Hey sorry I missed y'all last week, we had a very interesting week with a couple of disappointments but it ended out alright so I really can't complain. I guess I'll go with the not so good news first.
We were really looking forward to a dinner appointment we had scheduled with a part member family because we got a tip from Elder Cornish of the 70, who is the home teacher for this family, that the husband was really coming around and felt like he might be ready for baptism. So we went there, us, and the Vietnamese elders who are good friends with this nonmember, or at least Elder L. is, considering Elder L. has been in this same area for the past 15 months. As we begin to eat my companion wasn't feeling to good and had to go lay on the couch. We finished dinner and were getting to the lesson/ spiritual thought and asking him questions trying to feel out if he would be interested in going through the lessons again, when my companion got up from the couch, walked into the kitchen and tossed all his cookies into the sink. It was pretty bad. I really didn't know what to do, but we got home pretty much as fast as we could. I felt pretty bad for him, especially after that sort of thing happened twice while I was in the Atlanta ward.
But ya we spent the next day or so recovering from that, and then Friday we had to drop our car off to the body shop for a fender bender that happened at the beginning of this transfer, and so we are on foot for this week until we get the car back. On the bright side we were able to get a lot of people to help sign up for team ups/splits so it is kind of a blessing in disguise. I think we have more team ups this week than we know how to handle. We really don't have many investigators right now, but we have been able to see a lot of success with less active members, in fact our two dinner appointments this week are with sisters who have recently been starting to come back to church, and I think we might even have an opportunity to teach some nonmember roommates at one of those appointments, which is going to be awesome! Well I love y'all and have a blessed week!
-Alex
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Happy Valentine's day
Hey I got the Valentines package and it was Awesome! Thank you soooo much!
We had Zone conference this week and it was really good. It was pretty much all about extending commitments and following up, so it was really good. We have some really good things going on in the ward, we have a very missionary minded ward and a lot of member missionary work going on which is awesome! now we just have to get to the next level and help them turn their friends and aquaintences into investigators!
Actually, one member has already done exactly that and we were able to teach one of their nonmember friends at his home which was awesome! Their friend comes from a Catholic background and took several missionary lessons about a year ago but didn't really progress, but we'll see about this time around. He's kind of non-committal but he has huge support from other members which is awesome and we couldn't as for a better circumstances to teach him at. Well that's about it right now, sorry its short this week but I'll talk to y'all later!
We had Zone conference this week and it was really good. It was pretty much all about extending commitments and following up, so it was really good. We have some really good things going on in the ward, we have a very missionary minded ward and a lot of member missionary work going on which is awesome! now we just have to get to the next level and help them turn their friends and aquaintences into investigators!
Actually, one member has already done exactly that and we were able to teach one of their nonmember friends at his home which was awesome! Their friend comes from a Catholic background and took several missionary lessons about a year ago but didn't really progress, but we'll see about this time around. He's kind of non-committal but he has huge support from other members which is awesome and we couldn't as for a better circumstances to teach him at. Well that's about it right now, sorry its short this week but I'll talk to y'all later!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Happy Lunar New Year
So this week was pretty cool, except for being a little sick in the first couple days. We were able to teach several people and I think we have some really good potential to work with. Yesterday there was a huge Vietnamese cultural event in celebration of the Lunar New Year, and so we got to help set up for that on Sunday and then help with the actual event yesterday. It wasn't a church event, and I don't actually know who put it on, but there were over 1,000 people at the event, and there was food, a beauty contest, a Karaoke talent something, games, and just a whole bunch of stuff. Of course everything was in Vietnamese so Elder B and I couldn't understand it, but it was good for the Vietnamese Elders and sisters. There are only two sets of Vietnamese missionaries in the GAM, one set of Elders and one set of Sisters, and one of the Sisters doesn't even speak Vietnamese she is pretty much helping out with primary in for the Vietnamese branch. It was pretty cool to help them out, sure beats tracting. So we had a table with a display and free materials in Vietnamese and a game for the kids with some candy to pass out.But ya transfers are this Wednesday and I'll get a call tonight if one of us is moving, but I'd bet we're staying together for next transfer. Well, see ya later.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Mmmm, Chipotle
So we had a pretty fun week, not exactly the best week for missionary work, but we had a good time. Of course we had a pretty fun Thanksgiving, we went to the church to play basketball in the morning because our ward is too nerdy to play football (we have a lot of Georgia Tech students in the ward) so that was my biggest bummer not playing a turkey bowl, we were going to go to another ward but our zone leaders wouldn't give us permission. But we did have a good dinner at a member's house. So far since Thanksgiving we have eaten turkey at least once a day it seems like and we'll probably have it again for the next couple of days. On Saturday we ate at another members house but instead of the normal home-style fixin's we had turkey tacos which were pretty darn good! And I guess while I'm on the subject of food I had probably one of the weirdest things I'll ever have on my mission, we got fed chicken feet soup. It was really weird but didn't taste bad at all, it was just one of those texture things. IT was this Jamaican sister that made it for us, and the last time we were there she made us porridge, which I thought only existed in fairy tales. That was pretty weird too, it tasted fine but it was just a really weird consistency and she gave us a Jethro sized bowl of it, but I managed to keep it down.
