Hey Family,
Sorry this email has taken so long to get to you as it has been a very LONG day, not to mention a long week too. I will get to all that shortly, but first I want to say, "Thank you" for your emails. Honestly, I cannot express that enough; especially all the pictures. You all look awesome! Cola - you're the bomb! Go hard Cola. I love you. You were my example in preparing for a mission, so it's funny that you turn around and say I am your example. But go hard and dont let Satan win.
So, as mentioned earlier, this week was long, but nonetheless full of experiences. Tuesday last week was definitely a day, "NOT" to remember. Trust me, if anything was to go wrong this day, it did!. It was a day like no other and often you hear about missionaries having these kind of days. It was one of those days down to a T! So, to start our day, we had some appointments set up for the morning but, they all cancelled on us. That's okay, so we went to try and visit a few Less Active people but no one was home. By now, my companion was itching to go tracting. Let me give a disclaimer to tracting in the Idaho Boise Mission - "It is the most ineffective way of finding people to preach the gospel to!" Needless to say, while I wasn't all that excited to tract, I knew it was an experience my companion and I needed to have so tracting we went. I kid you not, every single door was slammed in our faces, some even before we were able to smile. I had barely started with the door approach and then, "Slam!". The funny thing is, it didn't make me angry, but found it to be quite comical more then anything. Comical to think that people could be so judgmental. One thing I did learn from the whole experience is that at the end of the day people who knock on doors sharing a spiritual message, may seem annoying, but they are still human. I swear, as soon as people would see our badges, they automatically assumed that we were from a cult and, "Slam" went the door. I kept thinking to myself, "You know nothing about me and yet you are slamming the door in my face?" At the end of the day, I am a person who is passionate about my religion and in wanting to share my passion. I wish they would realize that I am not here to insult them. Anyway, while it wasn't the funnest experience, it was a good experience for both my companion and I and we both recognized that a lot more work needs to be done to be effective in tracting. After that fun experience, we went to visit a few more people and we found this one lady home but she was in her PJ's so she asked if we could come back at 3:00 p.m. It was almost lunch time, so my companion and I had lunch then we went and taught a lady by the name of Lily a lesson on the Word of Wisdom. It was a really good lesson and she is making progress. We ended up contacting a few more people before heading back to our 3:00 p.m. appointment and you wouldn't believe it, while we were walking to the place of our 3:00 p.m. appointment, we see the lady run across the street to her neighbours house. My companion and I just look at each other and think, "Are you serious?" Such is life! We contacted a few other people - all who were not home and before we knew it, it was dinner time. After dinner we were scheduled to teach a Relief Society lesson that evening at the church so decided to go early and set up as it started at 7:00 p.m. By 7:15 p.m. only the Relief Society president was at the chapel and I just looked at my companion and thought, "Well, isn't this the cherry on top of our day!" We had an appointment scheduled for 8:00 p.m. and what do you know, they called and cancelled. Trust me, when I got home that night I couldn't decide whether I should laugh or cry about my day! However, it did confirm to me once again that missionary work is hard work! True fact. You have your good days and you have your bad days. I also learnt that it is so important not to become discouraged. I could hear Elder Chadderton's advice ringing in my ears, "You have to be happy, over the top happy so your companion knows how exciting missionary work is!" So, I stuck to that and we made it through the rest of the night.
Wednesday was a breath of fresh air and we had district meeting in the morning and then it was off to Carey for the evening. We didn't get to meet with Brenda and Ed because they were in Hailey for the night, so we went around contacting more people and we found a former investigator who is open to having the lessons again. Her name is Brittney Conrad and she is 11years old and she invited us to her home so that was cool. Her dad is less active so it will be interesting to see what happens. We spent the night in Carey.
