This week has definitely been a little weird, but still good nonetheless. I'm also totally done with my first transfer here in South Carolina. These 6 weeks have flown by so fast and looking back I think I've learned more in these weeks than I have in m entire life. I've learned so many things about myself, others, and the gospel that I get to teach every day. I'm constantly learning new things every day and it feels great. This week went by extra fast for some reason too.
So if you were to measure the success of my week based on how many investigators I teach, you'd probably think I didn't have much success this week. A lot of our investigators either dropped us, or we haven't been able to get in contact with them at all. Cory was supposed to be baptized this next week, but when we went to go see him on Wednesday, he told us that as he was praying and studying to know if this gospel was Christ's gospel, he received an answer that "it was not his path". He said that he clearly received a distinct answer, but the way he acted and talked when he said it said a little otherwise. He told us that we can still come by sometimes, but for now he's not interested. I think that his dad that he visited over the weekend was a factor in him dropping us. He seemed really reserved in telling his reasoning behind his decision. Hopefully this next week we can talk with him and get the real answer why he's afraid to progress. But yeah, we've mostly run out of people to teach so this week will be a week that we improve on our finding and I know that if we work hard we will be able to find more people to teach. This week was also weird because Elder Willie had to leave early before transfers on Wednesday. He was gone most of the week and then yesterday he packed up his stuff and went down to Irmo to become the next Assistant to the President. I'm really sad that Elder Willie had to go so soon after meeting him. He is a really amazing missionary and example to me. All of us in our apartment have become really great friends and Elder Willie was a lot of fun. I'm really gonna miss him. I know that he will do awesome as an AP though. He works hard and he's been super successful in his mission and in this area. Because he had to leave early, we all have been in a 3 pack with Elder Bowen. We've been driving instead of biking most of the week, and we've had to go between our areas to get teaching done. It's been awesome getting to help teach in his area though. This week I've been serving as much as I can.
Dad: it's funny that you sent me your email and talked about service in it. I got to do 2 service projects this week. We went to a less active in my area, Susan Pender. She's a single woman that works most Sundays, and as we taught her a really great lesson about General Conference coming up, she opened up to us and we were able to help improve her life spiritually, as well as physically. She's trying to sell her house and her yard was a mess and so she asked us if we could help mow her lawn and clean up the driveway and yard. I was so excited that I finally got to do some yard work. I'm glad that you always had me help in some way with the yard every Saturday growing up, because I volunteered to mow her lawn, and it was crazy hard to do. It was full of tall wild grass and a lot of these purple wildflowers everywhere in the front. Her backyard was huge and it was set on a steep hill. The mower didn't have auto-push either. It was a pretty tedious job but I enjoyed every minute of it. I don't think I couldn't have done such a good job with it if I hadn't mowed my own lawn so many times growing up! It looked pretty good when I was done with it. I'm pretty much a professional haha. It was great to help Susan clean up her yard and she had the biggest smile on her face when we were done and she was so grateful for our service. I loved doing it too. She even said that she might see us at church this next week after we helped her! I'm really glad that I helped her out. I don't think she would've wanted to come to church if I hadn't have served her. I love doing service for others, especially yard work. I know that service is something that we can all do at any time and that it can brighten someone's day. When we do service we are making others happier and it can help them be more receptive to the happiness that Christ has given us also.
Hopefully some investigators and Less Actives will come to Conference. There were some that committed so we'll see.
Mom, I love Elder Holland too. We've been showing this video to everyone to prepare them and encourage them to watch conference. I don't know if you've seen it but I love it. It's a good reminder of what we can hear from Apostles and Prophets today and why we watch conference.
http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=911029448001
Thank you for your emails mom and dad. I'll pray for your home teaching family, and I'll always keep y'all in my prayers. I hope your next week goes great.
Love
Elder Bills
Funny Story this last week: Yesterday we were teaching a member's sister and as I was teaching her, her son that was in her lap vomited all over the place! He was only like 2 years old and he got it everywhere and then started shaking it off himself it was freaking nasty! Then his mom went "Yeah can you guys come at another time?" hahaha It was so funny. It took every ounce of my will not to just burst out laughing hahaa. So yeah hopefully next time we stop by her kid won't throw up everywhere.