Monday, June 6, 2016

Comfort Zone: Heidelberg Week 7



May 30, 2016
Subject: Re: May 29, 2016

Mom and Dad,

Sounds like a fun week. Yes, the fat in the meat did take me down. This week I felt better than last week, but we made a banana cake with cream cheese frosting one night, planning to deliver it to people. We ending up having various things get in the way, long story short I probably ate 3/4 of this cake in 4 days, 9x13 pan. It's fine.. I also started doing morning exercise on our balcony. The house is too old and anywhere else is too loud in those wee hours of the morning, but when there is a will (and a commandment) the Lord will provide a way. (1 Nephi 3:7) Lots of running in place and jumping. Today I did 100 burpees. Plus brown rice, chicken, lots of vegetables and not much sugar or fat. I feel so good! And a bit sore, which makes me happy.

"Can you fill in a couple questions we have? was the baptism the girl that moved (think that's yes) and was it in German? Also, as I recall, in my day, I think it was Zone Leaders that did baptismal interviews. Are you a district/zone leader? We learned that the Elder you did a split with is Sister Olsen's Nephew. Tyler Woolley sent a picture in his letter that included you."

Yes, the baptism was in German. District leaders do all baptismal interviews in the district unless they have been teaching the person, then the zone leader does it. In special cases the president or one of his counselors does the interview. I'm a district leader here. I went on a split with Elder Freeland this round, Elder Woolley is his companion. We're in the same zone again :)

On my split I had a really good talk with Elder Freeland. One of the things that we talked about was Elder Bednar's comment in his conference here last year that, "If you think that you know what you're doing you need to repent". At first that seems perhaps a bit harsh. We talked about what that means, because it definitely does not mean that we're running around clueless for 2 years on our missions. It's about relying on the Lord and not falling into a pattern. What I mean by that and a personal example from this last week: I typically enjoy finding people to teach through approaching people on the street. I actually find people doing this. I have had some cool experiences knocking on doors, but nothing that makes me want to keep doing it. My personal feeling is that that is one of the potentially easiest ways to offend people, and I figure that the least we can do is leave people with a smile on their face and potential to be interested in the church and have positive feelings about it later.

So these were my feelings and I have definitely been in a pattern of: ok, we have extra time without lessons etc. lets hit the streets. After my talk with Elder Freeland however, Elder Clemente and I decided to door. The baptism was Sunday, Monday was P-Day and we had all of Tuesday free, perfect opportunity. So, Monday night when we went to plan we looked at the time and decided to pick a city, not just where seems convenient or where there may be a lot of people or something like that, we personally knelt down and prayed for inspiration, which city should we go to tomorrow? We proceeded to each pick out 3 cities on our own then came together and compared (Elder Freeland explained to me that he has done this in the past and it's worked out well, miracles, new people to teach, the Lords hand in the work). Elder Clemente and I came together and I asked him to tell me which cities he picked. First one. Nope, not a match. The second one was not either. I hadn't really thought much about what I would do if the 3rd one was a match cause I had just committed myself to really get out of my comfort zone and knock doors for a day, but thankfully it was a match, success.

The following day we studied and did all of those good things in the morning then promptly made our way to Sandhausen. The first person we talked to traded numbers with us and we set up an appointment. We found a few more interested people, we were let into a home, sat and shared a message (3rd time on my mission) and we found a Spanish man who asked if we could trade numbers (usually we ask first for phone numbers and the Spanish members will be excited that we're teaching a Spanish speaker). Basically it was an awesome day full of little miracles. The dooring still wasn't my favorite thing to do, but now I feel like I can get out of the way and be open to that inspiration when that's the Lord's will.

Have a great week, serve eachother in a fun way this week,
I love you!
Hayden

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