Monday, June 28, 2010

Flamed Again!!!

This week our key indicators don't look all that great because we were flamed quite a few times. Tuesday night we had three appointments. Every single one of them fell through. We did a lot of walking that night it was very tiring. We also had a couple exchanges this week. I went down to Canton on Monday to teach with and learn from Elder Farmer. He's a great Elder, very humble and complementary. Then on Wednesday I spent the day with Elder Adams. Very diligent Elder he is. Thursday we spent some time with Jennie Means a recent convert. She needed help getting her family history in order so she could get some of her deceased family members baptized on saturday with a temple trip the ward had been planning. Investigators were continually missing appointment's the rest of the week. The highlight of the week though was Saturday. We went to Kirtland with Taylor and her daughter Ava, Darlene Craig, and our ward members Sis. Angerstein and Bro. Ethan Lewis. We had a wonderful time other than a lot of the time we had to deal with some small distractions that the adversary loves to place in our path. But altogether I really enjoyed the visit and I hope and Pray that Darlene and Taylor did too. Although we sadly had to push Taylors baptism back to the 17th because her mother couldn't make it until then.

Anyways, I love you all.
(*)<~Elder Sumsion

Monday, June 21, 2010

Oh and I forgot

So this week we were at a smoothie shop called Robecks and guess who walks in looking really tall and black with a bunch of huge black guys standing around him. Your right I was standing next to Lebron James. Didn't know who it was at first though. Anyway.
Happy Birthday Brock!

Happy Fathers Day!

We've been doing a lot of walking trying to help Barberton keep their miles down when they pick us up to take us to dinner with members. Taylor our strongest investigator with a date set for the 3rd proggressed quite a bit this week. Mainly on Friday, we visited with her and talked about tithing, fast offerings, and the commandments. Well tithing and fast offering was just very simple and she accepted it quite easily. When we started talking about the commandments she was accepting them just like usual. But when we got to honor thy father and thy mother she just talked and talked and talked about how her relationship with her mother has improved so very much since she started visiting with us and coming to church. She said that she didn't realize it but she has always wanted to be as close to her mother as possible but she couldn't because everytime someone offends her she goes straight to violence rather than talking it out. Well now she's spending quality time with her mother and she's loving it. We told her that what she just talked about was her testimony. Although, sadly she slept in on Sunday causing her to miss church. But our other investigators that came to church Darlene Craig and Zelma Kennerly were very interested in the subject we were talking about. It was about Exaltation and becoming gods, talk about drinking from a fire hose the first time you come to church. We haven't really been able to talk to them much since church, but they said they've got some questions. But hopefully that hooked them into the gospel rather than turned them away. The last couple things that happened this week was that I felt I was in the right place a lot. We were walking on Saturday and Elder Cardenaz was being a little down on himself. Well we got to a Recent Converts house named Dave Andress and well, Bro. Dave was way more depressed than he was because his daughters didn't really want to spend time with him especially with fathers day being the following day. So we did our best to cheer up Dave and in doing so E. Cardenaz was cheered up himself. After that I noticed a lot of cat hair on my pants and started freaking out saying I needed a lint roller or tape to get it of for like the next ten minutes. I saw some lady and was going to ask her if she had any tape to remedy the problem we ended up talking to her about the differences between the Catholic church and ours for like 45 minutes. She was really cool just couldn't beleive in a great apostasy but I ended up forgetting to ask her about tape anyway. Then last night we were talking about the power of sealing a family together forever at The Angersteins, a family that isn't sealed together forever currently and we're hoping that the father will take the steps he needs to so he can be sealed to his wife and children.

Well I love you all and Happy Fathers Day! Especially you Dad.

Monday, June 14, 2010

I'm in a library with fake butterflies over my head.

