Monday, June 29, 2009

This week was good. There is a part-member family with a husband who is not a member. When we went over we talked about how he felt and asked him if he would like to take the lessons. He said that would be ok, so we thought that was pretty cool.

Then at church there was this investigator that showed up by herself. At first we thought she was a member because she asked to see the bishop, and wanted to know what boundaries she was in. So that was pretty cool.

It's been kind of warm lately. About 100 degrees. When we went tracting this guy was on his way out in a hurry and said he didn't have any time. Then Elder Lopez said "Well I just have a question for you". "NO, NO you don't". Then Elder Lopez made a sad face and said "I was just going to ask for some water." The guy felt so bad he invited us in even though he was on the way out. He talked to us for about 10 minutes or so. I thought that was pretty funny.

I still don't know what we'll do for 4th of July.

Well that's all thats going on around here.

Love,
The Elder James Meiners

Monday, June 22, 2009

I don't know if Julia will get her licence on the first try. It is against tradition. Danny passed on his first try but it was because the lady was so old she didn't notice that he hit the curb. He got lucky.

Elder Lopez speaks Spanish perfectly and he's really cool. Things are super slow right now. We didn't have any at church while last week we had 7. Maybe Elder Thatcher was just getting blessed on his last week.

I fell off my bike the other day. It might have been because I went off a ramp. We were getting out of an appointment, and when we left the kids wanted us to play with them. We told them we needed to go. Then a 12 year old went off a ramp in the middle of the street. It looked easy, so to make them happy I figured I'd go off it real quick. So I gained some speed and went straight into the ramp. I leaned forward so I wouldn't fall back and then I ended up leaning to far so I rolled over the handlebars and plopped on the ground. That was 3 days ago and I was feeling good enough to play basketball today, so I'm fine.

That's all.

Love,

Elder Meiners

Monday, June 15, 2009

Elder Thatcher is gone. I am with some other English Elders right now companionless. Elder Lopez will be my new companion. We did a lot of cleaning and the area is ready for Elder Lopez. There are only 2 or 3 real Mexicans in the mission. Both Elder Thatcher and I got one. ElderLopez is from Mexico so hopefully people will think we are both Mexican and let us in more. I'm really excited to have a real Mexican companion.

We had the baptism of Patricia last night. She was introduced to the church through some members in a nearby English ward. She cleans houses for a living and she cleans their house. The people introduced her to the church a long time ago, so we didn't really know about them. Then she was telling us and and our ward mission leader about them. Then without her knowing the ward mission leader invited the people whose house she cleans to the baptism. They were all crying and excited because Patricia didn't know they would be there and the people didn't know she was going to be baptised. It was great for everybody. I got to baptize her but we were in such a rush I couldn't take pictures.

I think I said I would send pictures a while ago but forgot, so next p-day I will print some out and send them.

We had a record for this area yesterday 0f 7 at church. So everything is going very well.

I will probably be here 3 more months (2 transfers).

That's all.

Love

The Elder James Meiners

Monday, June 8, 2009

Family,

Actually the plan worked really well. Last Saturday when we went over to this one family we asked all the family for referrals. Immediately the daughter called her friend to see if she could come. She could not come last Sunday but this Sunday she came. She loved church and can't wait to come back next week. I didn't talk to her much but I heard from the daughter she wants to get baptized. Now all we need to do is get it approved by the girls dad. Out of the 4 investigators that came to church yesterday 2 were friends of members.

My companion and I bought soccer balls last p-day because we figured if we speak spanish we need to know how to play soccer. I was practicing and I can do a rainbow now. That's when you get the ball between your legs then kick it behind your back and over your head. Gotta blend in with the culture.

That's good that Danny is working long and hard. I don't think I ever worked an entire 40 hour week at Randstadt. The most it ever said on my paycheck was 39.75 hours. I always got there a little late. And dad and I always took long friday lunches. Way better than working.

Love.
The Elder James Meiners

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Elders in the neighboring zone started looking through the phone book and highlighting any of the Spanish names.  Then they looked them up on the map and are geographically organizing them. The phone book is 328 pages long. I have highlighted 94 pages worth.

Then we made a plan where we wrote all the last names of the ward families on the board. Then we made a board for the different steps of missionary work that they could do. For every step they do they get a star sticker. The steps are: write down 3 friends that might be interested, focus on one friend, invite them to an FHE, invite them to a FHE with us, commit to taking the lessons, come to church, progressing investigator, and baptism. As they help their friends complete these steps they earn service from the missionaries. It's a way to be more organized about the referrals of the members, and to start some healthy competition to do missionary work. Everyone so far has liked it.

So we've been changing things around a bit over here, and hopefully it will get this place fired up.

Love,

Elder James Meiners