Since I didn't have a whole lot to do for my birthday we are going to do some celebrating today and go to Chipotle! I am stoked! The only Chipotle that I know of in Georgia is in Atlanta and now that I am here I can actually go! hopefully its as good as back home, because the Mexican food in Georgia has been kind of disappointing so far.
Well as far as the work here in Union City, our teaching pool is pretty shallow. None of the investigators we have right now seem too interested and nobody is progressing so we will more than likely be dropping them. We get a fair amount of media referrals here though which we got a couple this mornings. Atlanta is pretty much the media referral capitol of the world. There's one set of missionaries in this zone that all they do is deliver and teach referrals, and I think there's only one or two other missions in the world that have to do that as well. So we will probably be doing a lot of finding the next couple of weeks which is always fun. Its not my favorite part of missionary work but its where most of the best stories come from, especially now that I get to ride MARTA. Well, thanks again for everything, I will keep y'all updated next week and have a great day!
-Elder Edwards
Since I didn't have a whole lot to do for my birthday we are going to do some celebrating today and go to Chipotle! I am stoked! The only Chipotle that I know of in Georgia is in Atlanta and now that I am here I can actually go! hopefully its as good as back home, because the Mexican food in Georgia has been kind of disappointing so far.Well as far as the work here in Union City, our teaching pool is pretty shallow. None of the investigators we have right now seem too interested and nobody is progressing so we will more than likely be dropping them. We get a fair amount of media referrals here though which we got a couple this mornings. Atlanta is pretty much the media referral capitol of the world. There's one set of missionaries in this zone that all they do is deliver and teach referrals, and I think there's only one or two other missions in the world that have to do that as well. So we will probably be doing a lot of finding the next couple of weeks which is always fun. Its not my favorite part of missionary work but its where most of the best stories come from, especially now that I get to ride MARTA. Well, thanks again for everything, I will keep y'all updated next week and have a great day!
-Elder Edwards
Monday, November 23, 2009
ATL - the Big Show
So I am super low on time but, we did have transfers and I never would have seen this happening, but I got moved to ATLANTA! woohoo! time for the big show in the city! well I guess actually my area is Union City but its part of the Atlanta Ward and its not to far from all the stuff down town and We get to ride MARTA which is a trip, but I am still in car so that's nice and actually I like MARTA a lot, it doesn't really get all over our area, but it gets us to all the stuff down town and p-days we hang out with everybody in our zone at like Centennial park or play basketball somewhere or whatever we want! With some restrictions I do suppose but I am loving it!I do miss Griffin but I guess change is always good, I think that's part of keeping your eye single to the glory of God, plus President probably knew I would have had too much fun if I stayed in Griffin, but then again I am darn sure I'm gonna have a lot of fun here, and probably anywhere I go, I like the motto one of my former companions had which was to work hard and play harder, meaning get work done and then when its p-day get all the extra energy and fun out so you can dedicate yourself the rest of the week. Well I forgot to bring my new address but the mission office forwards everything to me and it only takes another day or two so if you have anything to send this week you can send it to the mission office ;D Well I hope y'all have a great week!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Super Blessed
Well, I finally sent that letter in the mail this week, hopefully it either has gotten to y'all or will really soon. This week has been pretty good for us, Saturday we had a perfect day, we saw everyon
e that was on our schedule and were just super blessed. There is a lot going on in the Griffin ward right now, and it felt like we were running around with our heads cut off at church because there were a lot of less active members that have been making their way back and it almost feels like a lot to handle sometimes, but it is pretty much freakin' awesome.
