Week 37- Quickest week ever!

Hola Everyone!
So this week has been quick! I've really learned the importance of hard work from my companion Elder Redmond. We've been doing a lot of contacting and door approaches, but not a lot of it has been paying off. So it's been cool to see him just keep plugging along.

We also took another tree out of a potential investigators yard. It wasn't too big but it definitely paid off. It was a miracle really. They were kind of stand offish when we went over there at first, but then we asked if they needed any service, and they softened up. Now we have an awesome gateway in to their lives, to teach and uplift!

Apart from that, we went on exchange with the Moab elders, and I got to learn a little bit more about being friendly and getting to know people at door approaches.

But that's about it for this week. We really didn't teach any lessons to any investigators this week, so that was too bad. But we're searching diligently for more people to teach.

I feel like I should bare my testimony on diligence. A quote that preach my gospel uses is this:“I have often said one of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work! If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; and if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people and he will be happy. There will be no homesickness, no worrying about families, for all time and talents and interests are centered on the work of the ministry. Work, work, work—there is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work.” That is sooo true! There is divinity in this work, god has asked that we be diligent. It's a commandment! I know it. This church is true, I love each of you.

Haha here are some pictures.

Elder Rehl and I on our Exchange!
Me with my Tapioca pudding I made this morning! It reminds me of home.

Oops sorry my eyes are closed

 

Week 36- Temple week

Hola Everyone!

So it probably sounds weird getting an email from me on Tuesday, because Preparation day is on Monday right?

Right! But not this Preparation day. They've made it a new rule that we need to go to the temple on our Preparation day, and most temples are closed on Monday. But cool thing, we woke up at 4 this morning and trekked 100 miles to get to the Manti temple with our district.

That temple is gorgeous! It's out of our mission too which is cool, but we didn't want to hang around too long. Annnd we got to see a live endowment session. So that was a once in a life time experience too!

Currently we are driving back to Helper! Here's us, down below. The scenery is suuper pretty! Wayyy greener than Arizona's mountains. But that's okay.

So a few people have asked what we do as Zone Leaders, I guess I didn't explain it well enough.

This is the jist of it, it's not too glamorous, consider it more like a zone babysitter. We do stuff like deal with, chastise and support troubled missionaries, and collect key indicators at the end of the week to send them to the assistants. We also advise on how to be more successful and positive, not that I know how yet :), because here in Helper/ Price the members aren't as friendly, some missionaries of trouble with that. So it's pretty simple, and fun too. We get and give a lot of training too! On Tuesday we have to go to 8 hours of training, called missionary leadership council. Then on Thursday we do a Zone training meeting for 3 ish hours. That's going to be fun. So Christ was right, we serve our missionaries a lot and he said it perfectly. "If any are chief among you let him be your servant. We just have a bit more responsibility.

Anywho, this week Elder Redmond and I went on 2 exchanges with the 2 of the District Leaders in our zone. The first was on Wednesday and that one was with elder Hansen and Carr. I went with Elder Hansen. There's pics below.

The next exchange was on Saturday with Elder Tuaui and Elder Hernandez. I went with Elder Hernandez. Once again, pics below.

Last Monday night we found a new investigator, her name is R. We don't really have that big of a teaching pool here. It's a smaller town and a little harder to find people. Not that they're not there.

But we did have a miracle baptism this week, her name is K. She was super prepared, and couldn't get baptized any day out of the next few months, because the schedules are so filled and hard to work with. So we squeezed it in for this Saturday. And it worked out. It was incredible, the spirit was so strong. We had a few other elders with us because we were doing exchanges that day.

Anywho, that's about all folks let me know how you're doing.  bye!
Love you,
Elder Minson

The district at the Manti temple

My district at the Manti temple

Elder Redmond and I at K's baptism

Elder Hansen and I on exchanges

Some pretty scenery pictures of Utah

Me and Elder Hernandez

Week 35

For Pday some of my district took a trip to Cleveland, Utah near Price and saw the Wedge, which is like a mini-Grand Canyon here, some petroglyphs and a bunch of other places like it.

At the Wedge with Elder Redmond

I found a cast in our house so I put it on, it looks
like I broke my leg :)

The Price Zone at Zone training

A leather
jacket we found at a chapel.

Week 34- Helper, Utah

This week has been awesome, I'm serving here in Price, Utah, actually Helper, Utah, and my companion is Elder Redmond, sort of like almond but red. He's a studley guy with a lot of good priorities. Like preparing to go home in five weeks. Yep that's right I'm sending home another missionary. It sounds bad but his two years are up.

 I'll try to get some pictures with him, he doesn't seem to like them. But stay posted. So we live in helper but our boundaries are huge! We go into Price and all the way down into Scofield. So it's a very fun mission. I think we actually get the second most amount of miles in the Mission. So we drive a lot.

