Whenever BYU or U of U play, nobody answers their doors.

9/21/09

I've been here three weeks now. We had our first babtism on Thursday, Joshua Edge, he was 9 years old and we reactivated his family in the process. We have several babtisms in a row coming up in October. It's Elder Manjarrezs' last transfer, so it'll be a good way to go out, with 4 or 5 babtisms. Sometimes we watch some of the LDS movies like the Testaments for lessons, and I'm starting to be able to quote them pretty well after watching them only a ferw times.

I guess one of the hardest things about this mission, is college football season. It's riduculous. Whenever BYU or University of Utah play, nobody answers their doors and everyone cancels their appointments with us. When BYU beat Oklahoma state, it seemed like everyone thought the missionaries needed to know. People would be driving by as we were tracting and stop to tell us. We dont really tract though, we have maps of all the neighborhoods and we know who is and who isnt a member.

It's tough on Sundays to try and get to as many of the wards as possible and check up to see if our Investigators are attending Church. about 6 or 7 people this last week said they were going to church, but only 2 did, so we have to push back some of their babtisimal dates until they can come a few times.

On friday we were driving to our dinner appointment and we saw some horses just kinda eating some weeds in someone's front yard, and we decided to help that family round them up. They turned out to be stubborn mules and it took us about half and hour to even get a hold of them and another 15 minutes trying to get them to go in their enclosure. One of them almost dragged elder Manjarrez through a bush, and he lost his nametag which we had to go back and find later. That was our good deed of the day.

It's interesting to see how families play such an important role in the Gospel. Whenever we teach peopel with strong family values, it seems so much easier for them to accept the message we have.The investigators that come from part member families and split homes struggle so much to understand how much our Heavenly Father love us. We are teaching a few 11 year olds, and their parents arent very willing helping us very much, even though their kids want to learn more and come to church. It's definitely a struggle for us to get the parents on board. We're working as hard as we can though, they'll come to eventually.

I'm starting to understand how everything interrealates in the gospel, and the different steps we have to take to come back to the presence of our Heavenly Father. It never really clicked before, but as I study it is beginning to help me understand more and more. As I have been learning, I can feel the Spirit work within me to help me teach our investigators. At first I would rush through and lesson or discussion, but my compnaions are helping me to slow it down and make sure I cover each principle of the lesson. Elder Manjarrez is definitely the best teacher of the three of us and I hope I can teach like he does by the time I leave my mission.

Transfers is this week, and there is a chance I could get moved out of the area, or either of my companions. I would hate to get moved to another area because I just started to get to know the people and the area. I could handle one of my companions getting transferred though... I wont say any names, but I can only handle so much. Tricompanionships are just awkward, and sometiems it's a lot of people to be teaching just one person.

Till next time, Elder Wright