Hola! Guten Tag! Howdy!
This week was surprisingly super busy! Mostly because on Monday
evening, the AP's called and told Elder Thorpe that he was going to be
serving as the office elder next transfer so they were bringing us a
car to allow us to get up to the mission office so the current office
elder could train him to do the job. Tuesday, Thursday (except during
district meeting), and Friday from 9 to 5 were thus spent in the
mission office. While Elder Thorpe learning how to manage mission
finances, I served as the office muscle and spent a lot of my time
there moving/rearranging furniture, sorting out boxes of supplies,
making files for new cars, going with the vehicle coordinator to the
dealership to pick up the new cars, driving those cars back to the
office, etc. Over all, it was pretty fun and gave us something to do
during the more dead parts of the day, then I'm glad that if Thorpe
and I are companions next transfer (you'll see why I say "if" in a
bit), we will be in a trio and he'll get dropped off while our other
companion and I do proselyting work during that time.
Wednesday was the mission temple trip. As always, I LOVE the
opportunity that we have to attend the temple once a transfer, which
ends up being the thing that I look forward to most during transfers
because I LOVE the temple and the Spirit that is felt through
attending the House of the Lord!
Thursday was the final district meeting of the transfer (meaning zone
and district pictures, which are included! Note that in the district
picture, Four of the Elders in my district are the APs and Travelling
Trainers, who are almost never in zone-district meetings and the other
companionship are the zone leaders, who split between the two
districts. Most of the time, meetings are Elder Thorpe, one of the
ZLs, myself, and eleven sisters!), which are always fun, that evening
we went on splits with the high priests and Elder Thorpe and the
person he went with found a less-active member, named Ivan, who had
been baptized ten years ago but shortly thereafter stopped attending
church who is currently living in a rehab center after falling out of
bed and getting paralyzed from the neck down about a year ago
(Fortunately, after surgery and a year of physical therapy, he is now
able to walk with a walker and is expected to have made a full
recovery by next month!) and upon seeing them, he was super excited as
he had missed being in contact with the church. He happily took a copy
of The Book of Mormon and practically begged them to come back soon.
Therefore, the next day, we did exactly that! We decided to teach him
the missionary discussions both as a review for him (and as practice
for us) and thus taught him the Restoration, which was easily one of
the most spiritual lessons of my whole mission! I know that the
Priesthood has been restored on the Earth in these days and I am truly
humbled to have the privilege to use that priesthood to serve those
around me!
On the other side of that spectrum, the next day, after finally
contacting all of our referrals (something that would take an entire
day with no breaks on bike, but only took about an hour or so in a
car) we stopped by Bennie, as we hadn't seen him in a few weeks. It
was "interesting"... The "lesson" (he talked about 90% of the time and
wouldn't really let us get a word in edge-wise) started out with him
ranting on about how he isn't religious and he doesn't see the point
in religion because of how rotten and corrupt the world is and how we
are all brainwashed into believing there is a God and into accepting
religion/the idea of an afterlife or resurrection and how because I'm
only 19 (this comment was directed specifically at me) I can't
possibly know anything because I've never had any sort of hardship in
my life, etc. By the end of the lesson, he was talking about how there
is no way that there isn't a God because of how everything was created
in this world (the "all things denote that there is a God" idea) and
how he's convinced there are unclean spirits in his house... It's
experiences like this that make me realize how glad I am for my
testimony of the gospel that I was able to endure having everything I
believe attacked but be able to know that I know that the Gospel and
its message of salvation are true! I know that these things are true
and that we have a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior, even Jesus
Christ, who suffered, died, and was resurrected, so that we too will
be resurrected and may live with our families and Heavenly Father for
eternity!
Transfer calls came on Saturday and both Elder Thorpe and I are
leaving Kensington. Attending church the next day made me realize how
much I'm going to miss this Ward and all of the amazing people who
have taken such good care of us! I find out later today where I'm
going from here, though President told Elder Thorpe that he wants to
keep the two of us together, so wherever I go, it'll probably be near
the mission office in a trio with Elder Thorpe and someone else. As
for the Kensington Elders area: I'm pretty sure that it's getting
closed and that the sisters will just cover the whole Ward from now
on. Though we shall see...
That's all from me this week! Tune in next week to find out where I
end up next! I love you all! Have a great week!
Sincerely,
Elder Sam Williams
Washington DC North Mission
11700 Falls Road
Potomac, MD, 20854
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| Snack after Zone/District Meeting |
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| Rockville District |
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| Rockville Zone |
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