Another fun day to write about! Monday was pretty sweet. Another relaxed P-day which included a morning game of frisbee, some family calling, going to Carrefour for some grocery shopping! Once all that stuff got done I also had my hair(s) cut and then we went to the chapel and sent off some emails and got that done. Then ended the preparation day off with a district dinner. During working hours we found for a bit and then had our weekly coordination meeting and that was the day! Super good day, surrounded by good people doing good things. Can't ask for much better than that.
Tuesday was a day. My day started around 2:15 AM when my companion was up and asked if I was awake. I was half asleep but said I was and asked what was up and all he said was that he wanted a blessing. He said he had been up for a bit throwing up and was just feeling pretty sick. I woke myself up quickly and I administered that blessing to him. It was a great experience and truly put meaning to the phrase at all times, all things, and all places. I got a little bit more sleep and then we were up at our alarms to get ready to go to 台北 for Zone Conference. To get there we took the High-Speed Rail train and it was amazing! So fast and so cool. Worth the money and everything for the experience. Our whole district was there so it was even better. Zone Conference was good too. Saw lots of old friends and my old zone too! I was in and out of the meeting because I was taking care of my companion for a bit. Then, Sister Peterson had him go to the office and lay down and get rest. Turns out that Elder Seamons was up about every hour throwing up and so he was running on pretty much no sleep. I did learn things from our meeting though and we talked a lot about the new handbook and how we are going to apply the principles found inside it. So that was exciting and got me inspired to be a better missionary. That's usually the byproduct of these meetings so now I gotta keep that feeling around and get stuff done! We finally made our way back and spent the rest of the day (only about an hour), at home letting Elder Seamons rest. My heart goes out to him. I know what he feels like and I know how unpleasant it is. We will get him better though.
Wednesday was a fun day! We had a normal day. Elder Seamons was feeling pretty much back to normal so we did the normal things. Had studies and stuff then we went to the chapel to get ready for a special Thanksgiving English group with our district. We grabbed some dinner then had our super cool Thanksgiving activity! It was a great activity. Once that finished we just biked out and met up with the Zone Leaders to start an exchange! Should be a good time.
Thursday was an Exchange Day and it was so good. We started off the day by getting stood up for a lesson but then we pressed forward and succeeded in meeting with someone else then had a great Costco lunch. After lunch, we had 2 member visits with a study in between them. Then came dinner, since it was Thanksgiving an American family in the other Elder's ward invited us over for dinner. It was my third Thanksgiving dinner this week but so very good. I was so grateful that they invited us over and that we could have that experience. It felt just like being at home and it was awesome. Then to end off the night we got stood up again and evaluated our exchange. Overall it was a good exchange, I learned a lot and Elder Dalton helped me see how far I've come since we met a year ago. He's a great guy and I learned a lot about myself from him and by being around him so that was nice. I'm grateful for everything I have and know it's all from our loving Father in Heaven.
Another great Friday! It started off with a great frisbee game. Then we had the normal events including our weekly planning session. We had a pretty sweet day finding too. We hit our 20 conversations goal and got a few contacts for people today. We are setting goals and doing more to center our work on the goals. We are getting more organized and figuring out the best and most efficient way of doing things. I'm still working on a lot of things in my personal improvement and feel like I have a long way go to. There are so many things I want to learn and do and times only getting shorter. The pressure is on so I gotta make a surge and hold that pace till the finish.
Saturday was pretty great! We had a few lessons and had some member visits also. We met with one of our investigators and it turns out he has already been baptized and is a less active member! It was a total shock to us and now we are working to bring him back. Totally wild but that meant that we had 2 member visits and we also hit 20 gospel conversations (for those of you counting at home that's an ideal day!) It was also a cool day because we got to attend a baptism for the Sisters in the district. Some good district time together never hurt anyone. It was an awesome day. We are finding more people interested and getting contact information for them. So things are going good!
December has arrived! Sunday was a great fasting day. Church was nice and I got a real good stretching experience. Due to the big numbers of foreign members in our ward we have translating machines for them. But today we didn't have enough for all the members (I can think of worse problems to have), but that meant that I got that feeling in my stomach that I needed to step up and try to help out. So I did and man, was it hard. It was good practice I guess but I felt pretty rotten after. I tried my best and the members thanked me for the effort but I wished I could've done better. I'd hate to be the reason for someone not getting the most out of church. We moved on and I'll keep on practicing for a potential next time. We met with some members and had dinner with a Filipino member and his family. Such good food and we had such a great talk about missionary work. We got some names for less active members we are going to try and work with! The best part was when I was introducing myself the father of the family said that he had watched my youtube videos before (#famous)! That was cool to hear and add on the 22 gospel conversations we had and it made for a cool day!
Elder Heber Chase Ciminski
謝希伯長老