Week 87

On the Monday before Christmas we spent the entire day from 11AM to 9PM with our friend Shaun from Skyline ward. It was awesome to be able to give him a pretty authentic simulated missionary day. We had a great companionship study talking about finding and how to street contact, and put that to use by talking to everyone we could throughout the day. We didn't start teaching anyone but we made a lot of people feel happier and felt good being friendly to people in the community. We did send off a referral for this interested guy to the Spanish Elders! And we had some very inspired stop-bys. 

We were able to invite a young man from an inactive family to pray to get his work schedule changed, had a really concise and clear 15-minute lesson on the Plan of Salvation with a young family, and had a little coordination meeting with our relief society president which was pretty productive. 

I was really impressed by how willing Shaun is to work and how important Heavenly Father is to him. He'll be a mighty missionary some day. 

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We were street contacting out in old Buckeye, which is mostly full of older people who go to bed early. It was about 8:30, long after most people go to bed here even if they're younger. The streets were dark and quiet and most of the houses had their lights off, but we felt like there was something productive about us being there. 

Finally we saw some people. There was a big 14-seater van with a bunch of kids in it. The parents were about to pull out but we waved as the dad was getting into the car. We asked how he was doing and he said something like "we're good, thank you" before starting to close his door. I said something about me coming from a large family too, he kept answering questions shortly and then going to close the door. Eventually he was just like "good night, Elders" and we all said "wait, hold on!" 

Turns out they're members who used to live in Buckeye, they live in Utah now but they were visiting family. We asked if they knew any of their neighors that could use a message of peace and hope. He grumbled and thought about it. After a moment he said there was one family but they were probably asleep so it was no use. 

We insisted and he finally said the name of the family and said they lived down the street and around the corner. We thanked him and walked down the street as they drove away. 

When we got to the house it was dark, there was only one dim light on inside and the porch light was off. I felt like we were guided to be there so I went and knocked anyway. 

A lady opened the door and I recognized her. She's the inactive granddaughter of an elderly sister in the ward, she and her family live there with her grandma. She was surprised to see us but they were awake expecting her uncle to come visit later that night. She sent her grandma to the door to invite us in and then she and her husband and kids quickly retreated to the back room.

We shared a short message and even though the grandmother wasn't really hard of hearing we testified loudly about the joys of following Jesus Christ and talked about how the prophets have taught that family life is most likely to be happy when founded on the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we prayed and got out of there quick since their grandmother has dementia and likes to talk a lot. 

We said goodbye to the grandmother and then I called out to the back room saying goodbye to the family as well. They said goodbye back, showing they could hear us back there and were listening. I am confident we were led there by the Lord and that it was pleasing to him that we shared what we shared. 

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For the last 2 months I and my companion have been working on a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure board game called "The House of Danger." It is wacky and sometimes frustrating by the stupid ways that you die. Just like the books. 

Our district activity on Christmas day. I played Skull King for the first time and it was terrible because I didn't win. I did do a lot better than I thought I would though, got lucky a few times. Note me here in my glorious Christmas suit. 

The nations of the former British Empire celebrate the day after Christmas as "Boxing Day," a time to clean up and box up all of the things people got after Christmas. I thought that was fitting since we spent all day on thursday helping the mission's housing coordinators, the Cragheads, to clear out an old missionary apartment that's being sold. 

It's not supposed to take very long to clear one of those out but unfortunately the former inhabitants had collected a lot of junk and contraband, including a couch, a bunch of stolen road signs, spoiled food they left in the cabinets, and a sharpened machete that someone hid on top of a cabinet. They hooked a "SPEED LIMIT 25: City of Buckeye" sign and tethered it to the inside of an air vent, letting it hang on the wall. On the back every missionary who'd lived in the apartment since then put their names on the sign. 

I felt a little mournful that we had to throw it away since there was so much history contained on it, but it's probably for the best. 

On the day Shaun went out with us we went and did some service for our friend Ed and he gave us each a 3/4 pint of ice-cream. I decided to try a little magic trick and made it disappear.

We had the baptism of our friend Sophie yesterday and it was really good. It went smoother than any other baptism I've ever been a part of, which is probably due to the fact that we weren't responsible for most of it. Her parents did most of the planning/inviting/setup, we were mostly just there to fill the baptismal font and pose for pictures. We invited all of our other friends we're teaching currently to come to the service and they all made it!

It does look a bit awkward that Sophie and her dad are standing so far away from us in the picture, I think Sophie was trying to avoid blocking the portrait of Jesus. It didn't help her though because if you look Jesus is still looking down at herwith his hand up, as if to say "bro, what?"

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Heavenly Father is becoming an increasingly real and present figure in my life. It's harder to mess around and waste time when you can see His Almighty hand guiding your days. I have been focusing on making the most of the precious time I have left to serve Him in this capacity, with halting improvements here and there. I am optimistic that I will be guided into the growth I need to make to prepare me for life when I go home. 

Faithfully Yours,

Elder C. Calder

Happy New Year🎉