WRITTEN: 7/31/17
Week 53.
Well this week has gone by sooo fast! This week is the last week of the transfer and we have a lot going on. We'll find out on Sunday if elder Sillanpaa or I are going somewhere else. I think I'm going to stay and elder Sillanpaa will go somewhere else. He's been in this area for four transfers and that's quite a long time. But we'll see what happens.
Let me tell you how my week was.
Monday was pretty chill, not a whole lot went on. It was raining pretty much the whole day so we had the English Elders come over (Elder English, Elder Sudweeks, and Elder Victor) and they brought Risk with them so we played that for a few hours which was pretty fun haha. It's been a while since I've played some board games. There was a dry spell so we went to the beach and we just walked around, showing Elder Victor (who has only been in Perth Amboy English for about one week) the water and crabs and such. We went under a bridge and took some pretty sweet pictures. Later we had a few appointments with members that night.
Tuesday was a long day. We had interviews at 9am with President Hess, I really love him! I've heard people say that have had more that one mission Pres will find that they "clicked" with one or they could have said that they were meant for the Pres or the Pres was for them on and on. Anyways I really feel that President Hess is for me. I just have such a great relationship with him already and he's only been here like 6 weeks! I'm really excited to see what he does for the mission! We also had district meeting and we had a full room of men! I had my whole district and a zone leader and one of the assistants to the president there. It went really well, we talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon in personal conversion. We discussed how the Book of Mormon is one of the life lines (spiritual life lines) we have. These life lines make it so we have a connection with God our Heavenly Father and these life lines make it so we don't die spirituality.
These life lines are:
⁃ Daily Prayer
⁃ Daily scripture study
⁃ And weekly church attendance
If we are not doing all three of these things consistently then we are dying spiritually.
We made a list of ideas to help our Investigators to read the Book of Mormon and obtain a testimony.
After district meeting we had lunch and then I had a very long meeting with the zone leaders and some other elders. We didn't get back till about 6:30pm. Yeah it was a long day at the chapel. When we got back we had two meal appointments with members and then two appointments with some of our investigators, and nobody juked! It was a long but good day.
Wednesday we did probably our last tablestand in Perth Amboy. Yeah every time we post up with a table you can count on that within 30 minutes we'll have another group of men show up and start protesting and talking trash, not specifically about Mormons but anyone. If your white they'll talk trash, if you're Hispanic then they'll still talk trash, whatever it be they are just there to cut people down so that's when we decided to not do tablestands any more. It's super sad cause those guys are al over the place. They were in Dover and they were in jersey city. As we were sitting there it reminded me of the dream that Lehi had about the tree of life and the great and spacious building. Those guys who show up were a perfect example of the people in he great and spacious building. This is what Lehi says- "And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit.". Wow it just was so true. It helped me to stay cool and collected while they were mocking us when I remembered that they ones that held tight to the iron rod and made it to the tree of life and partook of the fruit were the ones that did not permit the great and spacious building to have the slightest affect on themselves. So many things of the world just have such small parts of our lives and we can't allow that door to be open one crack!
Thursday we did weekly planning and then we had to help a member that called us and needed help setting up there new cable/internet stuff. I was on the phone translating for an hour and a half with the service guys to try and get all the tv boxes synced and ready to go. I was a long process but in the end they had tv/Internet and we had some amazing burritos!
Friday we went to service at the Salvation Army and then we went to the church cause the relief society President wanted to bring us lunch. Actually on our way to the church we passed a bank that's on the same street and there a was a bank robbery happening! We didn't know that until we got inside the chapel and the other elders came in 3 min and told us that there were cop cars everywhere and our street was blocked off. We were amazed cause we didn't hear a thing! But next thing you know is that members were sending us pictures of the robbers and the cops, they didn't even make it out before they were caught haha. The cops had to get their big guns out. I guess its been robbed like 3 times haha. Other than that we had to help some member with some things send then we did knocking.
Saturday was good. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader at the chapel in the morning and then studies like always. For majority of the day we were stopping by members and investigators to try and meet with them or at least set up an appointment. Supposedly people are to be home with their family on the weekend but that wasn't the case this Saturday haha. We got to see a few but no as many as we were expecting. Did some knocking and that was about it.
Sunday was great as always. We went to church. Had a few meetings after church and then we went home, ate something and went out. We stopped by all the members who weren't at church to see if everything was ok and if there was anything we could do for them. We did some knocking and we showed the video to a bunch of kids, met a huge but very cool dog Ace! Then we had two of our meal appointments cancel because there was an activity at the church so they invited us there to eat. We left the church with a huge bowl of melon and Elder Sillanpaa ate all of it before we got home!
Man so that's how my week was. Nothin too special. We keep finding people and then dropping them. Trying to find those people who are really prepared. It's still crazy to think that I'm in my second half!
Have an amazing week!
Love,
Elder Marz
Me trying face masks for the first time haha!
(EVANS RESPONSE A COMMENT IN A PERSONAL LETTER REGARDING THE BLESSINGS OF BEING A MISSIONARY)"Man I want to go on that road trip! Just stop by NJ and pick me up for a week haha.
You know I've been thinking about that a lot just about how blessed I've really been in my mission. I have just had the best health while being out. In my setting apart blessing I was blessed with good health but it's really been evident lately. Did you know 90% of missionaries are on some sort of medication. I have not had a companion that doesn't have to take medication for something. 70% of missionaries suffer from some form of anxiety or depression. I have been really blessed! I have been really been so happy on my mission. Yes I've had my down days but not very many that's for sure! God doesn't want me to be slowed down because of sickness or anything like that so I'm just gonna keep on working.That's kinda sad to hear about randon. I couldn't imagine what that would be like if that was my mission. Seriously though I can't express how great the mission is and the mission President and the missionaries enough. For the most part missionaries are obedient. I had to deal with a situation last week about a missionary not being obedient and I had to take away his iPad. The examples that we have and the leaders just give this mission a sense of obedience is good. A lot of teenagers want to be the rebellious "cool" kids but here that's not the case haha.Miss you, love you!"
Love,Elder Marz
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