Highlights of July

(July) I had to post this one even though he is complaining, it just made me happy to see that he knows what a good missionary should be doing. This week wasn't the best for me either there was a bunch of crap going on here and for a while I was thinking my district was going to get white washed. My new companion is the district leader and he is a people pleaser he has to agree with every one and can't have an opinion of his own. it drives me nuts but that is just his personallity and I can deal with it, until it effects the work, then we have a problem. because  He wants every one to like him so he agrees with them. He has agreed a few times with some peoples opinion that are contrary to what the church believes. It was nothing big but I have had to correct him a few times. Two sundays ago he was assisgned to teach the gossple principles class and while he was teaching one of investigators said they believed in "born into sin" and he agreed with that and one other instance of false doctorine. Afew members of the ward and our ward mission leaders were in there and were very upset with him. Then as a district leader he is supposed to go on exchanges with other missionaries in the district. That is part of his job, but hasn't been doing it with the right attitude. He has been doing it just to have fun.  On one of the exchanges he was with another elder and they were doing street contacting. One person they talked to asked about poligamy and The Elder told them we do not practice that any more and we haven't practiced that for almost 200 years. Then my companion as to say a dumb comment that he was going to bring it back. He was joking but he shouldn't have said anything. It just happens that one of the people he made the comment to's mom is a member of the ward, so she was super offended. Her new husband was investigating the church and has slowed his progression. I'm upset that in two weeks he has really messed up the relationship with the ward. This past week we spent wed, thurs, fri, sat,and sunday talking with the ward mission leaders and the bishop trying to fix the mess he has made.

(July)This week has been a better then last week. My comp had a long talk and dealt with some of the problems. Yesterday we got a flat tire on the way to church(which is 13 miles away) and I had to change the tire in my suit and it was rainning. Wefound a new investigator who has shown real desire to learn more about the church. We ave her a copy of the book of mormon and then she called us a few days later and said she had some questions. Weset up a time to teach her again. We asked how far she had read she told us she read the first couple hundred pages,we were super excited. We went over and taught her, and set a baptismal date. There is still a long ways to go until then, but it is still a lot of progress.

June Highlights

This is his mom writing. Since I broke my arm the end of June I have been horrible at updating his blog. I am going to now post some highlights of his emails for the last few months. He is doing great!


(June) This week was crazy busy. last week we had interviews with president, then stake conference. This week we did an exchange with the district leader he came to my area. My companion went to the other area. That was really fun and we got a lot of stuff done. I really like and respect Elder Jolley (my district leader). Then the next day the Zone leaders blitzed us and we got even more work done. For the first half of the day I was with Elder Morrison and then the second half of the day I was with Elder Richins. On  a blitz two elders from a different area come to your area. Then you take one of them and your comp takes the other, and then you divide and conquer.


(June) Transfers are this tuesday 'm staying here but Elder broomhead is leaving. Winchester is getting whitewashed with sisters. Then it will be me and two other elders that is staying the same in our district. Its kinda sad, I really admired elder jolley my old district leader. My new comp will be the new district leader. That is cool. I bought a guitar and elder broomhead was teaching me how to play, but since he is leaving he wrote down everything I will need to know. I also found a hymns made easy book so I will learn how to play some hyms on the guitar. This week has been super hectic but I'm doing good. We are teaching a family that is less active and they have a 9 year old that hasnt been baptized. We taught him the first lesson and we used jenga to do it. We set a baptism date for the 30th of june so we will be focusing on him for the next month or so. We are super busy today broomhead has to pack, we need to go get hair cuts and go to winchester to pick up an exercise bike. plus do laundry, and shopping all before dinner.
(June)I'm getting a bike well kinda, I found a bike frame and bought the a new chain and brake and gear cable to fix it. On the 27th I'm going up to lexington for zone conference, and I will buy the wheels for the bike. It is cheaper then buying a brand new bike. a new bike would cost about $500 and fixing this one will be about $150-$200. We are working with a lot of people and on of our investigators was just called as the assistant scout master he is super happy about that.  

This week finally!!!!!

(LAST WEEK, I HIS MOTHER, GOT A EMAIL SAYING I WILL EMAIL MORE NEXT WEEK. That was all it said)

Family,

I couldnt email more because I spent 45minutes trying to email you pictures but your  email wouldn't accept them.This week we committed some one to baptism and he accepted. We finally found a new investigator and that is basically the only new things that have happend this week. please thank the young women of the dessert hills ward for all the snacks I enjoyed them. We just do the same things  there is nothing new here it is the same old stuff. I wake up, work out, shower, eat, personal study, companion study, then we head out the door. We go IQing and tracting for at least an hour and a half every day most days we tract for 2hours and then we visit less active, investigators and other appointments. On tuesday and thursday we go do service for 2hours at the rest home. On sundays I wake up, shower, eat, and then go to church in Owingsville, about (13 miles away). We then go and visit less actives and our investigators in owingsville. We then drive and see some less actives and investigators in sharpsburg, because of or mile restrictions we can only see them on sundays, then go to dinner at the Letchers. Sister Letcher letcher feeds us every sunday night, then we drive home. Owingsville is smaller then Mt.Sterling, and Sharpsburg is even smaller then that. Sharpsburg has one gas stations, one restraunt, and is getting a dollar general. Those are the areas we cover. On saturday we go to the flea market because we have a less active memeber who works there. Last saturday we were talking to him and he said he had something for us. So he dug through some stuff and pulled out a 1950's copy of the Book of Mormon so me and my comp. flipped a coin for it. I won it! It is really neat it is a missionary's copy it had a buch of old missionary teaching aids in it from the 50's it has a red cover and the angel moroni on it. That is basically my week.

