Week 88- Rather Be Righteous than Cool

Holy cow...  It's been 88 weeks.  Okay, so Monday was pretty low key as I recall.  Let me grab my journal.  Oh, that's right.  We were snowed in on Monday so very low key.  

Tuesday was good.  We had interviews with President Cooke.  He told me he's really proud of the work that I'm doing and he loves to see how much I've grown up in the last few months.  After that I took Elder Gipson into our area because he was about ready to rip his companions heads off.  We didn't get much done in the afternoon, but we did have a good dinner with The Granges.  They're a really cool family.  We went to the Penguin Store for a minute that night because it was on our way back into his area.

Wednesday was good.  We had lunch with a member which was really fun. Then we went to Sister W’s.  It's good to meet with her and hear the progress she's having understanding the Book of Mormon because of gospel doctrine class this year!  She's doing well.  We went to The Hales for dinner and to help Malachi with the signs for Gethsemane for his baptism.  We got to milk their goat!!  It was really fun.  I love the Hales! 

We were asked to help with activity days because they were doing a missionary night.  We came in and gave the girls a few ways they could be missionaries themselves and then did a little Q&A with them.  They had some really good questions! What do we teach, how did we prepare, what's our schedule?  Sharp kids.  Then we went and read the Book of Mormon with A- after that!  It was a great day!  

Thursday didn't start so good.  I had a dream that made me pretty angry.  I don't even remember what it was now, but I was livid in the morning, so I just kinda did my own thing for a while.  Then we went to zone district meeting and being around so many people helped me cool off a lot.  We went to The Chamberlains that night.  It was awesome!  I love them so much!  

Friday was a cool day.  February 19th, which marked two years of me getting a mission call!!  Crazy days.  We had a really cool lesson that morning.  Sister Gardner called us and said she had a friend she wanted us to meet with so we set it up for that morning and talked with her a bit.  She had a daughter pass away in September who was 14 years old.  We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and what happens after this life.  She received really well and said she would pray about it and wants to meet with us some more.  It was so awesome!  We went all the way down to Newburg to visit with A- after lunch and had a good lesson with him.  We're really trying to motivate him to come to church.  Any ideas?  We had dinner with the Sponaugles that night.  They made us salmon.  I don't normally like fish...  But it was pretty good.  I was able to finish the piece I took. 

We had a fun day Saturday.  We went to Noah's basketball game.  He was playing Bishop Cottle’s team.  They won!  Afterward we were able to introduce the Bishop to B- (Brother Chamberlain) and the head coach of Noah's team whose wife is also a member.  Then we went back home and played some basketball with the boys.  It was a really good day.  We had dinner with the Cheneys!  They're awesome!  I got to play some ping pong over there.  It was a good night.  After that we were invited to the high priest dinner/activity night to integrate ourselves into the ward a bit, so we went to that.  It was really fun, and we got to have our ward correlation meeting with Brother Heath, so it worked out
great!  

Sunday was okay.  I think I learned some important stuff from that day.  We had Why I Believe so we ate dinner at 4 with the Schwartz family.  They're really nice.  I like them.  Then we made our way up to the visitors’ center.  A- had a rough day at church and was kinda worrying me about it a little so I was stressed about that.  The speaker was really good!  Fiona Givens.  She talked about her conversion from Catholicism and talked about all these things that our church clarifies that regular Christianity has discrepancies on. 

Afterwards I went to talk with Elder Patchett, Elder Parker’s last companion to get the tie box from him.  Elder Parker had gotten the tie box from Elder Greding.  The box is a legend in the mission that has about 400 ties in it. Elder Patchett told me he had it for me last Saturday at the recent convert temple trip, but he gave it away to another missionary when I didn't make it that.  I was really mad about that; it was super lame of him to do that.  I was especially frustrated because it wasn't my
fault we weren't able to make it to the temple trip, I had tried as hard as I could to get there with people but no dice. 

I had a really frustrating day that day already, and finding that out made me more upset about it.  But on the ride home I started thinking about it a little more.  If the price for doing what I know is right and working in my area instead of wasting time to go do cool things, or get cool stuff then so be it.  I know that I'll be rewarded more fully for the work I did in my area that day however frustrating and seemingly ineffective those hours were.  I'd rather be righteous than cool.  We were able to stop by the ASL apartment for a minute on the way home and see Elder French, Elder Smuin, and Elder Bleazard!  I love those guys!  I'm so sad I don't get to see them as much anymore. They're some of my best friends out here! 

Today we hung with the Calvert and Bayside elders and then went to the Penguin Store(a suit store) and then went to dinner!  It was a solid day!!  I love you guys!