It's Been 6 Months!

Hello Everyone!

This last week was pretty good, transfers happened so now there are a few new Missionaries in the District. It's always exciting when transfers happen because you get to meet new people and see new faces.

Monday night we had dinner with the Relief Society President and the High Priest Group Leader and they are so ready to get the work moving forward, we were there for quite a bit discussing how they could help us and how we can help them. It was really good. On Tuesday we did a lot of stop by's and were able to drop a good number of people from our potential pool, although we still have a lot. Almost everyone's home we went to had someone there but it was never the person we were looking for, that seems to be a recurring theme here in Rockford.

After lunch we had a meeting with the other Elders to discuss what we are going to teach next Sunday. Next Sunday is a fifth Sunday and the Ward Auxiliaries asked us, the Missionaries, to teach the entire day.

Yippee. They almost made some of us us give talks as well but we thought the members would get sick of us if we talked that much. So now we're only teaching second and third hour. We really want to prepare for this because we think that this Sunday could really change the Ward and the Members and boost member involvement in the work.

That night we ended up stopping by a referral but it turned out that she moved but we offered the Bible to the woman who answered the door and she gladly took it and accepted a Book of Mormon as well, she even asked us if we could come back and teach her more. So that's pretty cool I guess.

On Wednesday we had a Missionary World-Wide Broadcast, the first one in a decade. It was soooo good, the focus was "Teach repentance and baptize converts." So our already simple purpose was just made even simpler, sounds good to me! The broadcast was two hours long but it felt like I was sitting there for maybe 20 minutes, that's how good it was. All they did was just give us a ton of ideas on how to be better teachers and how to work with Gods children to get referrals. And if I could say, if you're a member of the Church, give the Missionaries referrals! I don't think members realize how much easier it makes our lives when we have someone brought to us who already has a member friend. Best thing ever! Now that that's over. After the broadcast we had a lesson with a less active couple, that went really well. We've been visiting the husband for quite a while but had never met the wife until then. They are awesome and do everything right except for come to church, funny how that works sometimes.

On Thursday we did a lot of stop by's again, same story as Tuesday.

After lunch we had a lesson with a home bound Sister. She is so awesome. She's been around long enough that she can tell us stories of when she was helping to build the Rockford building, so she's been a member of this Ward for a long time. She's always trying to help other people as well. After our lesson with her she asked for some advice on how to help her daughter's ex-husband back to activation. The best part is that he lives in Montana and we can't really do much for him but we can still help through her so we are praying about how to help her help him.

On Friday we had three lesson lined up but two of them fell though....such is the Missionary life. Luckily we can still meet with them later. Because those two lessons fell through we decided to go help the Houser's again. And btw I'm not a plaid shirt lumberjack, I'm an updated modern lumberjack. (Just to clarify.) Still a lumberjack though because cutting down trees just keeps getting more and more fun, especially when you give your winter head gear to someone else and your ears feel like they're going to fall off, thrill of the cut right? Afterwards we had a lesson with Anna at the Roby's house, long story short, we told Sister Roby the wrong time so we ended up coming almost an hour late to the time we told her, luckily it gave them time to eat lunch but I still feel bad. That lesson went fairly well, the other Elders stayed and I feel like there were just too many people there but the lesson wasn't bad by any means. We did find out that Anna is actually moving out of our area...she's moving into the Rockford 2nd Ward, the Zone Leaders area, I'm not really too worried about not teaching her. As long as she's being taught I don't care which area she's in, I will miss teaching her though. That night we went on exchanges. Elder McDonald came here with me and I'd say it was a pretty good exchange.

On Saturday I was still with Elder McDonald and we helped Anna move into her new place, it was pretty fun. Afterwards we went out with a member to stop by two referrals, long story short again. One of those stop by's we thought was going to be a lesson because we misunderstood what he had said and thought he was going to set up a time for us and he thought we were going to set up a time or that it was just going to be a stop by, confusing, but we figured it out. Neither of the referrals were home but we knocked on one ladies door to see if she knew the guy we were looking for and she didn't. We did our little Missionary spiel and she wasn't really interested and then Brother Eschmeyer came in clutch and just started a normal conversation with her and we got to know her and offer to help her with some service and now she's more open to us, she then said we could stop by again. This week Brother Eschmeyer is the real MVP. That hour or so was a lot of fun. After he dropped us off we did some Weekly Planning and then exchanged back. That exchange was a lot of fun, Elder McDonald is awesome.

On Sunday Anna came to the 1st Ward for the last time. I taught Elders Quorum on Faith last minute and that was pretty interesting, I did well according to Elder Williford but he's paid to say that.

Afterwards we went to our Ward Mission Leaders house to visit him because he just got out of the hospital. While there we helped his wife make dinner and then he started having problems again and had to go back to the Hospital. Before he left we gave him a blessing and when he showed up to the Hospital he was fine, power of the Priesthood!

That was pretty much my week! The Work is so much fun and I couldn't imagine doing anything else!

Have a great week everyone.

-Elder Eddenfield
Choose the Right

 

Winter Chill!

Hey there people!

Last week was actually not super eventful and kind of humbling. On Tuesday we went on exchanges with the Beloit Elders, Beloit's in Wisconsin by the way, that's the only part of the Mission that isn't in Illinois. They both came down here for exchanges to help us clear out some of our teaching pool. I went with Elder Hinckley, who happened to come out with me, he's awesome and very diligent. We ended up clearing out a few people but enough to make it easy on ourselves.

Right now we have about 50 potentials And a good example of an AreaBook is maybe 5 potentials? We have a lot of work to do if we want to clear them out and that is going to be the main focus this week and every week until we can clear it out.

