March 24, 2014

Someone made us Tony Romas Ribs.  Yum!!!!

This week has been great!  We are down to 0 investigators now...  It's been really hard to find people as well.  We have set goals and made plans though, so i have a lot of faith for this week, and am excited to get out and get to work!  The weather has been pretty good.  It's definitely warming up.  I planted some sun flowers and then it froze the next day.  So they're for sure dead.  A lot happened this week, but we're kind of in a rut.  However, i am SO excited for this week!  I can't wait to just get to work.

     Monday and Tuesday were great days!  On Monday we had dinner at the Prince's house.  They're an awesome family in the ward.  We had planned to have a lesson with H that night.  When we texted her to confirm it, she said she wasn't home and she forgot...sorry.  She knows the church is true and LOVES it, but she isn't willing to give up smoking yet.  So i texted her, and told her to contact us when she wants to meet again.    On Tuesday we taught the usual lesson's.  We saw Sister H. and her Bro.   They both want to go to the temple which is awesome!

    Wednesday and Thursday we kinda a blur.  We have this Book of Mormon class that we do with the Sister's at night, and the bishop recently said that only one set of us can go... bummer.  So we went home teaching with Brother Snow to see this guy who lives in a retirement home.  He has MS.  It was sad to see, especially because he has such a strong testimony of the gospel; at the same time it has helped him with everything.  Thursday we saw P and Sister K.  We had great lesson's with them as well.  

     

Friday we had weekly planning and then went to see another investigator.  As we were talking with her, she pretty much said she doesn't believe the things that happened in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.  She thinks they were stories to help us learn.  We challenged her to read from the Book of Mormon each day, and pray about it.  She needs that witness that it is true.  She doesn't really have a testimony.  We then went home teaching with Brother de Poix that night.  On Saturday we went and saw Sister H .  We probably texted everyone in the ward to come on the team up with us.  It was really hard to find someone.  There was a relief society activity that night, so everyone had prior commitments. We finally found someone.  She ended up having 3 other people over and they were all way into the lesson.  That night we had a church tour.  The Sister's brought 2 of their investigators.  It turned out to be awesome!  They are both Catholic, but disagree with quite a few things in the church.  The spirit was so strong, and their hearts were really softened after being through the church.  On Sunday we had ward conference.  It was sweet!

     It's been a great week, and I'm grateful for all of the tender mercies from the Lord.  There is always more we can do, and I am definitely going to put more work into it.  This is a great work that we are ALL involved in.  The member missionaries are just as, if not more important than the full-time missionaries.  We can't do it alone.  I love this church and I know it is true.  I hope you have a great week!  Love ya.

Elder Birrell

March 17, 2014

Hello,
This week has been great!  We've been busy trying to push the work forward in this area.  We've had to drop all of our investigators except for 1...  So were on the hunt to find new people to teach.  We had a zone conference on finding, so we're pumped to do it!

This week was similar to last week.  We taught H. once.  it was a great lesson!  She said that she need to "Get her self together."  We taught her the restoration.  The spirit was so strong.  Preach My Gospel is right when it says to make sure the people that we teach understand the restoration.  She said that she was definitely going to come to church.  Well she didn't end up coming... We are seeing her today.  We have planned to talk about temptations.  Hopefully it all goes well!

We had a great lesson with Bro. M!  He has changed so much!  He is reading the BoM everyday which has been awesome!   He is truly becoming converted once again.  Time is tight.  So this was our week.  The highlights anyway.

It's been so fun though!  Elder Bowers is awesome.  We get along great.  He's super funny.  I haven't been dead tired anymore!  I get in bed at 9:45 now instead of right after planning... haha no it's been good!  Our area is great!  I am very excited for the coming week.  Love ya!

Elder Birrell

 

 

 

 

 

Austin and Elder Bowers

First week of training

Hola,

As you can tell from my title, it's my first week successfully training (hopefully).  It's been a great week.  Not as scary and hectic as i thought it was going to be.  That's for sure!  It's been a great week though.  A lot easier than i thought it was going to be.  That just means something hard is going to happen... so pray for me!

Monday:  We hung out at the Zebraski's, and had dinner with them.  We had sister Holmstead's mom's chicken noodle soup, and these wheat pancakes from elder Johnson's.  Surprisingly it all went together really well!  We had soy sauce with pancakes, and you know how much i like soy sauce!  So naturally, they were divine.

Tuesday: Transfer day!  We drove to Greentree.  That is where the president goes to church.  There are two tiny tunnels you have to go through, so we were stuck in stop and go traffic.  We ended up being 30 minutes late... However, we beat the sisters, so we counted that as on time (they always beat us everywhere).  President ended up being late too, so we didn't miss anything.  I got my new companion.  Elder Bowers.  He's from Kaysville Utah, and he is a great missionary!  He has so much fire to be out her.  It almost blew me away.  I love training.  I enjoy having leadership positions.  They really help me, because they motivate me and "force" me to do better.  Ever since i have been a trainer I've had a lot more energy, and I've been way more positive.  It's a great calling!

Wednesday: Our Wednesday's are always pretty set.  Nothing to plan usually.  We always see A and K, and then have dinner with the Memmott's, coordination meeting, then BoM class.  It never cancels.  That's what i was telling Elder Bowers the night before as we planned for Monday.  I said heck would have to freeze over before these cancelled.  Well, it turns out the weather we've been having here made it down there!  EVERYTHING CANCELLED.  I was so sad... but whatever.  The Lord really needed us to see other people.  So we got to work!  We went and tried a lot of people.  It turned out to be a pretty good day though!  Members haven't been feeding us as they used to, so I've been scheduling with them to feed us!  The day go a million times better if we have a dinner appointment.

Thursday: We had our day planned, and went and saw sister H, sister M, and then we also saw H. that night.  Nothing exciting really happened. 

Friday: Elder Bowers got really sick, so we were inside all day until about 6pm.  Then we had a dinner appointment with a member at 6.  So we did that, and got home around 7:30-8.  We went and tried to see Y. after.  He was there, but told us to come back Saturday afternoon.

Saturday: Since Elder Bowers was sick on Friday, it pushed out weekly planning to this day.  Plus our 3 hours of studies.  So we did a lot of studying this day!  We ended up seeing H and eating at the Prince's for dinner.  It was really fun!  They're a great family.  We had Navajo taco's and i loved them!

Sunday: It snowed all day, and church was cancelled.  However, they didn't' tell us until we got there.  So, we went to the Z's and did our studies.  Then we watched the D+C videos with them, and had dinner. After dinner the roads cleared up enough that we were able to drive home.  Our neighborhood was really bad though, so we weren't able to drive anywhere.  Even with all of the craziness of the week, we still managed to teach 10 lesson's!  This week went by so fast!  Have a great week.  love ya

elder birrell