mini golf tuff guys

Hey Peeps!
Sooo.... this week was good. Nothing special that I can think of
really. We did 3 exchanges on back to back days so that was a blur. We
had pday, tuesday to wednesday was an exchange, wednesday to thursday,
and thursday to friday. by the time mayer and I got back together on
Friday afternoon... we were freaking tired. As far as the week goes,
we did a lot but not a lot happened. On tuesday afternoon right before
we started the exchange, we got a call from IIII, who was in the
hospital... he has a lot of health issues and is there a lot... so we
went to see him. The video was just him freestyling... he is freaking
funny, one of my favorite people I've ever taught. And then on Friday
after Mayer and I were back together we went and saw him, he had
gotten out of the hospital and was in his house, and his brother in
law was over, and IIII told us his brother in law could "shred us
theologically" and the guy just asked us questions for an hour, trying
to prove that Joseph Smith could have written The Book of Mormon... he
wasn't trying to prove us wrong or bash necessarily he just wanted to
know what we thought and then tell us what he thought... BUT it was
dope because IIII every once in awhile would throw in a "But what if
Joseph Smith really was a prophet?" or, "but what if The Book of
Mormon really is Another Testament of Jesus Christ?"
Not Elder Jorgensen


Elder Jorgensen
He told us he has
been doing some deep digging and a lot of research, and we told him
that he didn't need to look any farther than what was right in front
of him. He also wants to come to church at some point... so it's all
going well the only problem is that IIII takes things at his own
speed. So we are just kinda waitin, gotta take things slow.
OH Mom you are going to love this one, so IIII upstairs neighbor
either used to be or is a gang member... the real deal. He has a
couple of teardrops on his left eye, and we were talking to him a
little bit, and mayer used the mediator/debtor example (the one of the
guy who owed a debt but couldn't pay it so he got thrown in jail
because mercy can't rob justice... and then a mediator comes in and
pays the debt so both ends are happy)... so anyways, Mayer used this
example with our gangster amigo and said let's say I owe you 50
dollars... and the guy just laughed... afterwards IIII told us the guy
had gone to prison for beating up someone who owed him $20... 


so
anyways.... IIII is doing well.
BBBB also made it to Church yesterday... and he said that he wants to
make it next week. We reset another baptismal date with him for the
4th of July... So we're praying really hard that that one happens. I
want at least one more baptism before I come home. IIII should happen
sometime... but that's gonna take awhile.
Anything else... I can't remember... i love you guys!

So these last couple of weeks have just been roller coaster up and
down crazy... Do you remember the guy I told you about last week? we
found him on Monday before the transfer meeting, and he had already
read The Book of Mormon twice. He is so funny. Our senses of humor are
exactly the same... one night we were talking, and had kind of been
bantering like we do, and he said "we had to pick up our holy bible
and respond accordingly" and then he sent us a poem, "Jesus loves me
this I know, for the bible tells me so... little ones to him belong..
they are weak but he is strong." and then he told us to put that in
our pipes and smoke it... and me, never one to back down from a
challenge,


I pulled a mister miyagi, clapped my hands together, and
came up with the following "God is mighty and full of grace. you will
know when you stuff your face... with his word cuz it tastes the best.
come, join the feast, and be blest." keep in mind that matt is a
bigger guy who really likes to eat... I told him he might need to eat
some laffy taffies to get him over the heartbreak of that one... he
randomly texted us  another day and told us he thinks that we should
get matching jesus tattoos... long story short I love the guy. He is a
classic example of a pineapple,


all hard and spiny on the outside (he
has a tattoo right above his left eye that says precious death), but
soft on the inside! he also told us that partially due to his obesity
he has an infection on his leg swelling to his groin, and asked us to
keep him in our prayers. so we set up an appointment, brought our
bishop with us (IIII speaks more english than spanish in case that
wasn't obvious!), and we taught IIII a little about the priesthood. It
was kind of hard because Matt has add and knows a lot... so one
tangent of the lesson was about baptisms for the dead and how IIII
could be baptized for his twin brother who died as a victim of gang
violence. anyways, IIII wanted bishop to give him the blessing because
he "felt a connection to him." by the end of the lesson, IIII was in
tears.he told us that he knew God had sent us to him to help him out,
and we tentatively set a baptismal date for the 11th of July. he
accepted. The next day we got a text from him saying he doesn't think
he is going to be baptized, we went over and talked to him, he didn't
really want to talk doctrine or religion too much... and we've tried
to set up another appointment but he told us he needs to rest all of
this week. We think that because he felt the Spirit penetrate his
tough guy shell... he is scared now. Super freaking frustrating. we
fasted for him yesterday.
On tuesday, the day after we first met IIII, we met another guy named
BBBB who has also already read The Book of Mormon. Tuesday after pday
was rough, we just talked to a bunch of jerkish white people.


845 came
around and nothing had really happened, we were both kinda mad, we
were gonna knock on a few more doors and go home. as we were walking
there was a white guy, or at least it looked like he was, cleaning out
his car. I will be honest, when we saw him, I really really REALLY did
not want to talk to him, but we did, and some of the first words out
of his mouth were "yeah, I've already read The Book of Mormon." and he
was feeling super sick too, but he said he had just "randomly" felt
like going and cleaning out his car, something he had needed to do for
months. We have an appt with him Thursday, freaking hopefully...
The other up down part is GGGG. We've taught the guy like everything
except for tithing and a couple of other principles from PMG lesson 5.
he knows it's all true. the problem HAD been that he couldn't get work
off. He says the closing prayer every lesson and every time asks that
he can get work off so that he can come to church. Well, Sunday he got
work off. And what did he do? went to a party with a friend,
So all in all we are seeing A TON of cool miracles finding people,
more than I've ever seen in my mission, and it's because we are
praying for them and working for them. But it seems like after God
gives them to us, we don't go anywhere with them, that's the
frustrating part. I love these people. I want them to draw closer to
Christ. I know the Gospel can change their lives, and it is really
pushing me to see all of these cool experiences and not be able to
take them anywhere!