The scenery here in helper Utah amazing, I'm sort of surrounded by a wall of sweet looking mountains, because there used to be a giant lake here, but now it's all dried up. Plus the famous balance-rock is here so that's cool. As for the work, it is a little slower, which is kinda expected with only 2000 people that live here. But we're working hard. So we're still successful missionaries  :)

As for being a Zone leader, it's not too glamorous, consider it more like a zone babysitter. We do stuff like deal with chastise and support troubled missionaries, and collect key indicators at the end of the week to send them to the assistants. We also advice on how to be more successful and positive, not that I know how yet :), because here in helper price and the members aren't as friendly, some missionaries of trouble with that. So it's pretty simple, and fun too. We get and give a lot of training too! On Tuesday we have to go to 8 hours of training, called missionary leadership council. Then on Thursday we do a Zone training meeting for 3 ish hours. That's going to be fun. So Christ was right, we serve our missionaries a lot and he said it perfectly. "If any are chief among you let him be your servant".

But that's about all folks.  Here are some pics:

This is Helper, Utah :)

Elder Redmond broke his taser, and gave it to me, so I fixed it.

Me and Elder Redmond

Me with Elder and Sister Peterson before transfers last week

Week 33- I love being a missionary

So last night I got a phone call, it was president, he started out by saying thank you, for me as a district leader and explained to me how important it was and one of the great joy's that comes from
being a leader like that, and then he released me!. And I thought it was over.
The next thing he said was "the Lord has in mind something else for you, you've been called to be a Zone leader in the Helper area, Price zone."
Like what the heck, I literally started to hyperventilate. Eventually president hung up, and I didn't know what to do, I really kinda liked the idea of me being a district leader for another transfer. I was
JUST starting to get the hang of it!! Now I have to do ZONE TRAININGS! aHHHH
 
So, this week has been amazing! It's such a great time to be a missionary, but sad that I'm leaving my area here in Springville. At least I left behind some seeds. It's exciting really getting a change of scenery. And a fresh pool of people to teach! But any way. I'll give y'all a tidbit of each day of the week.

Monday we didn't do too much, just prepared for the rest of the week, and at the end of the day we had a lesson with the Garcias, crazy thing is, they're moving!! We got to teach and baptize them and right after they moved to Layton Utah!! So we're getting their address and
give the missionaries up there a call soon.

Tuesday we went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders. It was a good experience. I learned a lot from them about hard work, and diligence and a better way of teaching the restoration. We taught a young'n name X, and put him upon date for June 16th! But I'll be gone for it.

Thursday we had district training meeting and we learned about the importance of finding, and how to be better at door approaches and contacting events.

Friday we had another lesson with X and did weekly planning. We had a really good bonding session of companion inventory. And that day we also put E on date, she's been wanting to get baptized for a few years. And she's finally been found.

Saturday we had a lot of contacting and door approaches and we did some house cleaning.

Sunday we gave two talks, in the first one I talked about the importance of the sacrament, and church attendance. And in the second spoke about the restoration and the first vision. But then at night I got called to be a Zone Leader in the Price Zone.

So yup! That was my week! This work is amazing. Love all of you!

Love Elder Minson

More cats :)

Being silly at District meeting

Saying goodbye to Sister Bowen who is going home

Week 32- Pictures

 

Just some pictures this week:

 This is A and R's baptism on Saturday! They are such goof balls! 

My Zone (The Wasatch Zone) at Zone conference

During weekly planning Elder DeAlba and I went for a walk along the Hobble Creek. We found this beautiful piece of scrap metal. This is the only pic that I don't look weird in.

Us and the sisters had a service project and had some lunch afterwards, we found some kittens!

This is a wonderful note we found attached to our car door when we were out proselytizing in a neighborhood! I felt soo loved!

More kittens!

Week 31- Woohoo Mother's Day!

Hi all! My week was great! Clearly it was Mother's Day, so we got to call home! It was such a sweet experience, the time we get isn't very much, but that's okay, my thoughts should be on the work.

Skyping with my family

Right now Elder DeAlba is getting a hair cut, and I'm emailing in case your wondering. Haha but yep this week has been good, our weeks have been very busy with at least 3 lessons a night, some with more, and some where they fell through. But all in all, we are staying busy and that's the point right! One cool thing I've learned is that the spirit does not work in a robot. Be professional not robotic. It is sooo important that we have and show the beautiful personalities God has given us! So fun is important in every day. Not too much because we still have a calling we have to focus our efforts on, but finding fun along the way is sooo important! I'm grateful I've learned that soo early in my Mission, cause I was ready to submit myself to two grueling years of no fun. But now it's soooo much better!

We had two baptismal interviews and one of our candidates isn't ready. I felt so bad for him, but we're going to reprepare him, and have him interviewed again. He'll pass this time!

Love, Elder Minson