WEEK TWELVE

Hey guys

It has been a great week! We had four investigators say they were coming to church, but none came, so that happened. It has been kind of frustrating, but they will come when they are ready. We had a recent convert, Brenda Estevez, who hadn't came in awhile, come so it made Sunday a lot better. She has a boy that can get the Aaronic priesthood and a girl that can be baptized now. I was able to lead out in the teaching this week a lot more which is making me feel more confident at it. I have only 3 weeks until I am out of training which is awesome because to be honest I hate being trained and a "greenie". I am hoping to stay here with Elder Last at least one more transfer which would be December 28th, this Transfer ends November 16th.

I did have a good exchange with Elder Bono and taught two lessons which I lead out the lesson. We taught a guy named Darius and I lead out the lesson with him. We taught him the Restoration and he says he has no reason to not believe it and he wants to be closer to God. We taught him outside of Coborns, which is a grocery store, and he said he would come to church even though it was at the same time as his other church. He didn't come though, but I can imagine it would be kind of scary to go to another church with people you don't really know. Elder Last wants to go to a Saturday mass to see what they are like, but I think it's kind of creepy in there. 

We taught Ashley the first night of the exchange, Monday night, and she said she would come to church and I invited her to the Primary Program on October 30th. She said she would try and come to that as well. She doesn't remember a lot of what the other missionaries have taught, we are going to teach her all of them again if we can ever setup an appointment. It seems like with a lot of investigators they try to avoid you and when you do set something up they usually back out at the last second.
 

Mollie has done that to us for the last 2 months and we haven't been able to teach her another lesson and she hasn't been to church. We stopped by there on Tuesday and she couldn't talk to us then either. She said she has a new job and works from 8 to 6 so it might be a little easier to get over there. We went back there on Sunday and she had company over for the weekend so we just kind of told her that she can call us when she can meet with us instead of us going over there three or four times a week and not being able to teach anything. 

The members here are super awesome and we have had a dinner every night this week. We have a ton of food at the apartment too so we aren't going to be hungry! They almost make me feel at home, but not quite. I am pretty used to the missionary life now and it is kind of weird to think about going home now. I feel like I wouldn't know what to do at home. There are a lot of things that I want to do when I get home that I learned on my mission.  I have only been out 12 weeks but I have learned so much and not just about the gospel. 

We were able to help a recent convert, Perry Holthaus, move a lot of his stuff into a storage shed on Wednesday. He is selling his house because he wife left him and they are getting a divorce so he can't afford it. He has been struggling with this so he hasn't been to church since I have been here. His mom has cancer so he is trying to spend time with her too. We helped him unload then we drove to his house and helped him load some more into his trailer.

Sacrament this week was pretty interesting. They went to break the bread and realized there wasn't any bread so Brother Dickerson went and looked for some while we were singing and couldn't find any so they used animal crackers. It was kind of cool to realize that you can use almost anything. Brother Brimhall left to go home and get some and when he walked in with the bread sacrament was over. 

I hope you guys enjoyed my email a little more this week. I feel like I started just talking about things day by day and said a lot of things that really didn't matter. Before I end I'll leave y'all with a spiritual thought.

So this week I read a talk called "If Ye Had Known Me" by Elder Bednar in the Sunday afternoon session. He asks if we only know about the Savior or are we coming to know the Savior. If we do the will of the Father then the saving grace of the Son is obtainable. We come to know the Father as we come to know His Son. There are four ways that we can come to know the Savior. We need to exercise faith in Him, follow Him, serve Him, and believe Him. We can exercise faith in Him as we rely on His Atonement and have the faith that he can save, heal and strengthen us. He told the story of Peter and Andrew and how the Savior told them to follow Him and they dropped their nets and followed Him. To follow the Savior we act as he would and keep the commandments that God has given us. We come to know the Savior as we do our best to go where He wants us to go, as we strive to say what He wants us to say, and as we become what He wants us to become. We strive to serve others and to not think in selfish thoughts and as we serve others we are serving God. It says in Mosiah 2:17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.  As we believe Christ we believe that the things he taught can affect us and can change our life. I am trying to apply this to my life and It has changed the way I do things on my mission.  

Elder Bullock

Elder Bullock on transfer day October 5th, 2016