Your Time Expired

Hey, I hope you are all having a great week! 

It has been kind of a crazy week for me. Monday night I was in a trio with Elder Q and Elder U. We had a good day but it is really different in a trio. 

On Tuesday, I was with a different missionary in the zone. He was really kind of an interesting guy. He is like a tae kwon do champion or something from Uruguay and he taught with lots of stories out of the Old Testament in each lesson. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just a different approach. I like the short, powerful, simplified but intensified Book of Mormon approach the best. On Wednesday morning I traveled to Concepcion to get my new companion Elder G. 

 

My new companion Elder G

Elder G is a great guy. He is from Kansas City, Missouri. He has run a couple of marathons and is 18 years old, just out of high school. He is really great! We almost always speak in Spanish and he is learning really fast. He likes to work hard and I am excited that we are really getting after it now!

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were pretty normal missionary days, nothing big to report. 

Sunday was something else though. So I had to speak in Church. I was assigned to speak about Charity. I hadn’t had much time to write my talk this week, so I was a little stressed. I also got really sick on Saturday night with a cold and sore throat. So I pretty much just came home and went to bed. Sunday morning I scribbled out a brief outline with some stories I wanted to share.  So we went to church and we had two investigators come, but one came a little late while I was leading the music for priesthood (bad idea in the first place, especially because I had kind of lost my voice). She came in the middle of the song so I kind of dropped off to show her to the Relief Society class. After that we had two good classes. But our Sacrament Meeting was pretty crazy. The first speaker kind of called out the ward for not being better about fellowshipping. That was quite something. So it was a little bit tense after that. Then I get up there and I had lost my notes. Oops. So I Just started sharing some of my ideas, doing the best I could. Then I found my notes in the talk I was quoting from President Monson. I also wanted to share a little bit from that letter Claire’s Japanese friend wrote to her, to show the impact little acts of kindness could have. But I made the mistake of trying to translate from the pulpit. Bad Idea. As I was translating, a member from the bishopric passed me a small piece of cardboard that had scribble in big bold writing “YOUR TIME EXPIRED”. Oops. Dad, I hope when you do that it is a nice polite little note. I felt like the guy was yelling at me through this note and it kind of threw me off. I will try to send a picture next week. My camera died. Anyway, I finished out with my testimony and ended up getting emotional as I thought about Claire’s good example. Shucks. Well it all worked out all right, but I did lose my voice later that night and I still feel a little sick today. 

That is how my week went, how about you guys?