Sunday, July 17, 2016

July 11, 2016

Hey Mom!                                                                                           July 11, 2016

This week:
Goodbye Ephrata, Elder Summit, reviving member spirit, and seeing results!

Well, I'll be darned, family reunion is taking place eh? Well, that's wacky to think about. Seems like yesterday was the last one, and I wasn't even at it. Sheesh. I wonder if that's how Daniel, Paul, Mason, and Greg felt too. Will they be coming? That would be absolutely grand if Paul and Brooke could come up for that. So many memories would be made, and most of them would probably be Paul showing us up with regards to beach-bods.

The 4th mainly consisted of Elder Painter and I doing bad lip-syncs to music we could listen too, our curfew was 3 hours early. The Last day in Ephrata consisted of packing, "buying" a carry-on duffel from the thrift store (which they let me take because we were going to toss it), and saying goodbyes to Alva and Bev. Anyhoo, Ellensburg, town wise, is pretty nice! Driving down from Ephrata to Quincy to Ellensburg was un-eventful. And dangerous. Not really, but Elder Shugart, the AP driving the van, got several "check-your-speed" call-outs from Tiwi. Not the worst that could happen, but still. 

Elder Summit is a pretty cool guy! He's been out only three months, so I'm greenie busting him, or being a "mom" as mission lingo goes. After brief get-to-know you, I learned he's an experienced martial-artist, can manipulate other folks's anger, and has a habit of talking in accents. He hails from Logan, and from the sounds of it, his family isn't the best on keeping him updated. There were a lot of personality traits between the two of us that needed hammering out, but we managed. Work wise, we are about to drop the nuke of member-missionary work in Ellensburg. Learned from Elder Summit that member-socializing was practically non-existent, let alone effective member missionary work. And so that gave us a vision to work towards.

So, to begin work, a few fun things happened. For one, Jenny, our on date in the area, cancelled her baptism the day of. Elder Summit and Rozencrantz (who just returned home to Vegas) found her and started teaching her. Evidently she's facing a lot of social adversity about joining the church. She has a mental condition of some kind, and so we pray that she can be strong and overcome her fears. On more brighter notes this past week we were invited to dinner by a PMF (part member family). The father, Jim, expressed to us that he wants to be baptized and sealed to his wife in the temple. Hmm....oh snap. He came to church the next day. 

Speaking of church, I was asked by Bishop Schilling to bear my testimony. He wanted me to emphasize member-missionary work. I had a rough idea of what I was going to say, opting for the formal approach of professionalism. After some thought though, I decided to lax a little. And so when I walked up to the pulpit, I began by saying, "Brothers and sisters, Aloha!" And they responded accordingly, surprisingly. Right now our objective is to build member trust and relationships, so I figured that was a good way to show I wasn't a robot. And I think it worked too! Later on that night we went and saw the Elders Quorum President and his family. The thought of member-visits were blank to Elder Summit's mind, but we simply talked to them about their lives, dreams, visions, etc. Shared a spiritual thought, and at the end of it, they had names come to their minds about people they could share the gospel with! OOOOOHHHHH SNAP!! And they seemed decently solid too!

Yeah, we need to do a lot of work. Right now our schedules are taken up by 3 hours of community service, daily. I'm all for service, but...I'd rather be focused on doing my current duty. But with the Lord's time we will be able to accomplish it. Pray like it depends of Heavenly Father, and then work like it depends on us. That's the key, so we can't let go now. Love you all, and remember that we are all involved in this work, even if being an example to others, that light rubs off!

Love you!

Elder Michael Camit

No comments:

Post a Comment