January 14

This week wasn't too bad, but it was really discouraging. By Sunday night, about 80% of all of our appointments had fallen through during the week. We were able to find a few new investigators, but we lost a few at the same time. The worst of the week was that our best investigators who have received answers that the Book of Mormon is true, have been too busy for us to be able to pass by to teach and help. They don't understand yet, like we do, that the principles we are teaching to them are more important than anything else. Granted, if there's an emergency, we can always teach them another day, but their excuses for not receiving us haven't been big emergencies, just little things like reorganizing the house, needing to rest a little, etc. Olha, we just ask for 30 minutes of your time to help prepare you for eternity.

Yesterday's topic for sacrament meeting was about missionary work, and our ward missionary leader and we were called to speak. I spoke first, giving a talk on why missionary work is important using the plan of salvation, starting with our premortal life, explaining the fall and sin entering into the world, how our sins can be removed from us only through baptism (by the authority of God), and then about the restoration of this authority on the Earth today, which was given to Joseph Smith by John the Baptist in 1829. Then to help put it into perspective, I created a modern-day example. Basically, imagine that mom takes Shaini and Rylee to Seattle and drops them off at the zoo, leaves some money for them to catch a bus home, and then goes home, leaving the girls alone at the zoo to wander around for a few hours. Then, when they're done, Shaini leaves some money with Rylee, and catches a bus all by herself, leaving Rylee to try and figure out how to get back home alone. Then Shaini gets home and mom asks "Where's Rylee?"

We started running this week. Our house is right in front of the church, and the bishop is next door to ask for the keys to the basketball court outside. I just run suicides while he does his own thing. It works out well running in a small enclosed space because we can both take our own pace since he has bad knees and can't run very fast. I was dead after we started on Friday, but I felt like I'm burned some good calories, just in time for the bishop to invite us over to eat some homemade pizza.

If I could work at Nintendo using my Português, I might almost prefer working a little first so I don't have to take out so many student loans. We'll see what happens with these college applications in the next few months.

That's it for this week.
--
-Elder Candland