August 19

Wednesday was interesting. Normally trainings with other missionaries get me really excited. We had to wake up really early so we could drive to Fishers for a mission conference with Elder Schwitzer. Sister Schwitzer said something pretty neat that I've thought a lot about. "Everyday of your mission you are going to think about home. Once you are home you are going to think about your mission every day". I've thought about that a lot and realized how true it probably is going to be. Elder Schwitzer talked about repentance. The purpose of missionary work is to help people repent so they can gain salvation. As he was talking, I just got incredibly sad. Oh yeah, before Elder Schwitzer President Cleveland talking about gripping onto the iron rod. He said when we are clinging to the rod we are becoming more Christ-like and because of that are weaknesses are very clear. The Spirit is telling us what we need to change. So anyways, the Elder Schwizter talked about repentance. Basically I was just getting rebuked. We took a break for lunch afterwards. I was in the bathroom and saw Sister Donaldson. I just started crying. She asked me what was wrong and I told her I didn't know. At lunch we sat with some sisters that I didn't really know. It was fine because I didn't really feel like talking to anyone. I decided to just talk to Sister Fullmer and update her on Seymour.

After lunch Elder Schwizter talked more. It was neat to have the entire mission together for the first time since I've been out. There are 225 of us and I think 30 more coming next week. For the closing song we sang the EFY Medley. That was really neat. Sister Jones has to get interviewed by Elder Schwitzer so we ended up sticking around for another 2 or so hours. I had to say goodbye to Sister Donaldson. That was SO HARD. We talked/cried for about 15 minutes. It's hard to think that I can't get permission to call her anymore. Then I talked to some elders afterwards haha. 19 year old boys...

Thursday morning we went and taught this Hispanic. We really underestimated his English skills. He didn't understand anything. Luckily Sister Jones (the member) came with us and she knows more spanish than I do. So after reading through the introduction of the Book of Mormon he told he even though he couldn't completely understand us, he felt the Spirit of the Lord. He is so humble. His wife left him about two months ago and took their son, so he is very sad. I got to kind of bear my testimony in spanish, basically I told him I knew the Book of Mormon would make him happy. It was an incredible lesson. Then we had the Spanish elders call him haha. We are going to see him again this week, we'll see what happens.

My birthday was pretty good. Yes the Jones fed us lunch. I wasn't too thrilled when she told me she was going to take a video of me and then put it on facebook. I was very happy the quality wasn't that great. The only thing worse than someone taking a picture of me is someone doing a video of me. We taught Benjamin in a member's home after that. He's doing pretty well. We had taught him the word of wisdom early this week, so he's working on his coffee. We also taught this other kids, probably in his 20s. The family he is living with are Southern Baptist. We taught him on this porch and the woman (like a mother figure) he lives with is a minister. She was standing there the entire time to hear exactly what we were telling him. I thought it was pretty funny.

The Spanish elders came down to Seymour and we went to Cracker Barrel that night. Once again....18 year old elders are sometimes are to control. The picture attached is us with balloons. The Jones had decorated the house and Della insisted that I take the balloons home with me.

That night we went and stopped by this woman's house named Mary. We met her a few weeks ago tracting and she told us to come back because she had just fallen and needed to recover. We had gone to see her last Saturday but she was expecting company so we left her with a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet. She told us that she is reading to change and become right with God. So we went and saw her again Saturday night. She has just gotten out of the hospital that day, so we couldn't talk with her for long. She told us that as she was reading the pamphlet it said that the next step was the read the Book of Mormon. She said "now where could I get a copy of that book?". Boy were we glad to pull one out of our bags. She's very excited to read. We are going to go see her again this week.

Yesterday during sacrament we sat next to the Jones. When we got up to sing for choir Della had a melt down and had to be taken out. I had been asked to say the closing prayer so I was afraid the same thing would happen again when I got up to leave. I warned her about 10 minutes before that I would say that prayer. She didn't want me to go. So she followed me up there haha. I felt like a mom when their kids follows them when she share their testimonies. It was a neat experience.

This week had its ups and downs. I'm very grateful it's week six. I'm ready for change. I've had a lot of sad/frustrating moment this week. I just keep telling myself I've done this for almost 6 months already and I can just take it one day at a time.