Crazy week - 4/17/17

This week was a very interesting one. We were supposed to go out with our Bishop's son on Tuesday, which we really appreciate because we are chronically low on miles (we only have so many we can drive a month), but he totaled his car the morning of. He is ok, just shaken up. He stuck the nose of his car out in traffic, and someone else took it off with their car, totaling his car. He now has a 2015 Kia and is driving that, so we should be back on with him schedule this week. He is super close to putting in his papers! That is what we are most excited about! He has been working on them for months now and finally last night he sat down and did them!

We also had our meeting with Elder Cook on Saturday. Very long drive up. The meeting was very good. He talked a lot about enduring and serving and making the most of it. A very good message. The Spirit was very strong and uplifting. Then we got Sushi after.... which I thoroughly enjoyed. :) We made it to and from safely, even with one leap into the grassy median with 2 other cars because 70 to 0 on the highway is no bueno.

We are still teaching our investigator and he is still progressing! We moved his baptismal date to May 6th because he had a conflict come up, but we are still super excited for him! We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he committed to live it! That is typically one of the biggest hurdles Investigators out here face, and he cleared it with no hesitation!! We are so excited!!!

We did a lot of street contacting yesterday to try and use as many of our Easter cards as possible before Easter ended. We are going to keep using them, but after Easter they won't have the same effect. Anyway, we talked to a lot of people and were able to follow the Spirit which is always a fun experience- I never grow tired of it! :) :) The coolest part was that we ran into one of the Sister's Investigators at a popular park and we talked to him for a bit and he is going to give them a call to meet again! He was reading the Book of Mormon on his own and seems like a very promising person! Hopefully something comes of it for them!

Anyway, as always, expect pictures and have a great week!

Elder Ciminski

Busy Week - 4/10/17

This week we were able to get a lot done! We didn't see as many people as we would have liked, but we were busy all week! We got two new Investigators! One was a bible referral who actually called us to set up an appointment, that never happens! When we went by, she was asking all the right questions that told us that she was investigating for all the right reasons. She wasn't there for the return appointment, which was a bummer, but we will definitely go back! The other one is a former investigator who we picked back up who has met with missionaries in the past, a lot. I am still hoping that she will start to progress.

We also were able to met with our Investigator with a baptismal date on Tuesday. We brought the Bishop's son with us, who is preparing to serve a mission himself, and we had a really good lesson! We taught the last half of the Plan of Salvation and The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Spirit was there and he is still very interested in this Gospel! We are hoping that he will be ready for his date of April 29th! His wife is being an amazing help as well, as she was baptized about 2 months ago.

Other than those bits this week was pretty normal. We are visiting a lot of new people and trying to branch out a bit. Have a great week!

PS I lost one of my flashdrives and have bought a replacement at Target. BUT MY DAD TAUGHT ME WELL AND I BACKED IT UP LAST WEEK!!!! :D :D :D So no tears here.

New Message - 4/3/17

Had no clue what to put in the subject line....

Hola! This week was a busy one! We dropped off my companion in Greenville, NC and picked up my new companion on Wednesday. That day was a long day, probably because we had so much driving. Then we had a District Meeting in Roanoke Rapids on Friday. The whole way up there was real heavy rain. Like monsoon heavy, except it didn't stop after 10 minutes! We and the Sisters survived and we had a pretty good District Meeting. We have a meeting in Virginia Beach on April 15 with Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles coming up! It is a reschedule from the one that was cancelled due to an ice-storm in January! We also have a meeting in Goldsboro next Friday, and possibly another one in Kinston before the transfer is over! If you look at a map, that is a TON of travel time and miles! But meetings, if I try to make them so, are really uplifting! So hopefully I won't get tired of them!

This week we weren't able to see very many people due to our crazy schedule. We were able to see our investigator and set him with a baptismal date for April 29! Hallelujah! His wife was baptized not long ago and we are real excited for him! The only problem is that he works 3rd shift some nights and his schedule as a result is kind of wonky, so setting enough appointments to teach him everything he needs to know before he is baptized is going to be a toughie, but we can do it!

