'Dear family and everyone else,
How exciting it is to celebrate our nation's Independence Day. Happy 240th birthday U.S.A. Last night, there were a ton of impatient people in this town shooting off fireworks on a Sunday. I wasn't too happy with the early booms, but today is the day for whatever to go off. I just recently watched a 27 minute video of Elder Christofferson giving a B.Y.U. speech about the attack on religious freedom. He said it has been woven into our nations birth, constitution, and throughout the history of many political situations, but he did urge us to influence our culture. We don't necessarily need to run for an office; we just need to influence others for the world to be better. Elder Shepherd said it was a nice way to say prepare to go to arms. I wouldn't think of it like that. We are a peaceable people. We do not create war. We resolve conflicts before we fight with one another. Be humble and submissive, and council!
Today we plan to host a huge BBQ at the church. We borrowed a flag from a member, and his small grill to cook all the delicious food we are soon going to partake. I even made a cobbler again for the occasion. It has lemon cake mixed with raspberries, blueberries, eggs, and Voltage Mountain Dew. It's starting to sound really good already. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. We will also be having a dinner BBQ at the Sam's this evening. They live out on the edge of town pretty much out in the countryside. I say that's the best place to have a party--with no one else around.
On Tuesday we had a short lesson with Corey Scherringa. We didn't share much because of the 3 rambunctious kids. We may bring them to member's houses just so we can just talk to him while the members who host them will be obliged to entertain the kids. It might just work out. We also taught Marianne again this week. We asked if she would like to go on a church tour so she can know what it looks like, where it is, and feel the spirit there so she may have a greater longing to feel that same spirit. We have been trying to get all our investigators to come to church, but none of them really want to put in any effort. It's hard enough trying to get them to read the simple pamphlets and the Book of Mormon as it is. We also taught the Tagal's. The wife was reading around Nephi chapter 13 about the great and abominable church. We explained that any other church that is not run by God, that is formed by man, is of the devil, so she continues to read, and maybe also pray about what she reads. We haven't lost her yet. Her husband piped up saying that the Catholic's are corrupt and don't have any morals. She can get apprehensive sometimes. We just hope we aren't ruining their relationship because he has a different belief in the religion than her. We just need to get him to church and read and pray with her is all.
Also on Tuesday, we went to the mission office to renew Elder Shepherd's temple recommend since it was about to expire. President Palmer was also interviewing the missionaries who were going home this transfer. Surprisingly, I ran into Elder Brown again there. They were having a new missionary training meeting that afternoon as well. I was able to share with him some information about what I have been doing in family history with our common great grandfather Clifford Burton Dye. It was a good day.
On Wednesday, we helped Marcia Baker unpack, sort, and organize her dresses, clothes, and hangers. It took 3 hours to go through it all. We did a great purging with Sister Weeden. Marcia was having a hard time losing so many clothes, but she got through it and recognized our love for her. She had to downsize 4 closets of clothing to 2 small ones. It was hard for her, but she eventually got over it. Thursday we were able to finally have a Missionary Correlation Meeting with Brother Iver's at his house. He is thankfully all better from his Bell's Palsy, or numbness/droopiness of the face. We could then know who our ward missionaries are, their availability, and be able to provide much information of all our investigator's and our plan for missionary work in the near future. We still have a few things to discuss this next Thursday, but we did accomplish a lot of stuff then.
Well, that's about it. I now go and prepare for our gigantic missionary BBQ. Have a fantastic 4th of July people, and a happy week.
Sincerely,
Elder White
How exciting it is to celebrate our nation's Independence Day. Happy 240th birthday U.S.A. Last night, there were a ton of impatient people in this town shooting off fireworks on a Sunday. I wasn't too happy with the early booms, but today is the day for whatever to go off. I just recently watched a 27 minute video of Elder Christofferson giving a B.Y.U. speech about the attack on religious freedom. He said it has been woven into our nations birth, constitution, and throughout the history of many political situations, but he did urge us to influence our culture. We don't necessarily need to run for an office; we just need to influence others for the world to be better. Elder Shepherd said it was a nice way to say prepare to go to arms. I wouldn't think of it like that. We are a peaceable people. We do not create war. We resolve conflicts before we fight with one another. Be humble and submissive, and council!
Today we plan to host a huge BBQ at the church. We borrowed a flag from a member, and his small grill to cook all the delicious food we are soon going to partake. I even made a cobbler again for the occasion. It has lemon cake mixed with raspberries, blueberries, eggs, and Voltage Mountain Dew. It's starting to sound really good already. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. We will also be having a dinner BBQ at the Sam's this evening. They live out on the edge of town pretty much out in the countryside. I say that's the best place to have a party--with no one else around.
On Tuesday we had a short lesson with Corey Scherringa. We didn't share much because of the 3 rambunctious kids. We may bring them to member's houses just so we can just talk to him while the members who host them will be obliged to entertain the kids. It might just work out. We also taught Marianne again this week. We asked if she would like to go on a church tour so she can know what it looks like, where it is, and feel the spirit there so she may have a greater longing to feel that same spirit. We have been trying to get all our investigators to come to church, but none of them really want to put in any effort. It's hard enough trying to get them to read the simple pamphlets and the Book of Mormon as it is. We also taught the Tagal's. The wife was reading around Nephi chapter 13 about the great and abominable church. We explained that any other church that is not run by God, that is formed by man, is of the devil, so she continues to read, and maybe also pray about what she reads. We haven't lost her yet. Her husband piped up saying that the Catholic's are corrupt and don't have any morals. She can get apprehensive sometimes. We just hope we aren't ruining their relationship because he has a different belief in the religion than her. We just need to get him to church and read and pray with her is all.
Also on Tuesday, we went to the mission office to renew Elder Shepherd's temple recommend since it was about to expire. President Palmer was also interviewing the missionaries who were going home this transfer. Surprisingly, I ran into Elder Brown again there. They were having a new missionary training meeting that afternoon as well. I was able to share with him some information about what I have been doing in family history with our common great grandfather Clifford Burton Dye. It was a good day.
On Wednesday, we helped Marcia Baker unpack, sort, and organize her dresses, clothes, and hangers. It took 3 hours to go through it all. We did a great purging with Sister Weeden. Marcia was having a hard time losing so many clothes, but she got through it and recognized our love for her. She had to downsize 4 closets of clothing to 2 small ones. It was hard for her, but she eventually got over it. Thursday we were able to finally have a Missionary Correlation Meeting with Brother Iver's at his house. He is thankfully all better from his Bell's Palsy, or numbness/droopiness of the face. We could then know who our ward missionaries are, their availability, and be able to provide much information of all our investigator's and our plan for missionary work in the near future. We still have a few things to discuss this next Thursday, but we did accomplish a lot of stuff then.
Well, that's about it. I now go and prepare for our gigantic missionary BBQ. Have a fantastic 4th of July people, and a happy week.
Sincerely,
Elder White