Thursday we had our Weekly Planning meeting all morning, then we went to Richfield and as was typical of this week our appointments fell through again. SO, we went to contact some more people, had dinner, then met with the Pitmans. They are always awesome to meet with because they have gospel discussions but they never want to follow through with assignments, so we need to find a way to get them to follow through. We invited them to church and they said they would come - but they didnt. So we have some work to do.
Then Friday we were in Shoshone again and this time we were determined to make our day better than Tuesday and hallelujah it was!!!!! We taught a bunch of lessons and the majority of our appointments stuck. I was so happy about that. We taught mostly less actives - practiced lessons on them but we did teach a few other people as well so that was awesome! It also helps when you look for the miracles in the week because I would definately say Friday was a miracle day.
Saturday we were in Dietrich and once again our lessons stuck. So that was awesome! We were busy all day and had some cool experiences. One lady Manone who we have been teaching said that if she was to ever get baptised it would be into the LDS church so that was cool. And then a less active lady who we have been visiting participated a lot in the lesson. It was cool. I find some people can be so stand-off-ish during discussions. That night we were supposed to be helping a lady move and we showed up to her house and the lady wasn't home but her sister and husband were there. Let's call them the Scott family. So we were talking and asked if we could teach a lesson while we were waiting for the other lady to come home. We found out that they were less actives and by the end of the night they were inviting us back and everything so it was GREAT! It was a huge tender mercy because they shared their story about how they had just been married in the temple but previous to that they were less active and so I kept thinking, "Don't go backwards, don't go backwards!" Hopefully, having the spirit in their home helped them out a bit.
Sunday we fasted and I was so looking forward to fast Sunday as I felt I had a lot to fast for. It was great. We attended Richfield Ward and both my companion and I bore our testimonies, and then we went to try and contact some people who weren't home on our last visit. Following that we went to Dietrich as we had a lesson with Walter. He is progressing slowly but because he is a foreign exchange student we cannot baptize him. I just hope he sticks with it when he gets home. Then we had dinner and our appointments after dinner stuck. So the week ended well. We met most of our goals, but lacked in a member present lesson goal, but that just means we work harder this week.
Well, it may seem like I am complaining about my week, but I'm not because it was not a week to complain about. This is the Lords work and I have been studying a lot and my purpose as a missionary is to invite others to come unto Christ. That doesn't mean they have to be non-members. Like Elder Chadderton, we have about 40% of the people on the Ward list attending church, so I know the Lord needs me here to organize these Ward Directories and to find the people who are not attending to invite them to come back to church. When we met with all our Ward Mission Leaders this week we went through the Ward Directory with them and they pointed out the names of those families or individuals who are active and then the names of those who are less active. We have a LOT of WORK to do in this area as far as reactivation goes. I know the Lord will bless us in this great work. These people are all his children so this transfer may not have as many baptisms as the previous transfer but we will be working just as hard! The Lord needs us to do all sorts of work for him.
Family, I love this work irrespective of the challenges that we face. Today was a LONG DAY! P-Day is slowly coming to a close. Bytheway, I had a follow up appointment with the doctor in Twin Falls this morning (its been a month already goodness....) and the doctor says I probably have a bacteria in my stomach so he ran a blood test and in the next few days I will find out the results and if it's not a bacteria then I have to do a strict no, "Dairy food" diet for 3 weeks and then a strict no, "Gluten" diet for 3 weeks to see if I am intolerant to either of those. It seems silly to come to America to find out I am dairy or gluten intolerant but such is life. I personally hope it's the bacteria because I don't think I will survive if I have to give up my favourite, "Goody Goody Gum Drop" ice-cream! Anyway, after the doctors we went and took our car through a car wash because tomorrow is Zone Conference and they do car inspections and living on a farm means a real dirty car. Then we went to Jumba Juice and met up with some of the Elders and went and saw these water falls that are frozen because of how cold it is. It was cool. I'll send pics next week.
Well, family sorry for emailing so late this week. Next week it should be earlier. I love you all so much! Have an awesome week for me. Take care, Sister Chadderton.
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