August 25, 2014

Hey Y'all!

 

So this was the first week of the transfer and for some reason, it's always the longest week of the transfer. I have no idea why, but it always seems to drag on forever. But even though it dragged, we probably had our best teaching week this week by far! We taught quite a few people! On Monday we went down to Temple for P Day as a zone and we played this game called Scatter Ball which is probably the greatest Dodgeball game ever invented. It was a blast. So then later that Monday, we went to contact some potentials and it was about 8 o'clock and my back was hurting pretty bad from earlier at P Day. And we decided to knock one last door before we headed home and they totally let us in! It's a fairly young couple and they had a lot of questions about our church and some of our beliefs. We had a really good discussion with them. The only problem is that when we got out of their house, it was 9:20 and we were a good hour walk away from our apartment. So we went to the only member in the neighborhood that could drive us home and he was thankfully awake and saved us a forever walk. But they really enjoyed talking with us and they invited us back for tonight and we are having dinner and a lesson with them. So we are excited to start teaching them more organized lessons than just answering questions and be all over the place. They are going to take some time to be baptized, but they will eventually make it there I believe.

 

This week we were also able to teach a bunch of small short lessons with people on the street. Those are so critical because we are trying to get them to feel the Spirit in about 5 minutes. That's what President wants because people don't usually like talking with us for longer than that. And we had some success this week in doing that. So we have a few houses that we are going to go back to this week. One of them is an elderly couple that we think have been taught in the past, but they are pretty Southern Baptist. Haha! But miracles happen right?

 

This week we weren't able to meet with the lady I talked about last week. She had a really busy with with her mothers birthday and she was trying to go see her Granddaughter. We tried to set something up to see her on Sunday, but she said she was trying to go to dinner with her mom for her birthday. We stopped by her house to try to set all this up and she said that she still wanted to meet with us, but she has had a really crazy week. We are going to be working through her fellowshippers to try to set something up this week at either her house or their house. We need to start working with her before we lose her.

 

Other than that, this week should be good. We got a few appointments set up already with less actives and also investigators. We also have a couple exchanges set up as well to help us contact all the people that were given to us. The ward is really stepping up here lately and really helping us out. We are really excited about that. 

Thanks for all y'alls emails this week! 

Have a blessed week!

 

August 18, 2014

Hey Y'all!

 

So chiggers suck. It's like mosquito bites that itch, but like 5 times worse. Yesterday it rained a lot and they all came out and I got home and they are all over my left foot. So it makes it hard to sleep at night especially when it's just bugging you all night. But it's all right. It's these kind of experiences where I learn how to suck it up. Haha

 

Oh man this week was awesome! We finally had our first sit down lesson with an investigator. She is a neighbor of a member in the ward and she has had a lot of hard times in her life. I think what really has knocked her down was when her son died 5 years ago and 2 weeks after he died, she was told by a pastor that because her son wasn't baptized that he was sent straight to Hell. Why would anyone say that to someone who just lost her son? I don't even know. So we taught her the Plan of Salvation on Monday and it answered a lot of her questions. We focused a lot on the Spirit World and what would be happening there and also what happens after the Spirit World. You could tell that just that lesson brought her some peace and she felt better. She even told us about an experience where her son appeared to her in a dream and told her that she needed to be on the earth a little bit longer so she can understand and learn So we thought that was a pretty cool experience that she had. We were also able to teach her on Saturday and we shared the Restoration with her and that lesson was pretty scattered. She had a lot of questions and we were trying to answer them all, but the member wasn't helping too much because he kept trying to answer them and it was going away from the lesson. The lesson on Monday took 3 hours and the lesson on Saturday took 2 hours. Haha! Those have been some of the longest lessons on my mission, but then again they have been some of the best because she is so interested in learning. We are going to try to see her again twice this week and keep that constant contact with her.

 

This week is transfer week by the way. Both me and Elder Smith are going to be staying in Hewitt. However, we are the only missionaries in our zone that aren't affected by transfers. We are going to be basically having a whole new zone because everyone is going to be getting a new companion. It's going to be a crazy transfer trying to get to know everyone again. I also attempted to eat a 1 pound burger this week at Fuddruckers, but it didn't end too well for me. I only got 3/4's of the way done with it, but the same guy signed up for dinner in a couple weeks and I'm going to get that burger next time! Love y'all so much and thanks for the emails this week!