On Wednesday we had District meeting, it was pretty good. We talked about developing Christlike attributes, specifically faith and hope.

It made me think about myself and what I need to do if I want to show those attributes. After District meeting we had a lesson with Anna where we taught her about, faith, repentance, baptism, and we also kind of got into the priesthood with her. Our plan was to teach her the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ but she talks a lot and asks good questions that don't necessarily pertain to what we're teaching, but they're always gospel related so it works out.

On Thursday we had a meeting with Bishop on Missionary work in the Ward and we met with him at 7am...luckily we woke up on time to make it. The meeting was actually pretty productive and we got to find out what he expects of us and what he wants us to do, we also received a few visiting assignments from him which is always nice because it means that we don't have to go searching for people, it's nice when they're just given to you. And yes, that means I'm lazy...sort of.

Later on in the day we visited a less-active recent convert (try saying that three times fast) who seems to have a pretty good testimony but we'll have to keep meeting with them to see how effective it will be to teach them. At some point on Thursday the North Elders came to the church to work on a baptismal program and couldn't figure out for the life of them how to do it, so mister tech wiz Eddenfield over here stepped in and helped, or in other words, pretty much made the whole program for them. You're welcome North Elders.

On Friday we did weekly planning with some finding in between.

(Shortest paragraph?)

On Saturday we did service at the Houser's again and I've got to say, I'm getting pretty good with that little hatchet. I really like this whole cutting down tree's thing, it's making me revaluate my life and consider becoming a lumberjack. Afterwards we took showers because we were nasty, and then headed to the church to set up for a baptism that the North Elders were hosting. We were supposed to have a dinner but they were sick and we were supposed to meet with David but he got called into work, so nothing really cool happened up until the baptism of John. It started at 7 and the Baptismal Programs were on point

(obviously.) The whole event went really well and the baptism was great, Joh had a huge smile on his face the whole evening. The speakers did a wonderful job and the snacks were great too. It made me really happy seeing someone make that first step towards eternal life, I'm proud of John.

On Sunday we had church (shocker) John was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and was given the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and once again had a huge smile on his face. Because it was below zero outside we weren't allowed to really go out and do anything so we stayed in and studied and then cleaned the apartment a bit. We also had diner with the Passmore's again and they fed us chili and it was freaking good, they are super awesome, I will definitely miss them whenever I leave.

Transfers are on Tuesday and Elder Williford and I are staying together for another transfer, that's a first for me. I'm excited because now that we had a transfer to get to know each other and see what we need to change it gives us another transfer to fix those things and do better. Elder Johnson and Elder Royce are also staying so the whole crew will be together another month and a half. I'm happy about that too.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

-Elder Eddenfield

Choose the Right

 I failed with pictures this week...I'm sorry. I figured selfies were better than nothing.

 Windchill -18 degrees, Brrrrrr!!!

It's getting cold!

Hello all! It is cold! Right now it's -4 with windchill and apparently it's not even that cold to the Illinoisians...now that I got that out of the way.

On Monday we did normal preparation day things such as shopping and hanging out. After P-Day we had dinner at a members home and they fed us this super good beef teriyaki stuff and then Pumpkin Rolls for desert, it was super good! On Tuesday we had a golden lesson with a woman named Anna that referred herself. We taught the Restoration and she said that everything we said made sense. She has been looking for the true church because she knows there is only one and she may not realize it yet but she's found what she's looking for. She then asked us if we could meet the next day but that fell through. The next day we went on exchanges with Elder Umphress and McClawsky. I went to their area with Elder Umphress and tracted the whole day, we found them one potential investigator and got invited into the home of a Jehovah's Witness where she proceeded to try and teach/convert us. I was very surprised with myself, I didn't really bash or argue with her at all, even though I realllllly wanted to. Afterwards we had dinner at a members home, they are both huge history buffs so while we were there I just let them throw history stuff at me and soaked it all in.

The other Elders had a lesson with David and apparently it went SUPER well! On Thursday we had Zone Training where we got to learn about the new Mission focus which is Perfect Evenings. That morning at 7 I barely nipped my lip and when the conference started at 8:30 it was still bleeding so Elder Williford and I left for a little bit to get it resolved. Eventually we gave up and I just held a paper towel up to it and it eventually stopped bleeding...at 10. Three whole hours...I'm pretty sure I set some sort of world record. After the conference we ended up having a lesson with Anna and that one also went super well, she still understood and agreed with everything we told her. On Friday we helped the Roby's clean the church building and then did weekly planning. On Saturday we did service for the Houser's again but this time we got to use a chainsaw. Well, I didn't because I don't trust myself, I already had some close calls with the machete. Afterwards we finished up weekly planning and did some finding. On Sunday we had church but started out the day with Ward Council and it was actually on point. Anna ended up coming to church and she loved it! After church we had a lesson with her and she took it all really well and during the lesson her friend called her and Anna started telling her all about church and how she needed to come next week and explained that we are Christians, she's already doing Missionary work! I am so excited to be teaching her. After her lesson we had a lesson with Sekagesh again. That is the last lesson we will be having with him because he won't pray about the Book of Mormon...he reads it, but won't pray. I just hope that at some point he decides to pray about it. During that lesson I received the strongest inspiration I've ever received, it kind of humbled me a little bit because I want to receive inspiration like that more often and want to be able to listen to the spirit with a humbler attitude. After that lesson we had dinner at Sister Binene's home. She fed us couscous and some sort of chicken with broth thing that was super good.

That was my week and I'm seeing blessings from the Lord every single day. Stay strong and do all that you can to draw closer to your Heavenly Father. Until next week!

Choose the Right