Week 46

Mon, May 6, 2013 at 10:03 AM

Hey family, 

Alright, alright, hold your horses...here's the details.  Yes, I can skype.  The time of skyping will be ballpark 7:00 my time, (5:00 your time).  It could be as early as 4:30 (your time) or slightly after. It will last 40 minutes.  I think that takes care of all the details.  Yes, mom, you can open it without me.  

Okay...what else...well...Dad, no fair on Elder Rhodes coming to whoop all y'all into shape...did you perhaps ask him if his next stop was Southport?? I can hope, can't I ?!  Also, props on the promotion.  You stud.  Sounds like a fancy new title too.  Can I call you Doctor now?  Mom, I forgot to take a picture of the pants...again...maybe one day I will.  Oh, theoretically, I might decide to get a voice recorder for journal writing because it is proving mighty difficult as of late to actually get any quality journal writing in.  Just BTW.  

In terms of exciting news, we are witnessing a baptism this weekend.  This lady we've been working with, who is ridiculously solid and twice as active as 95% of the branch, will be baptized.  It's super exciting.  As a booster for y'all and a testimony for member work, her interest came from her recent convert granddaughter inviting her on a trip to Utah.  That's right...it came from inviting someone on VACATION!!! Not the usual idea of member missionary work, but that's the thing!  We don't have to invite our friends to be baptized or to convert to our religion, we simply have to invite to little things like my fabulous mother is doing with the 10 virgin's thing (ask her for details ;).  Oh, and how did the recent convert granddaughter get her seed started, from an invitation from a friend to go to church one Sunday.  That's it.  For some reason or other, I think we, as members of the church, are sometimes under the impression that in order for us to do missionary work, we must actively seek to convert everyone or get someone to have a lesson from the missionaries, but as Preach My Gospel explains, it comes from our sincere desire, not to convert our friends, but to love and serve them.  Okay, what else...

Time continues to fly...hard to believe it's almost mid transfer again...well, I think I told you all about the outage that was going on with Nuclear Power Plant about 3 months ago...well, it was "supposed" to be over about a month ago almost...yeah, that didn't happen.  And guess what, midst all the goodies going on with the unit that they had shut down and were working on, another broke or something, so they're going to have to shut down that reactor too and fix it.  aka...another outage...they say 10 days?? I say lies.  Outage is all Elder Mickelsen is going to know about this place.  That one starts May 17...watch them overlap.  

This is probably a boring email

We have interviews with President tomorrow.  That'll be good.  I love President Bernhisel.  I hope I don't have to leave this mission, but I'll do whatever the Lord needs me to do...or at least I'll try to.  We're kind of stagnant with a lot of our investigators as of late.  We're either in the early stages or limbo stages.  

My bike is still holding up well.  So, we were joking about keeping a tally of how many times people are turned off from religion because of their poor experiences in other churches.  I can't tell you how many times someone's told they don't like how church is all about the money....or.... that they don't like how everything conflicts.  Seriously, if all my experiences had been founded in other man made churches, it would be hard for me to believe too that any one of them was the true original one that Christ started.  It's definitely frustrating sometimes.  Sometimes it feels like other churches have poisoned the well before we even get the chance to introduce them to the real deal.  Oh, and on a side note, we had a lady try to convert us to Catholicism yesterday.  I told her in the early stages of the conversation that my mom grew up Catholic and then converted to the LDS church.

Well, I'll talk to y'all Sunday.

ENjoy the week.  Happy soon b-day, Chris

Love

Elder Patty