Just Keep On Moving

Just Keep On Moving

Monday, May 4, 2015

Dear Parents, Mom and Dad/Dad and Mom,

The ipads are coming, the ipads are coming... and I am not really caring about that. Yes, the news has been broken that at last our mission will have ipads, but seeing as I am going home soon, I do not get to keep one. With this news, it means that we are going to have meetings... lots and lots of meetings.

We have a place to Skype; we, three, are working out the times. Elder Day's time it seems will be 3:15 to 4:15 our time. Elder Hansen will be at 7. So, I am most likely in the middle. I will talk to the people that allowed us to come over; most likely it will be about 4:25 when I Skype you. 

Again, expect a large package. 

I asked Sister Hendricksen about my back and after the mission. She said that when I get home, I will have a much better bed (and to have a good bed in general), so I will be feeling a lot better. Plus, I will not be sitting as much when I get home, so my back will not be under so much pressure.
I will have to keep on with my stretches. If I ever need physical therapy, then I should look into something called TENS (or something like that), which is pretty much electrodes to the back to break the pain. I should not look into surgery, unless it is drastic.

This week... well, we had a lot of meetings (or so it seems) and I had a cold. It started out as a cold and sore throat; I beat the sore throat through much Vitamin C and lemonade. Why did I not take medicine? Well, as I discovered, medicine expires. I took a Nyquil Nighttime and I took a sinus daytime (not at the same time, obviously). Then, I looked at the box and oh, Nyquil expired in September and sinus expired last month. By the end of the week, I was getting better. Though, my mucus turned to liquid and would gush out when I bowed my head. In turn, it would cause me to sneeze much. Too much. My back was crying uncle from it. Thank goodness, I found some Benadryl, which stopped it completely. I am much, much better, though I am recovering from sneezing. My back is sore, not injured further.

Our mileage suffered (missionaries are allotted a certain number of miles per month as vehicles are swapped out over time)  along with much of the zone; and also much of North America and South America.
Other than that, it was a good week. 

Monday, we went out and did some finding. 

Tuesday, we went out with the truck driver member, who takes us out to see less actives that we cannot access. Thank goodness. We were able to talk to the one less active, who we started going over the lessons with (the one who wanted to help build up his testimony again). He lives with his brother now, which is good, except his brother lives far, far way, but in our area. His brother requested that we come by and bless his home. We did so, though he was not present for it. We returned afterwards, took care of some business, and had dinner. We taught the student of Ms. Mary; or at least continued to help her as she is on the gospel path. She worried that she got me sick, because she got sick before I did. A lot of people have been sick lately, so it is expected that I would get sick.

Wednesday, due to meetings and service, we decided to have an early session of weekly planning. Afterwards, we stopped by the elderly man, whose daughter we helped out a few weeks ago. Again, he is prepared and this time, he became a new investigator. He asked a lot of questions about the Plan of Salvation and other things of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were able to answer his questions and he was satisfied. He likes us to come by and to have these discussions. It is one step forward. After this lesson, we headed home to change before performing service, which was mulching, again.

Well, we got a text from the other recent convert asking if we were having a lesson in a short bit. We said no, then she flipped on us, because she had sent a text to us and that sort of thing. Well, that is our phone. We were having phone problems, because we had no record of such text or record of any texts from her in general (though we sent a text to her in the past). We were able to get that resolved with her and made her content once more. The Spanish elders needed a third male, so I went with them to a lesson. Unfortunately, their lesson cancelled.



Thursday, we had a lesson with a less active at the church. He is the man who we received from the assistants to the president and we met at the church when I and Elder Day first got here. I had to blow my nose a few times, but it was a good lesson. He knew what he needed to do in order to get back in step. Then, we had day one out of three of meetings. It was a zone workshop, so it was our zone only. Elder Short is not part of our zone, but the neighboring zone. The zone workshop was good.

We were able to discuss a new way to use the pamphlets and to introduce the Book of Mormon. After this meeting, we had dinner with a member. We talked to our African American lady in the health center and our somewhat unbalanced man. The man just had surgery for his cancer. He is doing much better... though he was talking about a Merona Manning and his silver plates that he buried that we will not see, but do follow the small lights to get there??? We were able to help another less active family, who do know what they need to be doing and what their goal needs to be.

Friday, we had a zone meeting and day two of three of meetings. We will have day three tomorrow (Tuesday) and I will see Elder Short, then fulfilling my quest of hugging Elder Short for his sister. After the meeting, we took care of our progress record. We did some finding and also saw again our drama student of Ms. Mary.

Saturday, we did service for a member, whom we had given a blessing. She needed a few things moved onto a truck for an auction. I cleaned chairs, because she understood back pains. We had a lesson with our lady who is progressing and has a child. She has a desire to be baptized, though she understands what things are preventing her. We attempted to help her to see what she needs to do, but the lesson was not all together. We will have to help her to understand some things. 

Sunday, we had church. It was stressful getting people rides, which is usually stressful. But, there was some miscommunication and people were missed. We plan on doing better.

Our befuddled man came to church, though we lost him twice. Once, because we did not have the gospel principles class and nobody told us that we were not having gospel principles. One of the Spanish elders and I went looking for him and eventually found him in the gospel doctrine class where everybody was. Then, during priesthood, we lost him, but he had gone to the restroom, unknowingly to us. Later that day, we contacted people and did some finding.

It was a fun week. I am excited for what this week holds.

All is well!

Love,

Elder S. Todd