Half of a sister mission - 9 Months

 Hey what’s up

I’m actually excited for this weekly because I have stuff to tell you guys. But this week was actually super awesome. I also hit 9 months this week. That’s half of a sister mission! Pretty crazy stuff

Elder Smith's Ankle

We were at the ZL’s apt a while ago for the night and Elder Smith who lives there has a big problem with sleep walking/crawling. He always wakes up in a different place every morning and it’s a bit concerning at times. So before we went to bed, me and my boi Elder Lewis went in and tied a rope around his ankle while he was asleep, and then tied the other side to his companions ankle. That way when Elder Smith tried to escape, his companion Elder Rust would be notified. Then the next morning we found the poor guy on the floor as if he was trying to crawl out during the middle of the night but was held captive by the rope that was tied to Elder Rust, who didn’t get out of bed. Just thought that was funny haha

Spikeball w/Elder Goodman

Just had to give a quick shoutout to @Elder Cole Goodman because the two of us destroyed the zone in spikeball a little bit ago. He also reads all my weekly’s without fail. What a guy

Wrong Referral

This week we sent a ton of referrals to missionaries all around the US. When they get our referral, they get the number of the person we’re referring and our number as well so they can contact us and get some more background info. So we sent a bible delivery referral and these elders accidentally texted us instead of the guy who wanted the bible. So I couldn’t help but mess with them. Our conversation is as follows (the red text is them and the blue text is me):

“Hey Alfred its the missionaries, whens a good time we can drop off a Bible?”

“rite now is good”

**they didn’t respond for a day**

“hey yiu still has my bible”

“Sorry we were pretty busy last night we can drop it off today if that works”

“wait”

“ate you mormouns”

“We're members of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints some people call us mormons”

“do you do baotizm”

**didn’t respond for a few minutes**

“Yeah we do baptism”

“how can j do baprizm”

“We would love to help you, is there a good time we can stop by and talk today?”

“I alrwady read book of mromon many times”

“Thats amazing whats your favorite part?”

At this point, I was so excited. Seriously, I was bouncing out of my chair with joy. People say that a lot out here when we ask about the Book of Mormon. They’re like “oh I’ve read it”. And then we ask what their favorite part is and they say something like “that part where Joseph Smith wrestles the bear” or some nonsense like that. So these elders were calling my bluff, but I had a plan. I then created the most incredible response of all time. So following their question of “what is your favorite part?”, I said-

“all of it

but my favorite part is  in mosidh chahpter 2 3 and 4 whenn I read abotu king bejanmin testifie of jesus Chrost

so its all very  goos byt rite bow I am studying in alma 11 avout the nephite financial sistem and how it pertains to tbe authenticity of tbe book of Mormun and I find it very inresting. what is your favotie part?”

Pretty good eh? But then it fell apart. But sadly, as I was preparing to send it, they called me. I panicked. They were going to figure me out. As I was in this moment of shock and great alarm, I realized that if I didn’t answer they would hear my voicemail that says “this is Elder Wride and Elder Petrucka” so I went to answer the call, planning on just hanging up immediately after, but I missed it. So I missed their call and they heard our voicemail, exposing us as fellow missionaries. On the voicemail they left us they were just laughing and told us to give them a call back. So we were able to call them and get them the referral. But it was pretty funny! They said they totally bought it though and were ready to put me on date for baptism.

Who?

Yesterday we were looking for an inactive member family called the Owls. We went to what we thought was their house, preparing to ask them when they opened the door, “Is this the Owls?”. I then imagined them responding with “who?” and just died laughing. Get it? Because owls go “hoot” (and that sounds like “who”). Unfortunately nobody was there. But if they had said “who” after I asked if it was the Owls, I would have been like “ayee!! We found you guys!”. You might not get that joke but I thought it was really funny. 

Shelina!

Alright enough with the jokes and down to what really matters. Which is, as always, the people. 

