WRITTEN 1/23/17
Monday: Pday and a member had a baby!
So pday we went shopping and then we came back to the chapel for emails and basketball and all sorts of different games with the whole zone. We've got a pretty awesome zone! After all the fun and games we took the Greenville elder home and then we had a dinner appointment with the Maldonados. The father is bishops second counselor so it was really nice to meet with him, talk about the ward and all. They made this shrimp soup that was soooo good! During our lesson the sisters called us and told us that a member in our ward is going into labor and we needed to pick them up (the sisters). We had to drive doing to Bayonne to pick up a bunch of stuff that a guy was donating for the baby. Stuff like a car seat, diapers, humidifier, tons of stuff. He really was such a blessing to that family because they don't have the money to buy that stuff. She didn't even go to the doctors once!
Tuesday:
Woke up, did some study'n, had lunch. Called some people and then scheduled some appointments during the week and then had to drop off the car at the sisters place cause they had to take it to a doctors apt. We figured out English class for that night and then went to an appointment with a less active. Her name is Iran, she's a single mother and she has 3 kids, 2 sons and a daughter. Super awesome fam. Loves the missionaries sooo much! She fed us some Brazilian BBQ, it was goood! We are working with her about pride. Pride always gets in the way no matter what. Pride is the thing that stops progression. And right now she has some pride issues with people in the ward and she's not progressing so we are trying to fix that so she'll come back:) Then after that we had English class and we had a solid 2 people there! Yeah it's not a lot but we're trying to get more to come. I even made brownies haha
Wednesday:
We had four lessons back to back. All of them went really good! We gave a blessing to a less active member that has a lot going on in his life and he's trying to find a new job. He's a single father of 2, a son and a daughter. Awesome family who's just trying to figure some things out right now. Lesson after that, we scheduled a day for when Santos (our recent convert that just got baptized back in December) and his wife can go to the temple to do baptisms. His wife has been a member since 2011 I think but she has never done baptisms for the dead before so this will be sooo cool! Or last lesson was with the Pozos. They're from Peru and they make really good good! The father has been less active for years and years but other than him, his whole family is super active. His wife is the relief society president his daughters are in the primary presidency and also in young women's. Elder Jordan and I tried for 12 weeks to get inside their house but never did. Just about 2 or 3 weeks ago we did! Now we are setting up a soccer night (because he loves soccer!) every Friday. So I guess you could say good things are rolling along.
Thursday: Field trip to Morristown
Had to take or car into Morristown to get the engine looked at by the ford dealership. We left our apartment at 6am, got there before they opened. Got the car in and we were ready to get this thing fixed as fast as possible. Was in the waiting room around 10 and the guy that was helping us came over and asked "you guys waiting? I thought it was a drop off. My guys have set that car aside and have been doing oil changes all morning..." we were a little upset cause we were there before the place even opened just so we could be the first ones out of there. Then he says "I'll get my guys to look at it right away but, it will be another 2 or 3 hours until we figure out what's wrong." Sooo long story short is we just walked around Morristown all day. Talked to some people, got lunch, did some weekly planning and stuff like that. We were notified that the car has to stay at the dealership till next week sometime so we got a replacement for the meantime. We didn't get back to jersey city till about 6:30ish. Yikes what a long day...
Friday: Zone meeting!
Friday was another super long day. We had zone conference. It started at 8 and didn't end till 4:30... tons of awesome training and talks given by president Taggart, sister Taggart, and the assistants, and of course the zone leaders. We talked about the sabbath day, revelation through the Book of Mormon, revelation through prayer, teaching investigators to pray the right way. So many important things were brought up for our use in our specific areas. Sooo awesome. Our mission-wide goal for this month is 50 baptisms! And I think we are going to do it!
Saturday:
We finally got to see a less active that I haven't seen since November. They have never been to church in the 6 months I've been here so yeah. We talked about the importance of the sabbath day and why we have it. She said that now because it's in the afternoon it's going to be easier for her to come, so we're crossing our fingers! We also saw Jasmine (our jersey city mom) and talked about an activity we can do with the ward to help unify the members. Had a lesson with one of our investigators and his brother. Our investigator is so awesome, he just listens to everything we say and he's super open about all this (which is super different cause here we are used to people putting walls up the second you approach them). He says something is missing in his life and he needs to figure out that it is this!
Sunday: Everyone at church!
Had to run over to the sisters to give them the sacrament because they can't leave their apartment cause they have a virus😬. Stoped by an investigators house to see if he was going to make it to church but he couldn't come cause he had to work:/ Other than that there were sooo many people at church! Maybe most of the less actives that we work with were there and even some that I've never seen at church once while I've been here where there! Such an awesome day! The talks were wonderful, clases went well, everything was super awesome!
Well I know it's long but I hope you all like it:)
Love,
Elder Marz