Transfers are next week and I kind of have the feeling I will stay in the Griffin Ward again, but you never know. Right now the ward has 2 sets of missionaries and the missionary areas are divided by a highway that separates us into the east and west parts, but the west part has a lot of the county where nobody lives, and the place with the most potential for them is at the top of their area which is hard for them to get to because it takes a lot of miles to drive up there. On the East side, we have the ghetto and the city part of Griffin where it is really dense and we can get stuck doing stuff all day there, and on top of that we have and area south of us that we don't get to see a whole lot of because we don't have the miles to go, and there's a totally different area to the north that has a lot of work to do but the same thing, we cant afford to drive up there except maybe once a week, and we haven't even made it up there in the past couple weeks becasue we have so much going on in the city part of Griffin. Well there used to be missionaries in locust grove, which is the area to the north of us but because the number of missionaries in the mission has gone down we had to combine the areas, which are all part of the griffin ward. But, we had interviews with President Satterfield on Tuesday and they are heavily considering taking one of the sets of missionaries and putting them in the north part of the ward and leaving one to cover the south part, which would make things a lot better for missionary work. So I don't really know whats going on this upcoming transfer, but I definitely would like to stay for another transfer in this area around the city part of griffin, so I guess we'll just wait and see.
Well I'm always glad to hear from y'all and I hope you have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Edwards
e that was on our schedule and were just super blessed. There is a lot going on in the Griffin ward right now, and it felt like we were running around with our heads cut off at church because there were a lot of less active members that have been making their way back and it almost feels like a lot to handle sometimes, but it is pretty much freakin' awesome.Transfers are next week and I kind of have the feeling I will stay in the Griffin Ward again, but you never know. Right now the ward has 2 sets of missionaries and the missionary areas are divided by a highway that separates us into the east and west parts, but the west part has a lot of the county where nobody lives, and the place with the most potential for them is at the top of their area which is hard for them to get to because it takes a lot of miles to drive up there. On the East side, we have the ghetto and the city part of Griffin where it is really dense and we can get stuck doing stuff all day there, and on top of that we have and area south of us that we don't get to see a whole lot of because we don't have the miles to go, and there's a totally different area to the north that has a lot of work to do but the same thing, we cant afford to drive up there except maybe once a week, and we haven't even made it up there in the past couple weeks becasue we have so much going on in the city part of Griffin. Well there used to be missionaries in locust grove, which is the area to the north of us but because the number of missionaries in the mission has gone down we had to combine the areas, which are all part of the griffin ward. But, we had interviews with President Satterfield on Tuesday and they are heavily considering taking one of the sets of missionaries and putting them in the north part of the ward and leaving one to cover the south part, which would make things a lot better for missionary work. So I don't really know whats going on this upcoming transfer, but I definitely would like to stay for another transfer in this area around the city part of griffin, so I guess we'll just wait and see.
Well I'm always glad to hear from y'all and I hope you have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Edwards
Monday, November 2, 2009
Halloween!
Well it has been a super week indeed. We were able to teach and prepare Brother 'C" for baptism, have him interviewed, found worthy and dunked on Friday. It was probably one of the best baptisms I have been to. There was a super strong spirit there and it really confirmed D&C 84:20 that the power of God is manifest in the ordinances thereof. We had a lot of support from our ward in helping make the baptism a success, and it definitely was! I will send the pictures whenever I my memory card gets more full.
There have been a lot of miracles lately here in Griffin, and I can definitely say that the field is white already to harvest. I got the chance to read several articles from the October Ensign this week and it has definitely inspired me and given me a vision for the kind of miracles and success that can happen. There was a talk about the effect of members in missionary work and there were several outstanding stories that really gave me some good ideas. Recently we have had several less active members make their way back to church, which is one of the coolest things to see. This week we contacted a media referral we received and as we went it turned out that she was a member that had fallen away but really wanted to get back on the path. She was able to come to the chili cook off at the Griffin Ward and have an awesome time, but she didn't make it to church this week, but I'm sure she will this upcoming week.
