This Week in Idaho Falls

Dear Family,

This week has been quite the adventure. I know I say that a lot, but it's true- everyday is a new adventure. We are doing lots and lots of work. Two interesting things happened this week.

One, we taught a gentleman by the name of Mike, great guy, lives with his 9 year old son who just got baptized. We've been visiting [his son] for new member lessons, and lately the lessons have been focused on Mike. He has had lots of trials in the past two years and the Bishop was able to be a helping hand when Mike needed it. He decided he needed to have a chat with bishop to get some concerns off his mind. We thought it was going to be a confession, but it was just a few concerns about our beliefs. From either perspective it worked out because either he confessed sins to a bishop and would become better converted than most or we draw out concerns and get them taken care of and he beomes better converted to the gospel. It's a win-win situation. We feel he is better prepared than most who are in his spot. We also taught a lady who is married to a member and wants to visit with us and even join the church but because of her southern baptist parents who have threatened to disown her, she cannot and it breaks her heart. She probably reads the scriptures more than some missionaries, the Book of Mormon even.

The second thing is, on Friday night we got a call from a member of the bishopric in one of the wards, giving us a assignment to talk the upcoming Sunday. So Saturday night we got into bed late writing our talks which we were told were awesome talks. I made a joke at the beginning by saying "I think Bishop is a good bishop and everyone should make him a plate of cookies and brownies" then i turned to the Bishop and ask "Bishop, i can't read your handwriting, did I say that right?" Quite a few people got a kick out of that. It was a neat experience how it really only took a little amout of time to write my talk yet the Bishop thought it was inspired. The spirit really does give you what you need.

We didn't get in last night till about 10 because we were making sure to visit all that we could, otherwise we would have been home at 8:30 pm and we would feel bad for not having done more. So I explained that to my Zone Leaders that I would rather they call President saying I worked hard and ended up getting home a little late than not do anything and hope they would not find out about it. Lots of work is coming to us and we are excited to see what the Lord will give us. We are changing the ways we plan and setting our goals so that we can see what we really need to be doing.

Sorry if I have a few (several) typos in this letter, all the places we usually e-mail at are closed so I'm using a members laptop to e-mail.... it's amazing how much of a difference there is between the two. We also learned how much of a difference member participation makes in an area. Some wards are good and want work in their ward and some want work but don't know what to do. My advice to people is if you want to be a help to missionaries, let them know of upcoming events so they can invite investigators to them so they can get familiar with the ward. We learned of a breakfast this morning and only because we were in the ward that Sunday. Well, I've got a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks cause I'm still going to be in Idaho Falls. So much stuff can be done yet there is only a finite amout of time. Prioritizing is definitely going to be a big facet these next few weeks.

Well, talk with you all later.

Love,
Elder Hedgecock
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May 7, 2012

Dear all,
This week we spent more time sorting out the baptism we had, which was really fun. I woke up with the feeling we needed to be at the church building to fill the font; my companion was confused because he was sure we had set it up already, so we got ready really quick and went to the church building to find no one was there and we needed to have the font filled in 2 hours, ironically it needed 2 hours to fill.
A dinner appointment canceled so we had dinner at Maverick, a gas station (not recommended), but a hot dog, corn dog, egg roll, and nacho dinner was something I had not had in some time, in fact not at all.
Ping Pong seems to be a new thing. The members we live with have a ping pong table and my companion and I play it sometimes. It was exciting when we didn't care how it was played and just knocked the ball back and forth, for instance we tallied how many times one would hit the net and the first one to 50 lost. The idea was to try to do better at not hitting the net.
We contacted many, many people this week and they all seemed very friendly, some only cause they were sick so they were probably only friendly cause being mean just make being sick worse. We took a family to the temple visitor center yesterday and they were all so cheerful to be there, the dad was not a member but the wife was and her son was baptized about 3 weeks ago. The husband seems very friendly with us and we think if we don't push him he will eventually ask to take the lessons. This week has a lot ahead of it, and I am looking forward to calling on Sunday!!!!!! T.T.F.N. "Ta Ta For Now"
Love,
Elder Hedgecock
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad