Thou shalt find joy in the work

Wednesday July 22nd: Today was a good day.  We woke up and went to Walmart got the things we needed and then we headed to Sister Ruggles house. She gave me, Elder Iverson, and Elder Bolingbroke haircuts which was so nice of her! Afterwards we headed home for a quick shower and then went and played pickleball with the stones river 1 sisters again. Then it started dumping rain and we tried to hide under the trees but it wasn't letting up and so we booked if for the cars and got absolutely soaked! Then it finally ended up stopping and we went to a different tennis court and played spike ball and pickle ball there! Then we went home and went and got dinner and dropped Chris off some drink mix that I got him and we made some contacts until coordination then we had that meeting over zoom and that was our pday! 

Thurs: Today was a good day! We woke up and ran and then got ready for service at 8am at second Harvest. Right as we were about to leave the west Fork sisters called us and they went on exchanges and one of them took the key by accident so we had to go pick them up and take them there. This caused us to be a little late haha. It was good though and I talked to Elder Dent most the time and he's a cool guy. Stephanie (the lady that runs the food bank) got us pizza since we did a double shift so that was super nice of her! We also broke a record for boxes packed! We came home after and did personal and comp study. Made contacts until dinner, and this one lady I called disrespected me and the church in the nicest way possible and talked for 15 mins and then asked if she could pray for me. She worded it differently but basically asked God to guide me back to the straight and narrow hahahah so wack. Then we went and helped the Mount Juilet 1 Sisters film a baseball video and so whenever they were not needing us, the other Elders and me were out just hitting dingers with one guy in the outfield and holy fetch was that fun! I havent played baseball in so long haha!! We came home after and nothing else really significant happened and so that wraps up the day! 

Fri: Today was alright, really not much to talk about today. We made contacts all day. Had a good weekly planning session and that's pretty much in to be honest haha. No lessons, no crazy calls, the 3 of us did do a lot of hypothetical questions though and that was fun. Sorry for the short entry today haha

Sat: Today was pretty similar to yesterday... not a whole lot to report on. We contacted people until dinner and the only funny/unusual thing that happened was we got a voicemail and some dude who we thought was a girl. He said and I quote "STOP CALLING ME, I believe in SCIENCE, *bleep* OFF!" so that was nice! Afterwards we went to play baseball, I mean record more video footage for the Sisters again and I had such a great time! We came home and made a couple more contacts but nothing to special! Talk to yall tomorrow! 

Sun: Today was an alright day. We had a lesson with Sister Golden in the morning and we got to the church and she was there and so she said I'll wait while yall get set up so we said okay and started walking to the door and then we came to the awful realization that we didn't have the key... we called the Elders that had it and waited for them in parking lot talking to Sister Golden. She was totally fine with it but it was a little embarrassing forsure. We taught about testimonies and how we can know we are on the right track and it went really well. We then tried to drop off a Book of Mormon to a lady but she wasnt home so we left it in her mailbox. We taught Sister Robbins and her daughter with Sister Sutherland and talked about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and about how important surrounding ourselves with good people is. We also talked about the difference the gospel can make in our lives and where we would be without it. We made contacts the rest of the day. Elder Iverson and I got in a argument about a mug and whether we should throw it out or keep it and I finally gave up and tossed it. Elder Klingler made us talk about it later because he said there was too much contention and I just said it's whatever. You know it's not a good day when you are arguing over a mug;) I woke up the next morning and there was the mug lol Elder Iverson went and put it back so that was cool of him haha but it is just so dumb that we even argued over a mug lolol. I'll add it to my mission stories ;)

Mon: Today Elder Wilson got dropped off because he's with all zone leaders and they had a leadership meeting so he worked with us for the day. We did a comp study in the morning then in the afternoon we did second Harvest service again! Afterwards we came back and hung out for awhile then got back to work. We had 3 lessons with all new people we found cold calling! The first we called and shares the restoration and he even brought his daughters to join but sadly they were really young and didnt stick around haha but he did and he wants a Book Of Mormon this friday and the lesson went so awesome! The second we taught the last half of the plan of salvation and that went really well and we have another lesson with him tonight (Tuesday) we made contacts to finish up the day but this one was a good one and the lessons were sweet! 

Tue: Today we had district council in the morning then we had interviews with President, I'm gonna get a little personal with yall and tell you I have been really struggling to find joy in the work. I've been thinking about just getting through these 2 years and almost looking at it like a prison sentence. You might smile at that and that's totally fine haha but I'm serious... he read Helaman 10:4 with me and invited me to replace Nephi's name with mine. He talks about how all Nephi did was get rejected but the Lord was beyond proud of him for doing his work and gave him power to move mountains, smite people, etc. because he knew he wouldn't ask for anything contrary to his will. Pretty amazing stuff. I'm really going to strive to find joy and motivation going forward, not that I havent in the past, but I'm going to try harder moving forward. Afterwards we had comp study, did some Facebook work, then had a Facebook meeting. We got Chick Fil A, came home and had a lesson with Jackie on the plan of salvation and she had to go part way through it but she said we could call back and was very nice. We had a lesson with Michael too and we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and we found out he lives in California and so we asked if we could contact the missionaries near him to get him a Book of Mormon and he said yes!! We made contacts the rest of the night afterwards. Super busy day but it went super fast and it was good!