Transfers, a new companion, Easter, working hard!

March 31, 2014

Hello we had a good week!  My new companion is Elder Tshuma. He's from Zimbabwe and he has been a memeber for 4 years and he is the only member in his family.  This is his first time in the United States. I am in the Lost Mountain Ward,  which is actually in the same county as the Burnt Hickory ward, so I didn't move very far. I live like 20 minutes from my old house.  We live in a members house but we are actually moving on Tuesday so I don't have an address yet. We take a day every week and help in the family history center so I will send it to you then. I actually am not on bike. Elder  Tshuma is sick and is on seizure medicine and stuff like that so he has to have a car, and because  he doesn't have a license I'm finally the designated driver!  Elder Kimball said he was a little rusty after not driving for over a year!

Elder Kimball, Crawford, and I'm not sure...

Elder Kimball and new comp Elder Tshuma

not sure, Elder Kimball and Elder Post(Max's first companion)

Elders Kimball and Post

April 7, 2014

So this week was interesting but it was alright. When I first got to this area we were in the poorer part of the ward and there were tons of people that were willing to talk to us, so that was really nice. But then on Tuesday we moved to the top part of our ward, which is the same city I just came from, with tons of huge houses. So we went back to tracting a lot and not getting a whole lot of people to talk to. We do have one baptismal date that we got before we switched parts of the ward and we are going to keep teaching her. Her name is K and she has a baptismal date for April 19. We think she may have had a stroke or something because when she talks it's kind of hard to understand her.  When we asked her to read the Book of Mormon, she had read 10 chapters by the time we came back so that was pretty cool. She is going to have to stop smoking so we might have to push her date back but we will see what happens. She was able to watch conference at a members house so that was good. Conference was super awesome for us also. Lots of good stuff. We were tracting yesterday and met a guy named Charles who was willing to listen but the rest of his family was taking a nap and he wanted them to hear it too. So he gave us his phone number and told us to come back so hopefully we can start teaching them. Thats about it for this week.

This pic of Elder Tshuma and Kimball was texted to me by a member when they were over for dinner.  Wonderful surprise!

April 14, 2014

So this week was pretty alright. We had some pretty crazy lessons with these anti Mormon people and a guy that says he is atheist. That was fun. We still have Kathy on date for the 26. She came to church this week and really liked it. When we asked her to stop smoking I think she got too excited and she just tried to quit cold turkey. She only made it about two days and now we are trying to help her ease off of it. We are probably going to start going to addiction recovery with her on Thursdays also. We tracted a lot and found a couple cool people but we haven't been back to see them yet. We got dropped by a guy via text who says he read the Book of Mormon and prayed and got an answer that it isn't true. That was great. We are pretty sure he didn't read anything he just talked to his pastor or something. Well thats about it and we are excited for Kathy's baptism.

April 21, 2014

We spent a lot of time tracting this week and were not that successful. We only found 1 new investigator and when we went back she wasn't home. We did have good lessons with K though and if she stops smoking this week she will be good to go to be baptized this weekend. We also had a good lesson with our investigator named J. He committed to come to church,  but then he was offered some work on Sunday and he needed the money, so he did that. But hopefully next week he's there because he understands the Book of Mormon really well and has committed to be baptized on May 10. We had a good Easter,  nothing too exciting. That's about it for this week. We are doing well and still working hard.

Elder Tshuma

The house where they are living, they have the basement

Easter ties

Easter ties-not sure what is going on with Max's mouth

April 28, 2014

We had kind of a crazy week. So K was supposed to get baptized this Sunday but that didn't happen. It was going to as of Friday, but then some crazy stuff happened. We got a call from the bishop that said he saw her outside of kroger smoking and that it was for sure her. So then we went to her house and talked to her and she said she hadn't smoked. So we didn't know what to do and talked to the mission president about it. Then on saturday morning she called us really early and left a message saying that she had been smoking and to cancel her baptism. Then we went over again and we basically found out that she never quit smoking and had lied in her baptismal interview and everything. Some people just want to get baptized as soon as possible and don't want to wait to quit smoking. But we got it all figured out and she still came to church yesterday and even paid her tithing. So we are going to work to have her ready by May 10. That was about all we did this week is work with her. There is a severe storm warning here and we are going on a hike for pday. Should be fun.

Wading in the stream...he didn't really explain this pic so I'm adding my own captions.  I'm just wondering if he has his good pants and shoes on.....