Dear Family and Friends Monday,
September 02, 2013 at 11:05 a.m. (EDT)
So first off I will answer a
few questions:
I was wondering how Denise
was doing. Is her husband alright with you teaching her? Denise is doing well we have been going
over and we read the Book of Mormon with her. This past week we read Alma
32-34. Her husband is warming up to us more and more. A couple of weeks
ago she asked us to give her a blessing to help her with some
temptations. After we gave her the blessing he thanked us.
Do the Fitzgeralds attend
church now and have they become more active? The Fitzgeralds are no longer in our area. They live in
Morristown so they are now in the Sister's area. They have not come
to church yet. We and a couple members in the ward are assigned as
their hometeachers so we try to stop by once a month. (Each member of the
church has "hometeachers" assigned to stop in and check up how things
are going, as well as teach a spiritual lesson to the family once a month)
Do Wendy and Cirby have children? Wendy has a son that lives with them. He never sits in during our discussions but he definitely listens to them. The other day we saw him at the gas station and we talked to him for about an hour. Hopefully he decides to take the discussions from us. She has one baptized daughter that lives in Barre, VT. We taught them the Word of Wisdom this past week. Cirby said that he drinks 8 pots of coffee every day and he said that unless God comes down and tells him to stop drinking it, he wont.
How is your teaching pool
going and do you still have some baptisms lined up? Our teaching pool has been getting smaller
and smaller lately. Hopefully with school back in session at Johnson State we
will get some more people to teach.
How did you like your hike
to Mount Mansfield? The hike
went really well. I really want to send some pictures but I havent been
able to. From the top we could see all the way into New York. It was cool to
be able to actually see out over the state. But for being the
highest mountain in Vermont it was kind of lame.
Monday - We had District
Preparation Day. On District Prep Day we go out as a group of missionaries and
have fun on our day off. This last time we played Volleyball at the church and
then played minigolf and went to the batting cages. It was a lot of fun. Elder
Simkins one of our Zone Leaders fell into a pond while he was trying to get his
golf ball out of it. It was pretty funny.
Tuesday - In the morning we had
a new investigator, Tonya. She is our neighbor and our landlords invited her to
have a religious discussion with us. She is a Jehovah's Witness and we just
discussed the two religions. She has agreed to the stop smoking program so we
will teach that the next lesson. We went to Enosburg to help Elliot and
Shekhina move to a new house. We loaded up all their beds in our truck and
drove to their new house. For helping them they bought us lunch at a little
Burger Joint and gave us half a gallon each of fresh cows milk. It was great.
After that we exchanged with the St Albans missionaries in Enosburg Falls.
Elder Keller came with me and Elder Smith went with Elder Lenning to St Albans.
That evening me and Elder Keller taught Cirby and Wendy the Word of Wisdom.
Wednesday - We taught Denise
and Ken. After teaching Ken we went to the church. We usually meet with the
Bishop but for some reason no one was there, so we cleaned the church instead.
Thursday - We had district
meeting in St Albans. After district meeting we went to Eden and taught Bella,
Adam and Faith's daughter the Restoration. The
lesson went well and she really understood it. It is a lot of fun teaching
children.
Friday - We had only 8 more
miles for the month, so we decided to walk. Its about 3 miles into Johnson. We
stopped by a few people and then walked out to Jason's house. It is two miles
from Johnson to Jason's house. He wasnt home but on the way back these hippie
college kids in a Chevy van stopped and offered us a ride back into
Johnson. It turned out that the driver was a less active member of the church
from Florida. After that we walked back to the apartment, uphill for 3 miles.
It was a really fun day.
Saturday - We used our 8 miles
to drive to Johnson and back. We parked the truck in the town and walked
around. Not a lot of people were in town which was odd for
a Saturday. We stopped by Christian, Denise's neighbor that we gave a
Book of Mormon to. He had thrown a party Friday night and there was a
girl hung over and passed out on his front lawn. That was kind of
interesting. Christian was there but he didnt want to have us teach a lesson
because he was drunk and wouldnt comprehend it all. After that we walked
around a little more and street contacted people. Jeremy, our Ward
Mission Leader called and asked us to come with him and give a blessing to
his friend, Jason in the hospital. It is the same Jason that we tried to
see on Friday. His appendix burst so he had to have
surgery. After the blessing he really felt the spirit. We have been trying
for a while to teach him the gospel so maybe this is the turning point. After
that we went home.
Sunday - We had a good day at
church. I wasnt feeling very well so we went back to the apartment after
church. I have something like the flu and I pretty much slept the rest of Sunday.
Elder CWJensen