Not sure what else to say, so I will send it in pictures! I love you! Have a great week!

Elder Ciminski

Avengers...assemble!

Spring is here!

Wrong Neighborhood - 3/27/17

We did get a Transfer call! My companion is leaving to Norfolk (Naw-fick) VA to finish training an Elder Farnsworth. I am staying in Rocky Mount and my new companion has been out for 3 transfers and that means that I am Senior Companion!!! I also get to DRIVE!!!!! YAAASSSS!!!!! Kind of excited, if you can't tell. :D :D But I digress. From what I have heard, my new companion is pretty cool and I am very excited to serve with him!

This week was a good week! We were able to see a lot of people, including some people who we have never seen before!

We also had an interesting experience. We went on Wednesday to contact some referrals we had received and the first house we knocked on was decent, but had a new Jaguar out front. That typically means that they sell drugs since they had a $60K car at an $40K house. We knocked on the door and through the door we had the following conversation;

Guy: Who is it?

Us: The Missionaries.

Guy: WHO??

Us: The Missionaries?

Guy: You are at the wrong house boys.

Us: Proceeds to run back to the safety of the car.

Out here we have to yell through doors a lot, but we have never had that type of response before! Anyway, we were creeped out and went down a couple blocks to contact another referral. When we knocked, the whole apartment was pockmarked with bullet holes. Again, not entirely uncommon here either. No-one answered. As we were walking back to the car I noticed how there was literally only 3 people outside. It was really nice weather, and normally people are out and about, especially in the middle of the day when we were there. I got SUPER creeped out by that and made the decision to get out of the area. We texted a member if anything had happened locally. He told us that a former cop had murdered a 17 year old teenager, and the local High School where he attended was on the verge of rioting and since the murder was gang related, the gangs were fighting one another in the hallways. Kinda crazy.

Not sure why there is a theme of crimes in my letter this week. Sorry!

On a sad note, Brother Lovett passed away last Monday evening.  His funeral is this week.  While it wasn't a surprise, it was still very sad.

Pollen has been killer. We have actually seen the pollen in the air and it sticks to everything. Everything has been tinted yellow because of it. Can't wait until it is over.

Elder Cook is coming back to our mission! The last time he was supposed to come we had a massive ice storm instead. On April 15 he will be back! Yay!!

That is all for this week! I love you!!!

Elder Ciminski

What is a Missionary's favorite type of car? - 3/20/17

A Convert-ible! LOL

We heard that joke from one of the youth in our ward and I thought it was pretty funny!

This week can be summarized in one word, service. We did a ton of service this week! There was two people in the ward who moved or started moving this week, and one of them was the Bishop. The first people are a couple from Maryland who are moving back up to Maryland, where they have a home. We got a call from them on Tuesday. They needed to be out by Saturday to put it on the market and they were in panic mode. They are both barely 5 foot 4 and over 70 years old. We decided to show up in service clothes and do whatever we could to help. We were able to help them a ton also throughout the week, mainly moving boxes around for them. Then on Saturday, we did the same thing for our Bishop. He is moving to another home in the Ward and is able to do the process a bit slower. We were able to haul several loads with a trailer for them. It felt good to be able to help others so much this week!

We were able to teach several people this week as well. We had a lot of appointments cancel on us, especially with our most promising people. We do have an appointment with one of them tonight that we are excited for. We have a member couple lined up to come with us and everything is perfect! This rarely happens! Pray that nothing happens to mess it up!

Other than that, this week has been pretty boring. Wait, I got minor food poisoning, I think.  Thanks Wendy's. We ate at Wendy's on Thursday night at 9ish, then I woke up around midnight, sick, and emptied my stomach. Bleh. Then I couldn't eat anything for Friday and part of Saturday. Not fun at all. I can't catch a break!

I love you! Have a good week!

