Thursday, October 27, 2016

We Should Go On a Missionary Tour



Warm and then cold seems to be the trend here. It's cold now but it's supposed to get warmer in a few days, oh Illinois. This week was pretty great! 
   I'm not sure if I mentioned this last week but Elder Young, Elder Moore, and I planned to sing in this past Sacrament Meeting. And we did. I'm a little surprised that I actually did it and it went well! When we were practicing it sounded alright but not that great but when it was time for the performance the Spirit took over and helped it to go really well. We got lots of compliments afterwards and a member told us we should go on a missionary tour around the Mission. I don't think President would allow that, but it's a good idea. 
   No one came to church for us because the M* were tired and had friends over but the other Elders had someone come who lives in their old apartment complex. His name is Tashene (like dashing but with a T) or something like that and he is from Iraq. He's a really awesome guy and is super nice. He enjoyed it and hopefully comes again.
   We had quite a cool miracle while serving some members. We were helping the H* move some furniture with the other Elders. They were selling a lot of the stuff we were moving and had someone want to come by to buy something. We just so happened to be there when this man named Mike came to pick something up. He got talking with us and has a cousin who is a member and he is currently thinking of going back to church. He grew up in a Christian church but doesn't want to go back to it. We offered for him to come to the church and he said that is something he would like to do. We got his address and found out he lives in Elgin so we sent his record over the missionaries up there. I love the way God works. There was no reason for us to be there at the same time that man was except for the fact that God made it happen. Man missionary work gives me the chills sometimes.
   The M* are doing fine, progressing still. We are trying to get permission to have Elder Kloosterboers friend from Nepal Skype in for a lesson or two but to no avail yet. We'll keep trying. Stephanie is reading what we give her she just needs to learn how to get answers to her prayers in her way. Vince....haven't heard from him so hopefully we'll catch him this week.
   That's about it for this week. Have a great week everyone! Strive to do your best!

- Elder Eddenfield

Monday, October 17, 2016

A Missionary For My Entire Life



Hey everyone! How's it going? Great I hope. This last week was wonderful. It was so wonderful to finally have a Sacrament meeting where we could partake of the Sacrament. I sure have missed that and could tell even in the classes right afterwards that the Spirit was with me stronger than previously. Good stuff.
   So, the M*'s as usual are doing wonderful. They just keep progressing and progressing. Ganga made it sound like she is considering joining and she even downloaded the Gospel Library app on her phone and has been listening to the Book of Mormon! I haven't had a single English speaking investigator do that but of course the one family that doesn't even understand half of what we are saying does it, they are so great. Jit, Ganga, Krish, and Monita all came to Sacrament meeting on Sunday. We drove them to the church building, not in our car because that's disobedient, but we drove in front of them so they could see how to get there. It felt so great walking into the chapel with a family behind us, the Lord truly is full of grace and mercy. We have been meeting with them pretty frequently and continue to get more and more ideas on how to teach them better and differently according to their needs. They are a wonderful blessing from God and I thank Him for them everyday.
   We taught Vince M* if anyone remembers him from a while ago. He has questions about the afterlife so we started teaching him the Plan of Salvation and got up to "why am I here?" He'll really enjoy the next lesson because all of his question pretty much pertain to what we know as the spirit world. We are teaching him tomorrow and have a Priest lined up to come with us to that. We went to Priest Quorum to talk about him and turns out most of the Priest know him, so that's really good.
   Stephanie had a pretty bad week with kids sicknesses and stuff so we gave her some scriptures to read and pray about, she hasn't done it yet but she will soon. We are meeting with her in a couple of days and hopefully we can help her gain a testimony, because that's all she needs at the moment.
   We had a Fall Festival on Saturday and man it was so good. So many friends who are not of our faith were there. One lady that is in charge of the volunteers at Salvation Army came. She knows a family in our Ward and we made sure she got invited by them and us to come. Her daughters loved it and she seemed to have fun as well. Can I just say how wonderful it is when members bring friends to things? Nothing feels better than walking into a room and seeing 20 people you don't know. It is one of the best feelings as a Missionary. If you want to make Missionaries (including me) happy, bring/invite people to things, and if they don't come let the Missionaries know you at least invited, that makes us just as happy. Feeding them is nice, going out with them is great, but showing them that you are doing the work....nothing compares. I am definitely going to be a Missionary for my entire life. That's the only real goal I have right now, and I'm sticking to it.
   Well, I hope you have a great week full of miracles. Keep trying to be your best and God will take you the rest of the way. I love you all!


- Elder Eddenfield

A cool cookie I got

Monita's two...dogs?

I'm trying to pay attention to the lesson