A Season for Rest

Hey Everybody!

Man am I glad its Monday. Towards the end of last week I was starting to get pretty tired. Its nice to have a day a week to rest a little and kick back. You'd think that'd be Sunday being the Sabbath and set aside as a day of rest. However as a missionary its not always like that. Rather it seems to be one of our most busy days of the week as we attend multiple church meetings and try and visit people while they are home. Perhaps I should start out at the beginning of the week. Last Monday for P-day was spent mostly in the Chapel teaching Elder Mckee how to play piano. Considering he'd never played a note in his life he did quite well. Taught him Mary had a little lamb and twinkle little star. Also how to read music in the Treble cleft! He's going to need a lot more practice but he's got the basics down in just one lesson. He's a pretty sweet Elder from the town of Vernal Utah and is one of the Salem Elders. Tuesday we stopped by Bro Shorters house to help him out with some stuff and to give him a blessing. Bro. Shorter is the man. He's always got something cool to show us. This time it was his homing pigeons and the new hood he's putting on his Mustang (He really loves this car).We get along pretty well because he served part of his mission in Canada on the West Coast. He also hooked me up with his station patch as well as a special 9/11 ceremonial patch.
Wednesday was a district meeting, followed by splits with the Salem Elders. Once again I was chosen to go to Salem to work with Elder Call for a day. This time I stayed overnight. And Salem being a bike/walking area we covered some good ground by foot in the rain. I think it was supposed to be snow but it didn't get cold enough so we just got soaked. Don't worry mom my winter coat kept it from seeping through so I stayed mostly dry. With the exception that my hair looked like I'd just stepped out of the shower. But we still had a successful day and got home safely.

Thursday morning I went back to the Cave Spring area With Elder Pendleton. We had a pretty lax day as we had to do our weekly planning session. However that night I had probably the best lesson to date! We met with Crawford again and we're teaching him about the Holy Ghost and how he'd come to know if the Church was true. Things he'd all heard before. But this time we asked the right questions and it got him thinking. He shared with us how he once used to be young and reckless then how he found he needed to change his life and turned his heart to God. He Even explained about the missionaries who'd first come and knocked on his door and how he feels now that God must have sent those particular Elders otherwise he would never had talked with us. He said many things along these lines and the spirit was strong. Elder Pendleton finally told him what we'd both been thinking. He was ready to choose to be baptized. I could tell he was thinking hard about it and he said that he probably was but needed to do some deep soul searching and praying. We are so excited for him. He Treats us like Brothers and we both care about him an awful lot. We also had a member present who contributed in just the right way and was a great support to us. After leaving he took us to Dunkin doughnuts to celebrate. It was the first time Elder Pendleton had been there. I thought it was funny because they had doughnut holes that just like Timbits, but not near as good. Tim Hortons Rocks! But anyways it was a great night!

The weekend was crazy busy for me. I forgot to mention that last Sunday I found out that Elder Pendleton and I had to give a talk in church this past week. And that it should last about 15-20mins long. Also that Evening we were to give a 45 min Fireside on the Restoration, and had been advertising it for the past three weeks. So we had a pretty busy day cut out for us. Last Monday I was pondering on what I should speak on in Church. It came to my mind that I should finish reading the Book of Mormon by the end of the week and talk on that. At the time I was roughly 150 pages in (You may have recalled I started near the beginning of Jan.) But I was determined to get it done. So every morning and night in my study time I'd just read like crazy and highlighted refferences to Christ as I went. Well I finished the last page(531) at 10:15 Saturday night, and started writing my talk shortly there after. I slept a little then finished the last word of my talk just as church began at 9am the next morning. Classic me right? Somethings will never change. But on the side of that I also prayed heavily that Heavenly Father would help me out because I knew I wasn't as prepared as I could have been. No time to practice you see. But to my great relief He came through and I survived yet another speaking experience. In fact, Bro. Weaks, a non Member who is investigating the church without the assistance of the missionaries, came up to me and said he was going to take my challenge to read the Book of Mormon and find out if it was true in earnest. Which just goes to show that even if your speaking is poor and stuttered on the stand, if the Spirits there then the message will get through.
I also found out I had to direct Gospel Principles class that day so I prepared a lesson while in the next Sacrament meeting. Triple Wammie for speaking in one day!! I guess I should really thank Bishop Hoffmiester for calling me to be the Elders Quorum instructor prior to the mission. It came in handy haha.

And finally we were successful in our fireside that evening. Despite our lack of practice due to the busy schedule of the last few days. Everytime that we'd set up to practice something would always come up and would take priority. But I felt like it went very smoothly. We were hoping to have members bring their non member friends so they could learn about our church in a low risk environment, however I was happy that we got 2 less actives there at least. The Members in the area again were awesome. Bro and Sis Wohlford worked so hard to see that we had treats for after the fireside as well as keeping everything in order and cleaning up after while we were busy talking to members. They are Golden. Pres McBride was also a huge help in giving us pointers for our presentation. We had a good talk with him afterwards because he had to tell us about "Jimmer" the BYU basketball player who's taking college basketball by storm. He seriously gave us a 20 min discourse about how great a player he was and how great it was that even through his incredible skill he was set a good example to the world of who Mormons really are. It was too funny. He said as long as we get an investigator to come with us that we could go over and watch BYU play at his house.

So it was a busy day and week. I was exhausted at the end of it but felt fulfilled. I think perhaps I'll take a nap today. I'm Jealous that there's so much snow back home. They say it may snow this week but I'm trying to not get my hopes up. Thanks to everyone who sent letters this past week! Now that I'm done my Book of Mormon Marathon I've started writing a few to send back. Love you all!

Elder Sunada