Elder Ciminski

Bipolar weather - 3/13/17

It was sunny, pollinated, and beautiful for most of this week. 70's and 80's with no humidity! But a cold front blew (Literally blew, it was so windy on Friday) in on Friday and it snowed for a couple hours, and heavily at times Sunday morning during church. It didn't stick though. I am pretty sure that it is the first time in history that we have had pollen, salt, and brine (used to de-ice roads and bridges) on the car, at the same time! It is going to be bitter cold all this week, so bleh!

We has a less busy week. We have been struggling to get ahold of people and set up appointments all this week. We were still able to meet with and fellowship a lot of people, even if we didn't get to share a lesson. That is one aspect about the new numbers system we report that I like. We are no longer pressured to teach lessons. So, if sometimes someone doesn't want a lesson, we aren't pressured to give them one anyway, thereby pushing them away. Sometimes we need to befriend people before we are able to teach them! We are teaching the husband of a recent convert who is interested in joining the church! We asked him if he would be open to being baptized, and he said that he had been baptized already. I know that doesn't make sense, but 99% of the time when that is the answer they kinda close the door to that discussion. Not interested. But with him I think he is beginning to understand the Priesthood because he answered in a way that indicated that he is still open to being baptized at some point! Yay!

So, a while back the mission gave us a recipe that Mom might be familiar with. It is most commonly known by the name of "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day". I decided to try it out.

Ha ha ha, it was delicious! They aren't the prettiest (I am still learning) but they tasted amazing! I also had a bit extra dough after making the last loaf with the batter, so that explains the bite-size loaf next to the big one. It was also delicious! I am also going to make up the casserole recipe that mom sent me a while back, the Green Chili Enchilada one, sometime this week. Cooking is fun! 

Anyway, that is about it. I love you all! Have a wonderful week! 

Elder Ciminski

Another week on the books - 3/6/17

This week was much like last week. Lots of lessons and trying to figure out how to fit everything in. We did adjust the area split in our Ward. Our area is now huge, most likely larger that the Gilbert Mission! We had everything south of the 64 in Rocky Mount.  Now we have Tarboro, Sharpsburg, Oak City, Scotland Neck, Pinetops, and Enfield and everything in between. With only 1,125 miles we are able to drive a month we will be relying on members a lot to help us reach those outliers!

We have an appointment with our real promising Investigator tonight. We have a member going with us so hopefully it goes well. We are going to try and get him to Church so that he can get integrated ASAP, preferably this Sunday.

Along with the adjustment in the Area Split, we got several new Investigators, including the husband and roommate of the lady who was baptized by the Sisters about a Month ago. We are excited to be able to teach him and hopefully help him progress towards Baptism. We have several truly promising investigators and I just don't know what to do with myself! I have never had this before! I like it!

Our Weather has been up and down big time. We almost hit 90 one day and now we can't seem to get above 60! I wish that it would settle down. But it has been nice for moving! We have two people in the Ward who are in the process of moving and we have been helping them a lot. Which reminds me, a while back not long after I got to Rocky Mount we were helping some people move and somehow I ended up being the Tetris man. I took charge and packed the house up and organized the truck! I guess all those years of moving payed off!

We had an out-of-the-blue last minute Zone Meeting in Goldsboro last week. The second one in three weeks. Normally they happen once every 6 weeks. There was supposed to be "BIG CHANGES" coming and you know what spread through the mission like wildfire...iPads! You know what we got? NOTHING! LOL! I thought it was cruel to get everyone's hopes up like that. We did have some good training on albeit, run of the mill aspects of Missionary work, but I still got some good reminders. I just thought it was funny how they did that to us. We are one of the only missions in the US that don't have them, not sure why. It is a bit frustrating since we get digital material from Salt Lake that is meant for mobile devices, but we have to do it on a computer and sometimes it doesn't transfer well. Or we just can't do it period. Someday this mission will get them!

Anyway, I don't know what else to say. We are teaching a ton and will continue to do so this week! I love you!

Elder Ciminski

Pollen on our car.