This week was a little bit better work wise. We started the week quite well Taylor our strongest investigator right now is keeping commitments. Which is such a relief to us. She's getting a little scared to be baptized because she doesn't feel that she knows the Book of Mormon well enough. So the past few visits with her have just been in the B.o.M. But i'm not to worried about her refusing to be baptized. If she's been praying (which she says she has) God will send her an answer. We had a good member present lesson at Miss. Zelma Kennerly's. The member was Debbie Williams one of the 15 names for the ward mission process. So we were killing two birds with one stone. The best part about it is that the investigator knew Sis. Williams mother and watched her grow up a little bit so that was awesome. Although sadly we were planning on having 3 investigators to church. One dropped us entirely, one slept in, and then Taylor is awesome and came to church.
This week we had Mission Conference with Elder Bradley D. Foster of the Seventy. He gave a talk last conference called "Mother told me." Pretty cool visit, his wife gave a very inspiring talk and he finished it off with the book of Moses. Showing us this little clip of the Hubble Teloscope pointing in some direction of the universe just because and finding like thousands-billions of galaxy and then relating it to that is what Moses saw to cause him to write "man is nothing." It for sure made me feel rather small but humbled.Then he gave a small anecdote about a member in 1857 named Joseph Millet who answered a fellow members prayer for flour. Bro. Millet was at home when his children came in saying Bro. Thomas is out of flour. So Bro. Millet filled a bag of flour and was gonna drop it off later. Just then Bro. Thomas knocks on the door. Bro. Millet answers it and says "Bro. Thomas I hear your out of flour. I've got some for you right here." Bro. Thomas starts to cry and says "I've been searching for quite a while but nobody had any to spare. So I went and prayed and the lord said go to Joseph Millet." The lord knows and trusts his servants.
Also I discovered that in Moroni 10:4. The lord asks us to pray to know "if these things (the book of mormon) are not true." He doesn't say ask if the Book of Mormon is true. He kinda says "Try me, If you have faith i'll make it manifest unto you."
OH! And I spoke to a very West Virginian man the other day. He for sure sounded like Boomhower from King of the Hill.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Transfers

Hello Everybody. This week was moderately sad because me and E. Cardenaz decided that we're dropping April, Will, and Chester for the next few weeks. It has been too much of them not keeping appointments and not coming to church. So we're gonna not visit or anything the next little while. So sadly there baptisms for the time being are canceled.
But we still have Taylor scheduled for July 3rd and I think Tyler might be ready to commit here soon too so that's good. They are both progressing pretty well. Taylor's been to church twice. She's having a little trouble at the thought of giving up "partying" but we keep bearing testimony that it will change her life for her and her daughters good. Also we've got a really great member Sis. Angerstein who before she joined the church had basically the same problem as Taylor before she joined the church.
Oh, and by the way I'm not getting transferred. I figured I wouldn't, but E. Talbot in my district and ward is getting transferred somewhere in the zone. So that's a little sad but oh well new people new experiences.
On Saturday a seventy E. Foster is coming for mission conference. So that's exciting. He talked about cows at conference.
Gotta go. We're helping a family move.
Elder Sump

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Uh....I went on an exchange this week

Lets see…This week was a little different because for Tuesday and Wednesday I was on my first real exchanges with Elder Hamilton. He's from the Layton area, he's going home next week though. He's a ZL much more determined than a normal last transfer ZL than normal though. From what I understand is usually Elders on their last transfer aren't allowed to be in Leader positions in this mission because they is very trunky. He helped me out in those areas that Elder Cardenaz has been having trouble teaching me, mainly the nightly planning. Which seems like a terrible chore everytime we get home, but he showed me how to use the area book to get the planning done a lot faster. This week we got 3 new investigators and quite a few potentials came with those investigators. One of our new investigators we've already got commited to baptism on the 3rd of July. Her name is Taylor she's 16 and has an almost 2 year old daughter named Ava. She's really great and she is improving so much everytime we meet with her. She and her sister Tyler also were the only investigators we were able to get to church. Chester told us he was coming the night before but he wasn't there again. Sigh. April and Will had more family coming that weekend so they just said no. So sadly I'm thinking this week we're probably gonna have to move their dates to a later time. One of the great things about Taylor (and maybe younger investigators altogether) is that we haven't had much trouble with her not being home when we come for appointments. Compared to our 5 other baptism dates where most of our troubles is making the appoinments work out or in the case of Chester, we have a lot of trouble finding him. This week was good though, I love seeing the effect that the gospel brings into peoples lives as soon as they start to understand it.

Nothing much else really going on. Um...This week I talked to an aethiest. He was very kind of rude. Said he only beleived in science, and that Noah's ark wouldn't have been big enough and how could the Kangaroo's come from Austrailia to the ark (Cough-Pangea). Also he thought we were crazy for beleiving in Joseph Smith which is normal, but when I tried to hand him an articles of faith card to show him what we really believe in he said "No thank you, I already know about your religion. I've seen South Park." But the thing I learned from that whole experience was that even though Elder Cardenaz and I were doing our best of inviting the spirit the other guy didn't want it. So really there's only so much we can do when they won't listen and just want to bash.
Anyway love ya all.
(*)<~Elder Sumsion