2/10/2025 - Weeks 81/82 - If I had a nickel...

"If I had a nickel for every time [one of our friends was in the hospital this week], 

I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't very much but it's weird that it happened twice"


This week was unfortunately very uneventful.

As far as the missionary work went, not a lot of progress was made. Also, seeing as everyone we teach and are trying to invite to church is scared out of their minds about immigration officers still, realistically nobody wanted to open their door to us (literally nor figuratively). We still made due though. Last Sunday we only had one friend come to church, but it was our guy Albeiro and we had a really good lesson with him afterwards about the Restoration of the church! We also found out of friend with their daughter in the Hospital were discharged and all are back and ready to go!

We had some exchanges with our ZL in Kentucky on Tuesday which was a lot of fun. We taught a couple of Venezuelans that were very high, but were aware enough to understand a bit of what we were saying. We basically were just grinding all day. But we got transfer news and found out that my comp and I would be staying together (not a big surprise)

After our exchanges, we had our last district council of the transfer. It was raining pretty good that day so really nobody was out and about and still nobody is answering their door for strangers. We also had English class and saw the aftermath of someone getting hit by a car in the crosswalk (pretty sure they're good, but there were a lot of cops, firemen, and EMTs.

We had transfers the next day and we were there for the entire thing assisting the APs and making sure nobody left without getting everything they needed. I also had to replace 2 phones which made me feel like a master hacker (even though it's probably the most basic thing in the universe to do). 

Élder Glade (the first Spanish Elder I ever met) also "died" (finished his mission) at transfers so it was a real Father Tanner moment. We luckily were able to have a couple lessons that day so it was pretty good overall!

Nothing noteworthy happened on Friday that I can talk about here, but we did have a dinner with out Bishop and his wife and ate some Skyline Chili (it's still weird, but I like it now). Our friend Albeiro'd girlfriend also gave birth to a baby Girl so that's exciting!

On Saturday we had Stake Conference and a senior couple took us up there and also took us to dinner at a Mongolian BBQ joint which was really good! Other than that, we met a new guy named Yelson and had our 2 lessons fall through.

None of our friends come to church on Sunday with us (somehow 5 of them went to a different ward nearby) so we didn't have to translate Stake Conference (probably a blessing). We had a couple of lessons which both went really good, but basically all of the people we're teaching right now have a lot to do before they're cool enough to make the email.

Spiritual Thought:
Galatians 5:16-18, 22-23

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

I love these scriptures a lot. Our natural desires are occasionally in conflict with the desires which God has for us, so as we "walk in the Spirit" and are "led by the Spirit" we are no longer relying on our own faulty logic and sinful desires, but we overcome them and follow the path which leads to the lasting joy and happiness we all want. If we don't know how to follow the Spirit, a good start is to take a look at those attributes of the Spirit and do our best to emulate those in our daily lives! As we do this, we will find that we make better decisions and make them more often, and with that, we will become more attuned to what the feeling of the Spirit is for us!

Love y'all
-Parker











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7/16/2023 - Elder Hansen's Farewell Talk in Sacrament Meeting

Image
Good morning Brothers and Sisters, it feels good to see all of you one last time before I head out on my mission. I’d like to start today by sharing some of the insights I have had while doing the online portion of my MTC training. My companion for all of my MTC training is Elder Sainsbury who just graduated from Rocky Mountain this year and someone I deeply respect. I am extremely grateful for the fact that my companion is someone I know at least a little bit and can get along with easily. I am also grateful for all that he has taught me so far during our time together in the MTC. My MTC district has also been a huge blessing to me. My district has always been very open about their struggles, insights, and together we have helped each other out and encouraged each other along. We are each slowly improving every day and that's all that we can hope for from one another. One of the main focuses of our study in the MTC has been the power of boldly proclaiming simple truths and allowin...
Read more

10/9/2023 - Week 12 - Carr vs. Car

Image
Whats up y'all? This week's been a roller coaster of just crazy cool and crazy weird things happening. I'll start with the title story, which isn't that funny, but it made for the best title in my opinion. So, it's no secret that Elder Carr is an adrenaline junkie and when we go down this one big hill back to our apartment, he loves to just go as fast as he can down the road. Unfortunately, on Saturday night this week when we were about halfway down the hill (going very fast for bikes) a car decided to turn left right as Elder Carr was going through the intersection (we had the right of way) and Elder Carr trying to not get hit smoothly drifted his bike for about .3 seconds until he flew over his handlebars right in front of the car turning left. Luckily, the car stopped in time so he wasn't run over, but he did rip his pants. So technically the Carr v car fight night ended in a draw, but luckily no one was hurt too bad. We also found a dude outside the Church w...
Read more

7/15/2024 - Week 52 - Transfers + Baleada = Great Week

Image
Wowza, so much stuff happened this week. I'm still gonna try to keep this email pretty brief so you don't have to take a nap halfway through it. This week we had a ton of member meals with members from a lot of different countries so we got to try a ton of different kinds of foods! Some of the best was some Guatemalan spaghetti and fried chicken (with tortillas of course), some amazing tacos from the familia Escobedo (plus cake and they sang me happy birthday because I had a birthday since they fed us last? I'm still not too sure what that's about but they're amazing), some world famous Nicaragüense BALEADA with the familia Amador, and lastly some Chicken Noodle Soup with our new member Yenni and her family! It was awesome to see the dedication and sacrifice these families will make to show their love for the missionaries! We also had transfers this week so I kind of got transfered to another area, but its more like the two sets of missionaries in this area got comb...
Read more