Very Busy Week - 5/19/14

"Beach Island"

Elder Ravia and Elder Lehr on Super P-day

This has been probably the most stressful week of my mission but we have seen many blessings. I have to say that being District Leader over such a big district is not easy. I would much rather sit back and be a junior companion but I am learning a lot and growing from the service opportunities that come from being a leader. Anyway here for the update:

District stuff: So we have decided that we want to live well here. So we are going to do that first with making the apartment a clean place. Even though we have a plague of little devils (cockroaches) in our apartment we do not need to live in filth. Also we got ourselves a blender which is the first Electrical Appliance in the apartment which is so nice. (Maybe he forgot the oven runs on electricity) We are now making mango and banana smoothies almost everyday. Also we had a leadership training meeting and so many other district needs that we have only been able to have 11 lessons this week rather than the usual 26. It's hard not being able to see all of our investigators throughout the week. It's a good struggle but still a struggle.

Baptism: So we had Jenepha, and Derick baptized on Saturday. They are both confirmed within families which is awesome. Also we had a separate baptism the same day for a man who was excommunicated for 4 years and was finally able to be re-baptized. It was such a strong testimony builder to see a man humble himself to repent and still be faithful through 4 years of excommunication. I was so happy to see him be baptized and ready to come back into the fold.

New missionaries in the apartment: So Elder Koopmans new trainee is Elder Loketi who is from Tonga. So we have 2 pacific islanders in our apartment which is soo awesome. He speaks just a little English but is the nicest guy. And Elder Bogh, the new Zone Leader, is sitting next to me right now at the cafe. So I'm pretty much talking behind his back right now haha. Anyway he is really awesome super smart. When he talks it's like the wisdom from heavens are being opened up unto us haha. He is hilarious. It's a real challenge for the zone leaders in our zone because Kissy Zone is ginormous. We have 39 missionaries in our zone and it's really hard to take care of them all. So that's that.

Investigators: So probably the biggest stress reliever is that Moses was finally able to meet and get everything settled with the health situation. Anyway he is doing great as far as spiritually. And Donald is really good. He is just very quiet. He has been really active in the Church so far and it's been awesome.

New things learned: One thing I have learned is that no matter how much we want to we can't do everything ourselves. I mean if we have 30 lessons a week and 5 baptisms but the members don't know these people then all those recent converts will be less active. So sometimes here we have to sacrifice time to teach investigators in order to get to know the members better because they are so important and they need our help with the work just as much as our investigators. So that's one thing we have been doing is sacrificing time to visit members rather than investigators which sounds contrary to what we think should happen but in reality it's so much more important to build a relationship with the members so then they trust you and are willing to fellowship the investigators.

Also another very good principle I have learned is that we really do control most of our circumstances. I can choose to live in a dirty apartment, or I can choose to eat bread and sweet milk when I could be eating smoothies. So yeah it's all your choice. It takes work but we really can make our situations better. It just requires effort.

Cool miracle: So since no letters or packages have still arrived and I'm waiting for speakers that were sent 6 months ago I decided to buy some cheap speakers here and the day after I bought the speakers the Ipod just died.. it wouldn't even charge. So I said a prayer and the next day it was charging and working fine. So I'm like "YAY I can listen to music." And it was awesome.

Honestly this week has been really stressful but it has gone by really fast. I actually almost got into the state of "There is too much going on I just need to sleep or play pokemon mode." But thankfully I endured it. 

Oh and another lesson I learned is no matter what, do not cut onions in the dark... Don't worry I just got a small cut that's already healed. But don't do it even if there is no electricity. haha

I love you all so much. Enjoy the rest of May.

Love Elder Lehr