This
was probably the craziest week I have had on my mission and it went by super
fast. Monday was a super nice day outside and we got to go and play tennis and
that was pretty fun, but it made it even cooler because we played on the tennis
courts right next to the temple. That made it a lot cooler.
The
next day on Tuesday we were supposed to drive up to Springfield and have our
zone leader exchange up there but a bunch of crazy stuff happened. We had a lot
of changes with missionaries getting moved around and the thing that made me
the most thankful was that we had to take some sisters out of companionships
and move them to new areas with new companions. In the "old
generation" of sisters that would have been awful, but all these new 19
year old sisters are champs and they are willing to do whatever they need to do
and they all made the move with no complaints. It was really nice to get to
work with some missionaries who were so willing to help.
Tuesday night we drove up to
Jacksonville and slept over there so we were ready for interviews the next day.
We got there at 8 30 so I grabbed Elder Anderson and we had 30 minutes to go
see some people. We drove over to see Terry and TJ and it was so good to see
them again! Driving around Jacksonville again was so much fun. It was great to
get to go back. There are a lot of people there that I am looking forward to
seeing again sometime. Hopefully some of them will be going through the temple
soon and I will get to do that with them.
Wednesday we had interviews
in the Springfield zone and then that night we got to take the 4 hour trip to
the Columbia zone for their interviews the next day. Those 2 days were really,
really long. But thankfully we only have 2 more sets of interviews left.
The
day after that I got to go on exchanges in Columbia with Elder Barney. I don’t
know if you remember me talking about Elder Barney before, but he was my first
district leader and one of my good friends out here so being with him was
really fun. We started the day by going to Mizzou and contacting people on
campus. The first person we talked to ended up being fairly interested and
became a new investigator. I started making jokes about how easy it was to
contact on campus. But apparently that was the first time that had ever
happened to him. I was really thankful to get to be there for that.
Later that
night we were going to a returning less active guys house to teach his friend.
We were really hoping that they would show up and we got there and he was
sitting there waiting. He is a return missionary returning from being less
active and he is just the coolest guy ever. His friend came over and we were
planning on teaching the first lesson. We started asking his friend questions
and found out that they had been reading the Book of Mormon together for the
last week and he had already prayed and found out it was true. Instead of a
regular first lesson we walked out with a super solid new investigator with a
baptismal date. He was really nervous to get baptized because he had already
seen that there must be opposition in all things, but he knew that it would be
worth it. It was probably the coolest lesson I have been in on my mission. I
was so thankful for that day and all the amazing things that we got to see in
Columbia.
Saturday we went on an
exchange with the north zone leaders and had just a normal solid day. Then on
Sunday we went on exchanges with the St Louis zone leaders and me and Elder
Sutherland went to the Washington ward for church. It was a really good ward
and Elder Bullock is serving there right now and it was great to get to see him
and spend some time with him again. The St Louis zone leaders are in Maryland
Heights and the part that they have has been really tough for a long time. We
went around and visited people all day and none of them wanted to make time to
sit down with us for a couple minutes. It was a pretty long day of talking to
uninterested people and it sounded like that pretty much summed up the transfer
so far for them. But then at the end of the day at
8: 30 we went
to go see one last person who was a referral. They had tried to see him a
couple times before but he had never been home. We finally got in contact with
him and he came out and told us that he had been taking the lessons in
California but then he moved here and lost contact with the missionaries. We
set up a time to come talk to him and he wants to come to church. He was a
great kid and is going to progress really fast from what I saw.
It was a great week even
though we slept in other people apartments for 6 days straight. We are doing
almost the same thing this week but hopefully it goes pretty quickly just like
this week. Mother’s day is coming up so happy Mother’s day to all of you moms!
I hope you all have an amazing week.
-Elder Banks
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