Tracting in the hood

w00t. hey hey, its another week of BLOG-O-RIFIC MISSION BLOG!!!

just pretend someone with a really cheezy voice said that.

So this week was a downer as well, but you know, its going to get better. We couldn't work that much since "elder elder woods yall" was way tired from fighting off infections no doubt, but anyways he's almost done with his anti-biotic pills so we might actually get to work at FULL STRENGTH THIS WEEK!! We're going to sarasota tomarrow, where elder woods's [its correct grammar, look it up] doctor is at. Another day wasted from driving down the over priced Polk Parkway [toll road].

We're so close to orlando its not even funny, and i'm not laughing. Every once in a while someone talks about how sweet it is to go to orlando to the temple, and it makes me trunky for the temple.

Oh yeah, on another lackluster note, my depression kicked back in full swing... so i was kind of bummed. It seems like depression feeds on the times when i'm not doing as much work as i want to. Its a really annoying way to go through life, but hey, i can handle it. 1 Nephi 3:7

Its so good to hear from people back home. Its not that it distracts me, because it does a little, but its just a comfort to hear everything is going so well. Even if everything isn't going well, its way entertaining to hear from everyone. Usually, if you're the bombest, i'll write back pretty soon, but understand that i'm super busy with the work & what not, so yeah, letters arent usually the first thing on my mind.

Yesterday i had a great experience in a less good neighborhood. Its funny, because with my badge, white shirt & tie i feel like i can go anywhere at anytime and i'll be fine. I'm serving god, and i doubt anyone wants to mess with that =). We went and just talked with this guy in the hood, and he was tinting a window (he does a real good job) and we just talked, and his friend decided to tell me a whole bunch of funny stuff that happened to him, which was way funny, but yeah.

One of the investigators that was real interested is moving, so i hope that wherever they move that they have a good time.

Anyways, thanks for playing, peace out.

word.

what up yall?

this week was muy terrible. Elder Woods, my companion, had surgery so that was less than stellar. He was in pain, and all i did was sleep on thursday friday saturday and sunday, and now its p-day and i feel like i should be out working. Elder Woods is a really cool companion, so i'm willing to deal for now .... =)

Consequently we didn't have much to do as far as teaching goes, but i met some more folks, introduced elder woods to some more folks, etc. It was a pretty terrible week. I love it.

Heber J Grant is a cool guy! it seems like all of our prophets have had cool pasts. Read the HJG manual for priesthood/relief society because its pretty interesting. Well there isnt much more to say, other than the church is true, and you could hear my testimony a billion times, but i seriously KNOW this church is true. Go find out for yourself. Read Moroni 10:3-5 and follow its instructions.

anyways, PEACE!

word. Lets see, trying to think of what happened this week.... give me a few minutes.

Ok thought #1-- my ward at home is the bomb.com

Last week i recieved a bunch of post christmas cards from my ward, and some christmas presents in them! I was way surprised to think that anyone still remembers me at home. It was a pretty cool shock and surprise, now i've got to get around to writing all of them. I'm so super thankful for the support i'm recieving from home, so thats pretty rad for thought #1.

#2-- Number of Discussions Up, and Reasons Why

My number of overall discussions went up over the past 2 weeks. I think its mainly because of a different approach my new companion takes to tracting. We pray about where to go in our bubble* and then we tract that street. Usually we go where we're needed it seems like, which is pretty cool. We have a whole bunch of new investigators, but we're also realistic about baptism. I was way super excited to see Maurice baptized, so i can't imagine how much more excited i'll be to see someone who gets taught by me get baptized. We've got a couple people i could see moving towards baptism , so we set our baptisimal goal at 3 for the transfer**.

#3-- My Zone is Annoying.

The cool thing about this is, anyone who would get offended by reading this wont read it. My Zone*** is pretty dumb. They're cool as far as people, but they have some weird ideas about missionary work. At Zone Development Meeting (ZDM) we met and tried to have a zone sacrifice to show that we want to baptize more people. Pretty noble idea, pretty terrible execution. Our meeting turned into argue fest 2004, and the spirit left 5 minutes in to the meeting. I'm the youngest**** one, so I didn't really say anything because i don't know how its supposed to work, i just sat back and watched the nastyness unfold. The good part about zdm was that my companion realized it was stupid, and he tried to tell eveyone to pray about what we should do, but no one did that. So it was annoying.

I gave a talk at zone conference about missionary work, and the topic was "what would jesus do if he were in our shoes to get the members more involved." I didn't have a great answer, but i just said in a nutshell "have the members feel the same fire that we do for missionary work, and make them feel as good as an investigator." A couple of the reccomendations i gave were to have missionaries teach discussions to members so that they could feel the same way that investigators do, and so we could continue to teach more often.

I don't know what else to say, i've said pretty much all i wanted to.

*=Within an area, we set a bubble. We tract only in the bubble so that we can get to know a select group of people super well, and then we change the bubble after its been tracted out 5-8 times.
**=Each 6 week period between times when we transfer is called a transfer period, also reffered to by missionaries as the transfer. Missions aren't thought of in months generally, they're thought of in transfer periods. Most missionaries serve 16~ transfer periods.
***=(missionary orginzation goes like this 2 in a companionship -> 3 companionships in a district -> 2 districts in a zone -> 2 zones per stake, 10 zones in our mission. )
****=Youngest by time served. I'm at 2 ish months or something.

oh yeah, is my picture still showing up? It doesn't show up at the library, but they have that proxy server or whatever. Someone e-mail me and let me know.

This week has gone great. On the whole, i'd say that through my nerves, i've come out victorious. Transfers were awesome.

Elder Woods is the bomb.com. He's from washington, north of seattle (arlington) and he's really really cool. We work on the same wavelength which is bad/good. Its good because we get along really super well, but its bad because we get along super well. You grow when you're challenged, and not that i'm asking for challenges (because believe me, being on a mission is a challenge enough) but i'm looking forward to this transfer. (transfers are the periods of 6 weeks between transfer days)

My district is still super awesome. Elder Rice (replaced elder gilbert as the district leader) is a way amazing guy. He's from Idaho City, Idaho, so you might know where that is. Its in the moutains above boise he says, so maybe you know where that is. He's going home after this transfer, and he's super strong and has such a testimony. He just barley got done being a zone leader in Fort Meyers, so he's a pretty good missionary. (missionary orginzation goes like this 2 in a companionship -> 3 companionships in a district -> 2 districts in a zone -> 2 zones per stake, 10 zones in our mission.

Elder Masias is coming over from bradenton, and he is elder washburn's companion. I don't really know anything about him, so yeah. He's from Salt Lake.