So... that's been our week! Hopefully someone, or a lot of someones,
will come to church this week!
 

Hey guys!

so... transfers came and went... and Mayer and I are staying together!! In beaverton!! without a greenie:( We had to go to the transfer meeting because zls have to... which I don't like. Guys I love you, but in all honesty I don't really want to come home that bad.

Sitting in the transfer meeting yesterday it smacked both Mayer and I that things are coming to an end. It was not a fun thought. We really are just working like crazy and it's been great. We had everything planned for our greenie too! Mayer sleeps on a futon, and we were gonna label it the cradle, leave a pacifier, and make him greenie waffles for breakfast!! Buuttt... I guess God didn't want us to traumatize the poor kid:)

So this week was up and down. The down was that we got into a couple of really freaking big bashes... the first one was Saturday, a guy straight was walking after us for like 5 minutes then said "hey guys, i have a question for you, how do you know what you believe is true?" "I'm a seeker of the truth." and then he proceeded to rip into Joseph Smith, hard, and the Book of Abraham, and the premortal existence... legit like the worst bash I have ever been in, the guy just went after everything. At the end, we invited him to read the Book of Mormon. To which he got smart and responded, "I invite you to pray about your Prophet." And in unison, pretty firmly I would say, both mayer and I looked him in the eye and said "I have."

To which he said "Then there's nothing I can do to help you." The genteman's name was KKKK. So now Mayer and I use KKKK as an insult.

The second one was with the guy who pretty much had memorized the bible and had a pretty firm belief in the Trinity.... good thing Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ in a vision. That was another long one.

And, once again, no one came to church.

Yesterday was a cool miracle though. Before the transfer meeting, we figured we'd take advantage of being in our area on Monday and prayed to find someone who is ready to be baptized. Long story short, right before we left for the meeting... we met this dude, a BIG BOY,

Not him, but you get the idea..:)

covered in tats, and he invited us in, and said he has already read The Book of Mormon twice. He just looks at it as a historical document, but he said he loves Nephi. We just talked to him and he said he is struggling in his own faith right now, he used to be in a gang, after that he went to prison, before that he went through a super hard preacher's school or something, he told us he has to unlearn some things... right now I don't really think he has much interest in learning from us, but he says he feels peaceful around us... and I got a distinct feeling that I am going to learn a lot from him.

The last tidbit is that we were playing ultimate frisbee this morning... and I looked up to catch the frisbee, and a hand came down super hard and smacked my left eye.

My vision was super milky afterwards, and it's gotten better, but it's still really blurry in the left eye. I went to the doctor and my vision in my left eye is crap. Miracles happen though because when we got home, I looked at it in the mirror, and there was a line of blood in the iris... I asked Elder Mayer for a blessing and now the line is gone, i just cant really see... things are super blurry. the doc says that things should bet better within the next 48 hrs... I've been icing... but keep it in your prayers I guess.

see you guys!

Hey Peeps!

So... it was a pretty good week. Who wants to hear about my birthday? It was one for the books. It was pretty uneventful until about 3 pm... we taught an 18 year old kid that we haven't seen in like a month... it's only XXXX's 2nd time seeing the kid... we showed him a mormon message called reclaimed,

and asked him what it made him think about. he talked about kinda how god gives us commandments... and THEN... Elder Mayer.... made the greenie mistake... he started talking about the law of Chastity.... I mean he took it, and ran the lesson off of a cliff!

It was so bad... the kid is 18 years old and has a girlfriend.... holy cow. it was bad. When we got back into the car, Elder Mayer reclined his seat, curled up into a ball, and screamed "WHAT DID I JUST DO!!!!".... But legit..... just imagine.... slaughter....

So not much else really happened... I had been praying and asked God to help us set a baptismal date with someone... by 845... we still hadn't had a very productive day.... we had an appt set up with some people we had knocked into the day earlier, we had taught the daughter and wanted to return to teach the family. It ended up being only the mom... she is from El Salvador, her name is GGGG, and she is probably the most prepared lady for baptism that I have ever met my whole life. One of the very first things that she said to us was, "I know that you guys were sent here as instruments in the Lord's hands because He knows I need some help." We taught a short version of the Restoration, and as I was thinking about when to extend as a baptismal date, I felt like we should extend the 20th of June. When I extended the date, she got a really thoughtful look on her face, and said the 20th is her birthday, and said that if she knew that our message was true by that day, she would be baptized. That was a pretty cool experience.

Except for that SHE DIDN'T COME TO FREAKING CHURCH ON SUNDAY!!!! NO ONE IS COMING AND IT IS FRUSTRATING ME!!!! That is my rant for the day.

So for our pday, it was pretty good, some members got permission to take us hiking outside of the mission, at a place called silverton falls, there will be pics coming next week. This is the only one we took on the ipad, but I feel like it's a pretty accurate representation of Mayer's and my take on life... oh and I got my last haircut last monday. And then the other pic we just found in someone's garden.... and no one was home... so we took some pictures and bounced:)

And next week is transfers... my hope and prayer is that I stay here in Beaverton for another transfer, with Mayer, and that we get to trio train a greenie! So keep that in your prayers!

OH, and it was cemented into my mind today... the woman I marry HAS to like outdoorsy things and hiking. #amust!