Hey everybody!This last week has gone by pretty quick, mostly because we stayed pretty busy the entire time. Nothing to intense happened, but a lot of little things have built up to make for a pretty good week.First things first, we were able to surpass our weekly goal for lessons and ended up teaching 5 more than we did last week. It's probably because we had a big day Saturday with 7 in one day. It's not really that good of a thing to base success off of numbers, but I like to look at it as 7 different opportunities we had to help people out and bring them closer to Christ. We always look for opportunities in everything we do to share a message with the people we run into or visit because it is so important that they have that in their lives.
On Thursday we had zone conference, which was quite the ordeal. We had meetings from 9 am to 4 pm in the same chapel. By the end of it, I was ready to take a nap. Unfortunately, we had to get right back to work. We ended up driving nearly 50 miles that day, which is about twice as much as the average for one day. We also had car inspections, and we somehow managed to get "Repentance is Possible", which is the second to worst rating you can get. It made absolutely no sense, and I'm not going to lie, I was a bit mad. But luckily they didn't give us a "Car Fast", which would have been bad because then we wouldn't have a car for a week. In the end, nothing too terrible came of it, but my pride was hurt a little.
Well, sorry for the short post, but I'm running short on time. I'll make sure and include more next week, but until then I hope to keep hearing from friends and family back home. This being the 5th week of the transfer, next week will be the last, and I'll know if I'm staying or leaving, if my companion is staying or leaving, so on and so forth.
Well, until next week!
Elder Orchard
P.S. I finally got a haircut, it's been a bit too long
Hey everyone!
This is now my fourth p-day in the field, and it feels like it's gone by pretty fast. I meant to write last week but I got caught up in a board game and it was 6:00 before I knew it. Anyway, a lot has happened since last time, and every day is a little bit better then the last. The only thing that hasn't gotten easier is getting up and exercising.I'm having a hard time remembering what all has happened in the last week, let alone the week before that, but I'll do my best to share the exciting and important things. The most exciting thing is that I can now tell people I've been out for a month without feeling guilty at all. In all fairness I've been a missionary for a total of a month and a half at least, but people don't really acknowledge the MTC in terms of time out. All in all, I have about 22 1/2 months left, but who's counting anyway?I've had a couple of really cool and spiritual experiences so far (aside from the entire being on a mission thing) that have really been faith builders for me and my companion. First off, we were teaching this guy who has been going through a really rough patch in life and our last appointment with him fell through. We hadn't had an opportunity to visit him in a while, and we felt prompted to stop by and say hey. He'd told us that he had said a prayer for guidance that morning, and that he felt we were the answer to his prayers. Also, I was able to give two blessings this week, being my first two in my life. I don't think I've ever been so nervous. The first was a blessing of comfort for a lady that was starting a new job, and the second was one of healing for a friend of ours that has been having health problems. The faith that each of them had in me made me feel so loved by people that I barely even knew, and each was an amazing experience.In regards to everyday life, things have been up and down. I don't think there was a day this last week that a lesson didn't fall through, and towards the beginning of the week I was dreading that we wouldn't even have decent numbers. We decided to pray about more opportunities to teach and ended up having 7 lessons the
last two
days, doubling our weekly total. Living out here and teaching nearly every hour of every day has really helped me notice those tender mercies that we receive every day.I know it's probably not advised, but so far I've been living p-day to p-day. Every night it's "Woo! (insert number) days till p-day!" I must admit though, I was really looking forward to today, mostly because our zone had the opportunity to have breakfast with President and Sister Killpack and then play games at the park. We got to do a lot of fun stuff, like play volleyball and KUBB (throwing wood sticks and trying to knock down blocks). It was especially nice because it took the place of our morning studies and gave us the rest of the day, so it was pretty much an extended p-day. That brings me to now, having done my weekly shopping and now just kicking it. I wish I could have some more time to relax, but whatever. Gotta get back to the work sometime! Anyway, it's been great hearing from everybody, and I look forward to writing next week. Until then, peace out!Elder Ethan Orchard