 

Love,

Elder O'Brien

August 11, 2014

"Nothing Much Really"

Hey Y'all!

 

Man, this week was too hot! However, my farmer tan lines are coming in prime now. Haha! But that awkward moment when one arm is more tan than the other arm though...yeah no bueno. Not much really happened this week. It was a slower week than usual. We were able to have 3 members come out this week. And we literally knocked on 15 doors each exchange with people to go see. But no luck. So that was pretty hard. We were actually with one of them and the member leaned over and looked at our planner and asked how many names we had written down. We wrote down like 20 each time. Haha! That's one thing that I learned when I was getting trained that you can never write down too many names for an exchange because you could have a night where no one answers just like all week. We did help someone move though on an exchange with our District Leader, and the members had the heaviest furniture ever! The couches were the worst part though! We had to carry them down out of a trailer home and down 11 wood stairs and the walkway only had room for 1 person at a time too. So it was miserable.

 

Well we had an appointment with that one family this past Tuesday and they cancelled on us. They rescheduled for this Wednesday along with another potential investigator. That's looking like a really promising day for us as well. We were also notified this week that we have a general authority coming down in October for our mission. This is really awesome because we might just be getting iPads. President Ames said that we were supposed to be getting them this year, so October might just be the month! I hope it's a treat and not a trick. Haha! Too early for those kind of jokes though.

 

Sorry for the short email this week. We really did not have too much luck for us. We taught 1 lesson and it was5 minutes on the street. Hewitt was not nice to us this past week, but it's looking good for us this upcoming week. Plus it's raining outside right now and that's always a blessing in Texas! Love you all and have a fantastic week!

 

Love,

Elder O'Brien

August 4, 2014

Hey Y'all!!

This week was pretty normal. Haha! Nothing really to exciting happened this week. We were able to had lunch with an Atheist and his friend though. He is pretty cool, but he does a lot of questioning. He says that he wants to find the truth like a lot of people, but he just questions everything. He wants proof of everything, like everything. Sorry we can't just go up and ask for the Gold Plates right? Haha. But we tried to answer his questions as soon as he asked them, but he just kept talking and asking questions. We probably said about 20 words in an hour and a half. He had us write down like 10 questions to have answers for next time and one of them was about prayer. And for the other 9 questions, they could all be answered if he understands the power of prayer. He is a really cool guy, but he is just needs to stop asking why questions and asking if this is true questions. It would really make a difference in his life.

So for these past few weeks, we have been passing this little Catholic statue back and for the between us and the Sisters. So it started out where we put it on their front porch and then they did the same thing and put it on ours. So we didn't want it so we then put it in the back of their trunk after District Meeting a couple weeks ago. They then returned it by having Elder Wilcox, one of our Zone Leaders, put it in our fridge when we went on our exchange. Well we then during exercises one morning they walked by it while it was staring at them. Haha! So then this past week we had District Meeting and it was a set up by the Sisters and our District Leader. They did a Christmas themed meeting and he had everyone bring a White Elephant. So we brought ours and they stupid statue was given to me by him and then we had that thing back. But little did they know, that we knew who their dinner was that night and we ran over to their dinners house and had them set it on the dinner table so when they walk in they would see it. And they were supposedly shocked when they walked in and saw it. Haha so now we are waiting what they are going to do to give it back to us. It's not as epic as Euless where we were breaking into each others apartments, but we always got to pull pranks on other missionaries right? 

Other than that, it was a pretty slow week. We've been trying so hard to find people to teach, but nothing seems to be working out. We have our first real solid teaching appointment on Tuesday and we are praying super hard for that to happen and not fall through. It's a family of 4 and they are really awesome people that could benefit from the Gospel. We are also going on an exchange with our District Leader and I am also hoping to get new shoes today as well! Thanks for the emails this week and I hope that I get to talk about this family next week as well! Love Y'all!

Love,

Elder O'Brien