Merry Christmas! - 12/26/16

It is now time to put away the Christmas music!

Anyway, this week was a slow week for us because of the Holiday. It was difficult to see people because everyone was busy preparing for the holiday and with their families. We did get to help people prepare for the holiday! A member of our ward got a massive trampoline and needed help setting it up, so we helped him! It took about 3 hours with 4 of us working on it! But it is the nicest trampoline I have ever seen (if there is such a thing). We also went caroling with the other members of our District to some members of the ward who needed some extra love. I'm very glad we did that because I feel that the people we visited really needed it. So while our lessons may have been 1/2 of what we normally see, we were still able to go around a do some good. I hope that things start to get back to normal this week.

I enjoyed Skyping with y'all yesterday.  A lot!

Y'all looked great! I can't wait until Mother's Day to see y'all again!

After we hung up we stayed at the Bishop's until 6 our time, eating and visiting. Other members with their children were there as well. And the Bishop's family too of course!! The Ward here is so nice to us, I am very grateful for that!

That is all for this week. I look forward to hearing from y'all next week! Ciao!

Elder Ciminski

Brother Stroman and us.

All the gifts from the ward - they treat us so nice!

The weather has been a roller coaster. - 12/19/16

And I never know what to expect!! We woke up to a layer of ice on everything on Saturday, but it was 75 on Sunday, and now it is 35 and expected to freeze all the rain we got today, tonight. I am ready for Hawaii!

Anyway, until then we have been working hard. We taught 10 lessons this week, 8 of them with less-active members! It is wonderful to be teaching so much. I hope that we will be able to see it continue! We are still struggling to retain our investigators, and we have extremely limited times to find new people. We try to not be out and seeking (tracting, walk and talk, contacting new people, etc) after dark. It just isn't safe. Despite that, we are staying busy. Getting creative! We try and set appointments in the evenings so that helps too! We are telling EVERYONE about the Church's Christmas initiative. Not sure how many people are actually looking at it, but hey, it's not on us! I hope that y'all have been doing it!

Other than that this has been a pretty boring week! We are trying to see people before they head out of town for the Holiday, and that is hard. We haven't been able to get in contact with our investigator for a while, and apparently he is gone now until the 6th. So that's a bummer. He requested that we not send him our daily scripture anymore so we probably won't be teaching him anymore. :(

I don't know what else to write, but Merry Christmas!!

Elder Ciminski

Compared with Arizona it's kinda bleak sometimes.

The weather outside is frightful.... - 12/12/16

My friend, Elder Martinez

You have got that right! This winter, like this summer, looks like it will be an extreme one! In fact, on Saturday, water froze as the day went on, not melted!

See??

That isn't stopping us! We still did service on that day for someone in the ward. We were cleaning out his shed and throwing away most of the stuff that got flooded from the Hurricane. If you look at the picture, you can see the waterline on the door. There is still a lot of people who are trying to clean up!

We had our ward party this week. It was nice. They had a nice Christmas program that was enjoyable, and to top it all off, we had several people that we are working with there! That is what made it special! 

We found two new investigators this week. It is nice to be finding so many new people! We do have a problem with most of the new people, we can't meet with them for a second lesson! They are normally cancelling or just not showing up for their return appointments. We are working on a way to try and get back up with them so that we don't have a ton of people with only one lesson taught! We are also trying to work with a lot of less-actives, and all of these efforts got us 6 lessons this week according to the new Key Indicator system. The work is moving!

I love you!!

Elder Ciminski

December! - 12/5/16

December is here! Kinda crazy to think that the year is almost over! I need to start thinking about a new calendar!

Life keeps on going on for us out here. We had a lot of appointments cancel this week because people are sick with the flu. We still taught 8 lessons even though I had the flu for a bit! 5 of them were RCLA's and 3 were Member Presents! The mission had a change up in how we report our numbers so lessons taught to an investigator without a member (otherwise known as "Other Lessons") don't count anymore. We also don't count referrals anymore either. That will take a bite out of our numbers because last week, 1/2 of our lessons were other lessons! This change is supposed to make us focus on working with members more (which is always a struggle) which will bring blessings I am sure.

We had to push back our date with our investigator because he will be out of town from the 18th to the 6th, and with a baptismal date on the 7th that just won't work! We still have a lot to teach him and there just isn't enough time. That, and he has to be interviewed at least a week before his baptism so that would be a problem as well. He is still enthusiastic so we will be working on getting him reset with a date.

I have had enough of it getting dark so early. It is 4:26 as I write this and it is almost entirely dark. Makes proselyting hard!

Anyway, that is about it! We are still chugging along and doing out best! Have a great week!

Love y'all!

Elder Ciminski

More damage from Hurricane Matthew - there is still a lot to clean up.