So I’ve been telling you guys about Shelina for the longest time. She lives in Mexico, has been taught everything, and is way elect. I love her and her kids with my whole soul. She would have been baptized already, but the Elders down there are pretty rough. So it’s been several months now of me doing my best to teach Shelina without any help from people who live by her. I’ve tried contacting the elders several times about getting the information of members down there so I can connect her with them and get them at some video lessons, but the mexico guys just ignore me. 

So this week, I decided it was about time to just break into the system and get er done. So I had Shelina send me the zoom link for church down there. 

My initial plan was to sneak into the zoom meeting and then privately message everybody in the ward to get their personal information to get them at future lessons, however my plan was infiltrated when I saw that the host had disabled messaging people privately. So I decided to just message the host and get his information. 

I told him that Shelina is a non-member who wanted to join but needs some help doing it. He misread my text though and thought that I said that Shelina was a member already, so at the close of the zoom meeting with a ton of Mexico members, he called on Shelina to say the closing prayer. It was nuts!!! I was nervous for her but I knew it would be all good because me and her have practiced praying a lot. I could tell she was super nervous but she prevailed and did an amazing prayer for the entire ward. It was awesome. 

Long story short, we got the bishop at a lesson with Shelina and her kids and now the ward knows that she’s there! It’s amazing. I am so happy. So now it’s looking like Shelina will finally be able to get to know the members and go into full activation following her baptism. Pretty awesome!

Mark!

Mark is AMAZING! I love this man so much. We had a literal miracle at church with him yesterday that is probably too personal to share but it was amazing. I know that God is working on that man and y’alls prayers are working!!! We also watched the restoration with Mark, his wife (Sister Hunt) and another guy we’re teaching named Austin. The spirit was soooo strong during the lesson. I’ve watched the Restoration film many times on the mission with investigators but this time was the strongest. Mark cried and I got pretty teary eyed but contained myself. At the end we bore testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and the Restoration. It was so powerful! I know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God!

Chuck!

Another miracle was Chuck. This guy is amazing. I love him so much. It was his birthday so we made a short audio clip of us singing “happy birthday” on the ukulele. Afterwords he called us and was like “what did you do with the money?”. We were like “what money” and he was like “the money your mom gave you for singing lessons”. It was pretty good. But that wasn’t the miracle haha

Chuck has been taught by missionaries since the dawn of time and has never progressed or read the Book of Mormon. But at our last lesson he told us that he had read the chapter we left him, prayed before he read it, and taken note of the mentions it has of the savior. So awesome! He’s finally starting to see that all we want for him is to become closer to Jesus Christ through the ordinances of the gospel, which have been restored in our day!!

Other Stuff

We taught so many people this week, like I can’t even keep up. So I’m not going to into much more depth, but to sum up some other appointments, we taught a guy from guatemala named Bartolo who is a legend (he talks really fast but I understood all of it which was a miracle), a really sweet mother named Ashley who is super promising, a super cool street preacher named Andre who is also elect, a lady named Sabina who is super elect too and asked us to come teach her before we had the chance, a really sweet lady named Irene who says we’re super nice and wants us to start teaching her the gospel, another lady named Sadie who doesn’t seem as interested right now but is still super awesome, a guy named Tracy who is going through a lot right now and got emotional when we offered a priesthood blessing, a guy named Wayne who invited us to his bible study, and so on. These are just a couple of people we’ve had the privilege of teaching, and there’s still a ton more. Litchfield is such an awesome area. The Lord has got big plans for this little town. The people her are incredible.

Testimony

There’s a lot more I could say about funny things that happened and spiritual moments, but I gotta wrap this up. I want to bear my testimony to you guys that the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, this is the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, and that true joy and lasting happiness cannot and will not be found anywhere else. 

But yea overall this week was good. Some rough spots, but much better than the last couple weeks. I’ve been praying like I never have before and it seems to be working. I know I still have some rough weeks ahead but it’s in moments where you actually feel like you're actually changing someone else’s life through your message that it all feels worth it. I just hope the conversion lasts in the lives of those we’re meeting with. 

I'm thankful for Jesus Christ and His gospel that make it all possible

2 Nephi 25:26

"And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins"

That’s all I’m gonna say for this week. Love you guys. Adios