Well, as far as Halloween, we had our Ward party/ chili cook off/ dinner theater/ trunk or treat on Saturday, which was pretty cool because normally the rule for missionaries on Halloween is that they have to be in by 6:30 Pm but we got special permission because it was a ward activity and got to be out later than probably most of the mission. It was kind of funny because right when I got there I got suckered into baby sitting duty by the bishop and had to watch the kids that were in the super-bouncer that was in the gym, which was really awkward because missionaries really can't play with kids at all so there wasn't much I could do except watch, but then we got another member to take over my post for me.
Then we had our chili cook off and after people got settled in we had a little dinner theater skit put together for everyone to watch, and all the missionaries and several members were involved. IT was called the Gladdem's Family, and was a sort of parody to the Addam's Family, and showed how members can help the missionaries with sharing the gospel. So I got the part of playing Puglsy which was pretty fun, I only had two lines. But the play was really fun, I got brother 'T' (a nonmember married to sister 'T' who is a member) to take pictures of the whole thing which was pretty cool, so I'll send those pretty soon as well.
And then right after the dinner theater we cleaned up and had the trunk or treat, except that it was kinda raining so everyone got their candy and went around to trick or treat in different rooms in the building. Well while everyone was trick or treating we got put to work vacuuming and what not so I got maybe two pieces of candy, but it's OK because I don't need that much candy and if I want any I can just find someone who has a lot of leftover candy and mooch off them!
So I just realized last night that at the end of this month I will no longer be a teenager! Ah! It was kind of depressing at first but I guess I will have to get through it. As far as needing anything, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, in fact I will probably end up sending some stuff home sooner or later because somehow I now have more stuff than I came out with and my suitcases are starting to be a lot heavier. But ya I will let you know if there's anything I need! Well this email is getting pretty long so I'll let y'all go, have a blessed day!
There have been a lot of miracles lately here in Griffin, and I can definitely say that the field is white already to harvest. I got the chance to read several articles from the October Ensign this week and it has definitely inspired me and given me a vision for the kind of miracles and success that can happen. There was a talk about the effect of members in missionary work and there were several outstanding stories that really gave me some good ideas. Recently we have had several less active members make their way back to church, which is one of the coolest things to see. This week we contacted a media referral we received and as we went it turned out that she was a member that had fallen away but really wanted to get back on the path. She was able to come to the chili cook off at the Griffin Ward and have an awesome time, but she didn't make it to church this week, but I'm sure she will this upcoming week.
Well, as far as Halloween, we had our Ward party/ chili cook off/ dinner theater/ trunk or treat on Saturday, which was pretty cool because normally the rule for missionaries on Halloween is that they have to be in by 6:30 Pm but we got special permission because it was a ward activity and got to be out later than probably most of the mission. It was kind of funny because right when I got there I got suckered into baby sitting duty by the bishop and had to watch the kids that were in the super-bouncer that was in the gym, which was really awkward because missionaries really can't play with kids at all so there wasn't much I could do except watch, but then we got another member to take over my post for me.Then we had our chili cook off and after people got settled in we had a little dinner theater skit put together for everyone to watch, and all the missionaries and several members were involved. IT was called the Gladdem's Family, and was a sort of parody to the Addam's Family, and showed how members can help the missionaries with sharing the gospel. So I got the part of playing Puglsy which was pretty fun, I only had two lines. But the play was really fun, I got brother 'T' (a nonmember married to sister 'T' who is a member) to take pictures of the whole thing which was pretty cool, so I'll send those pretty soon as well.
And then right after the dinner theater we cleaned up and had the trunk or treat, except that it was kinda raining so everyone got their candy and went around to trick or treat in different rooms in the building. Well while everyone was trick or treating we got put to work vacuuming and what not so I got maybe two pieces of candy, but it's OK because I don't need that much candy and if I want any I can just find someone who has a lot of leftover candy and mooch off them!
So I just realized last night that at the end of this month I will no longer be a teenager! Ah! It was kind of depressing at first but I guess I will have to get through it. As far as needing anything, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, in fact I will probably end up sending some stuff home sooner or later because somehow I now have more stuff than I came out with and my suitcases are starting to be a lot heavier. But ya I will let you know if there's anything I need! Well this email is getting pretty long so I'll let y'all go, have a blessed day!
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