Last P-day we had some elders come up from Emporia and hang out and we chilled at the institute building a lot and played a lot of pool and ping pong. I am becoming quite skilled at both so when I get home I might be able to give people a run for their money. I had one cool pool shark shot where I jumped the cue ball over a solid ball and hit my striped ball into the pocket! It was pretty cool I felt like a magician for a second. Other than that p-day was slow. They usually are since there isn't a lot to do in Lawrence that doesn't require money, so we just hang out and write all day and it's nice! I like the change of pace for the day. Helps me relax and refocus for the next week!
Tuesday was interesting. We had our weekly planning and stuff which means we don't get out the door until 2 o'clock. After all of our planning and studies, we went to try and contact a few people and then we had an appointment at 4:30 with someone that seemed super solid. But when we knocked on the door and nobody answered! Man, I was so bummed and not to mention this whole time it's raining a ton. Though we pressed forward and grabbed our raincoats and went knocking on doors. We knocked a whole street and only talked to 2 people. Despite all that rough stuff, we had an awesome institute class with Bro. Mitchell and we have a missionary morning study with him this Thursday. That'll be awesome. So overall today was kinda tough but who said missions are easy!
Wednesday we had interviews with the President. It went well! Mine was really short but I think it was because I'm a visa-waiter and he didn't really need to talk to me a bunch since I'm not long term. Though a lot of other missionaries had some long interviews. President can get real intense sometimes so I bet he helped a lot of people learn things. We went shopping today also because we got paid for the month. We bought a bunch of rice and some sauce and ramen. Plus eggs so that's my food for the rest of my time here. But I'm gonna mix it up to make it fun. We had a nice dinner with a family in the ward and they gave us 4 free bowling game passes. I know what we are doing on Monday!!
Thursday was awesome. We woke up to a thunderstorm that got super intense. Which I loved because rain is awesome and relaxing. Then we had some study with Bro. Mitchell and he threw a mind grenade on us and taught us a bunch of stuff from Isaiah and how to understand it. It took us 45 minutes to go through 6 verses of 2 Nephi 16. INSANE! Definitely made me motivated to study that more. We had to finish studies and stuff too even after that so by the time we were done we tried to walk to a house and we got lost so we ended up sitting on the side of the road waiting for a ride. Super hilarious and we got a bunch of weird looks. Then we had an awesome dinner and played some volleyball to end the day!
Friday we had 3-week follow up in Wichita. So we had to get up mega early to drive down. But we stopped along the way to see other missionaries and it was super fun. The meeting itself was ok. Hardly anything applied to me so I just kinda chilled and enjoyed it. Though President did a pushup challenge with another elder and that was awesome. After the follow-up, we visited some of our other Elder's recent converts in El Dorado and then got some grub and headed back up to Lawrence. That took up literally all the time from 6:30A-9:00P today so that's all I gotta write about!
Today was an interesting day. It was the first game day for KU this football season and man was it wild. We were knocking doors and it was 90% college kids doing party stuff. Super interesting (lots of girls with barely any clothes on) and we moved on real quick. After that, we did some surveys on Mass Street again. Since it was game day, people were out and we were able to talk to a lot of people! We were driving around trying to contact people and the KU tailgating was a riot. Whole streets were parties and wow, the only way to describe it is wild, just wild. Sadly all the people we tried to contact weren't home so we didn't talk to anyone. That's been the biggest struggle is just getting people to answer the door!! If that worked out then everything would be amazing. But of course, missions have to be work so that's what we do! Wouldn't have it any other way! The last little thing that was really nice today was that a Sister missionary in my district is sick and she called and asked Elder Zolik and me to give her a blessing. It can be easy to forget sometimes the power of the priesthood. But it is literally the power by which worlds are and were created!! So giving the blessing was a growing experience for me and helped me remember the power of the priesthood and the magnitude it possesses! It's truly miraculous!
Sunday was a great day. Church was good and we had another Elders Quorum lesson about families and parenting. Not too much to get out of that. After church, we had a lesson with the only people we are teaching and it went super well and we might actually get them to church!! We are praying and hoping that their progression will pick up again! Here's for the best. After that, we did our studies and tried to go to our 2 other lessons and one didn't answer our text and the other wasn't home either. So that wasn't too fun but it's ok. Later the YSA elders texted us for a team up with a house of college girls they found yesterday and I had a really bad feeling about it. I don't know why but we ended up not going and I felt good about it. Thank goodness for the protection of the spirit. Even if we don't know why we get promptings we need to follow them so the Lord knows we are willing! That ended out the day. Did some more Isaiah studies and all my other books I'm working on (Jesus the Christ, Alma, Matthew, Teachings of the Presidents). So many things I wanna study and so little time!! Hopefully, I can get through some of it!
I love being a missionary and wouldn't want to be doing anything else right now! I know the church is true and that it is the restored church on the earth today!!
I love you all so much!
Elder Heber Ciminski
