Thursday, February 12, 2015

"housemates are health nuts"

Shout out to Brother Jewkes!! I love that man.
   Oh Mom I have not told you this yet but all of my housemates are health nuts... They are just getting into it and whenever they see me eating a quesidilla or bagels with cream cheese, they are always like "do you have any clue what you are putting in your body?" and I am always like of course I do! I probably know better than you do." haha I need to repent though. It is spendy to eat healthy and Im not willing to spend 50 bucks on groceries a week only to run out and really lose some weight from starving the last week of the month. That happened a couple times in Farmville. We got down to eating stuff from out the cabinet of hopelessly expired food. The Lord provided though with a random pizza delivery from the senior missionaries on the last day before our msf refilled haha.
   Here is a learning experience from the week. I was going to give a training on how to uses time wisely and I remembered that a while back I had actually calculated how much time missionaries have to go out and proselyte in two years. If you subtract things like sleeping, meetings, studies, driving time, p-day, lunches and dinners, among st a host of many other things that we have to do, our time to serve the Lord becomes very limited. Now of course all these things are important and necessary, but I did this to simply put in perspective how much time we really have. When you do the math and round it up Elders have about 8 months to actually be doing the work and Sisters have about 6 months. Whoa! Whats even more is that I have been out for more than a year now so cut 8 months in half... Times is precious, but the beautiful thing is that you can incorporate missionary work into those things that may waste time. For example instead of laying on the ground and starring at the ceiling during lunch I can be making phone calls, or take a lunch with me when we go out. During P day I can give a card out to the lady at Walmart. During car rides I can organize and update the Area book. Of course this is not easy to do and I am still really working at being better with my time, but it is important to remember that this life is is just the blink of an eye. There is a time for everything and now is the time to labor in the lords vineyard. Many hand also make light work though so do all you can to support missionaries where ever you are. They need a lot more help than they let on and a lot of the times they can shy away from asking for help because they don't want to be a burden. So do it for them ask them if you can do anything! I promise they will have something. 
   I love you guys so much and I think about you all the time. Elder Wagner


Monday, February 2, 2015

"FAUTHA GAUD.. Please bless my boys out heeya in da streets!"

We have a super nice house that we share with the Zone leaders. Oh it is so much fun probably to much fun haha.   I have not been keeping to much contact with the recent converts. To communicate to any of them I have to send a letter through the mission office. I do know this though. P should be attending the temple for the first time this upcoming weekend! S is still active but has picked up smoking again last I heard. She is still trying very hard to overcome her addiction, but she is trying which is what matters. F is on fire he received his patriarchal blessing last month and is beginning to consider serving a mission! Apparently he is the only one who participates in the huge elders quorum. Which is surprising because he was kind of shy when we were teaching him. His girlfriend is serving in temple square and yelling at him to go serve a mission haha. She was always yelling at him for something. 

   Funny story time. I am almost certain that I am the only missionary in the mission who has had and will have the opportunity to serve with the only black missionaries in the mission. Both of them from the deep south. Texas and Louisiana. it makes talking to people who aren't white so much easier and more fun. So for the story. It is 8:30 at night and we pull into this sketchy apartment complex. close by we see a bunch of hood-rat looking folk joking around near where we parked. Me and Elder B left our wallets in the car locked it and went to go talk to them. As we approach They start looking real skittish. We both put our hands in the air and let them know we weren't cops, but rather we are Jesus Christs servants. The four guys chill out a little bit and begin to ask us questions about what we are doing. We told them and asked if we could share the saviors message with them. They agreed and Elder B began to pray. Note: When elder B prays his voice gets very soft. So when these guys heard it, one of them spoke up during the middle of the prayer and said "Say it like you mean it man!" Elder B pauses and continues his prayer in the same fashion that he left off in. It didn't take long before once again the same guy repeats his request, except this time a little louder. Elder B pauses and then in a loud voice starts over. "FAUTHA GAUD.. Please bless my boys out heeya in da streets!" As soon as he said those words I died laughing on the inside and unfortunately a lot of it manifested itself on the outside as a snorting laugh that was obviously a failed attempt at not laughing. The other guys hearing my wonderful snorting sounds began to do the exact same thing. We all began laughing at some point. It eventually died down and we began to teach them a little bit. It turns out they were all really sincere guys who had just made some bad decisions in life. Though they were not to interested in the message it was good to be around people who were willing to at least listen and have a funny moment with. 
   As for the rest of this week we have been doing a lot of tracting. Which this time around has not been to fruitful. Though there were a couple other worthy journal entries from it haha. There are a lot of part member families in this ward so we are going to begin to work with them as well. But part members are really tricky. If you push them to hard they will get offended and not want to meet with you, but if you don't push them they will remain in the same rut that they have been in for the last 10 years. We will give it our best shot though. 
   I only get less than a year to finish out strong. I have set some goals for myself and plan on achieving them. Thank you for all your prayers and love. Stay strong and carry on. Elder Wagner