another update

We have been told we aren't suposse to talk about investigators. I can tell you about people we run into like one preacher we ran into said "I don't believe in your faith your going to hell no one wants to hear your lies you JW". Then we told him we are mormons and he was like oh sorry. Then he told us he went to utah, to your visitor center it was a really cool place. We talked to him a little more. He said "I believe you mormons are right that their is a prophet on earth, but that joseph smith business is wrong". so we talked with him a little longer then left.  My companion and I cooked the raccoon and the turtle ourselves. kentucky is a very hilly place I will send pic next week. We go to the library to email. oh and every one in bath country is related it is crazy. We say do you know so and so and they are like yeah thats my grandpa and that persons moms cousin or what ever. Really you just ask how they are related to the Hattons or the Shrouts and they will tell you how they are related.
(We did a family question/answer for family night and sent cameron one to answer thought I could add to this huge post)

1. Favorite color:  Green and black

2. Favorit food:  like to try new foods

3.Favorite scripture: D+C 63:47

4.Favorite hobby: hanging with friends

5.Favorite Scripture Hero: Jesus

6. Favorite thing to do if you had 30 min to waste:  messing with people  (sooo true)

7. Favorite holiday: July 4th

8. Why do you love being part of this family? Because it has made me the person I am today.

update

 

Eder Broomhead has been out for 14months. We do have a walmart in our town. The ward here is smaller then the one in NM. Transfers were on the 24th and I stayed in this area. The town I'm in has a population of about 7,000. Not a single on of them has ever heard of toothbrush or ever been to a dentist it seems. The weirdest thing I00 I have eaten: frog legs they were pretty good the tasted like fishy chicken wings, we had a member trap and kill a racoon for us, so we skinned it cooked it and ate it. Today we are going to catch turtles and going to eat them tonight. Every one says that turtle meat is super good so we are excited for that. oh and everyone here drinks Ale-8-one it is like stewarts ginger beer but better (like rootbeer).  It is weird here no one really has a particular religion they just go to the closest church. It is funny cause they will tell us "I don't believe most of what the preacher says but it's the closest church, so I go there. They also will say I go to that church cause it has the shortest service. I know the racoons can carry disease. Thats why we blessed it before we ate it. Lexington is the place that has horse derby's. Mt Sterling is around 7000 the next closest elders are in winchester and morehead. We teach about 20 lessons a week.

We are teaching a few part member families and some investigators we found tracting.  On p-days we wake up, work out, shower, breakfast, personal study, comp study, go email, shopping, lunch with Jim (is the non-member that has no desire to be baptized but loves talking to the missionaries and taking them to lunch), then home to clean, dinner, then to an appointment. That is pretty much our P-days. One of the hardest thing to teach people here is the word of wisdom because everyone smokes here. I wouldn't be suprised if I got cancer from all the second had smoke.  We had a great easter we went to one of the Morehead elders investigators house for dinner. Here dinner means lunch and supper means dinner, there is no such thing as lunch here. We had an easter egg hunt it was fun. Then they gave us Easter baskets filled with candy. Then me and my companion went to another easter egg hunt with our normal sunday appointment. It was really fun they fill half the eggs with candy and the other half with money. The friday before last the zone leaders blitzed us. Then last friday the district leaders blitzed us, so that was cool. I'm learning a lot and loving it. I have a zone conference on thursday in Lexington so that will be cool.  That is pretty much it. We usually email the same time on p-day, oh can u see if dad can get me the pocket size set of military scriptures?  Oh if you send me anything send make sure it will to me before the 21st if not wait to send it to me because that is the week of transfers. I miss you all.

Cleanup after the tornado

I'm fine on envolpes now. I got the package with the suit and jelly. It's pretty good it's about as hot as tabasco but the heat stays for alot longer. It was funny we did a blitz with our ZL's and I gave one of them some of the jelly. He was like its not that bad and then took a big old scoop of it. I then told him the heat has to build and with the ghost chile the heat stays. Water doesn't do anything and we didn't have any milk. When the heat hit he was freaking out it was funny. One of the areas of Lexington is not the safest area my trainner was in that area and was told it is recommended to carry pepper spray. I'm doing great I'm loving it here I love you guys and miss you all. We get fed about 2-3 times a week for dinner, and every week we go out to lunch with a non-member Jim. He is in his late 60's and has taken all the discussions, but he is trying to start his own non denominational christian church. He is a super cool guy he loves talking with the missionary's. He always tells us about how he saw motab 4 times live, he love motab. Last week before we went out to lunch Elder Broomhead gave him a motab cd and he was so happy it was funny. We missed saturdays sessions of General Confrence, because we were doing service. We got to leave mission bounderies to go to West Liberty KY to do tornado clean up. We spent the whole day picking up trash, cutting trees up and clearing them out of the way. It was incredible how much damage it did. You see pictures of stuff like that but you can't really understand how bad it is untill you see it in person. We got back in time to see the priesthood session. We are working with mostly less active part member families. One family we found while tracting and it is going really well. I miss you guys
(AWWWW  I love when they realize their family is Awsome and great, maybe still annoying but GREAT and he can miss us)