little different but I have a good feeling about it. The website is super awesome, it looks like they are going to put a new video up every day until Christmas. Plus there are cool gifs and other videos. You should all check it out!

Sorry that was so long...my last few have been fairly short so I took some time to sit down and write out a good email.

Now to end on a spiritual note.

My favorite scripture as of now is:

Alma 5:58

-For the names of the righteous shall be written in the book of life, and unto them will I grant an inheritance at my right hand. And now, my brethren, what have ye to say against this? I say unto you, if ye speak against it, it matters not, for the word of God must be fulfilled.

How great is that. What I like so much about it isn't the fact that the names of the righteous will be written in the book of life. But that fact that Alma is so bold as to say that it doesn't matter what anyone says against the will of God, because it means nothing, Gods will must be done.

Love you all!

-Elder Eddenfield