Daniel vs 2 Years

Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 10:48:25 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

I hit two years last Saturday!! Its crazy. I'm supposed to be flying home tomorrow, but I'm not! Its kind of a weird feeling. I have my departing dinner tonight with all the guys I came out with. Then they leave and I stay.

This week was crazy. We had a ton of lessons so it was really good.

On Monday we taught a new guy. His name is Gibson, he's from New Jersey but his family came from Haiti, but he works at a prison here. He came to the singles ward with a girl. It was a tough lesson because he told us he didn't believe in God... So we tried our best. We're meeting with him again soon.

Tuesday we taught Alex again. We finally pinned him down to a baptism date! August 11th. And I told his mom I was going home after that to guilt her into keeping it on that day... Was that bad? I thought it worked really well...

Wednesday we taught AJ in the morning. He is seriously doing amazing. I cant even believe it. We talked about the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel, and he just gets it! He's super excited about being baptized on the 11th. We talked alot about repentance, and then we could tell he was thinking, and then he told us, "I think I've started my repentance process without knowing it." And we were blown away. The next day we went to the visitors center with him in the morning as well. He was pretty touched by it. It was good for him to visualize everything that happened.

Wednesday night we also taught Mason, the guy who was excommunicated. The lesson went really well. We tried teaching one thing and then ended up teaching another... We just talked a lot about the Atonement. Then we gave him a blessing after. It was a super spiritual lesson.

Thursday we had another incident with that same district leader I talked about before. He was accusing his companion of not having a testimony that Joesph Smith was a prophet, because he was writing in his journal at 10:30 at night, when he was supposed to be sleeping. Its ridiculous, I know. This guy is a tool. That's the only way to describe him. We went over at 8:30 in the morning, and ... corrected him... Sharply. I had had it. I was done dealing with him. So I just let him know exactly how I felt about everything he's done. It was not nice.

On Sunday, we taught Lance again. He's doing great. Still on track for the 4th. We taught him all the commandments, and he's all good. We settled some things about the baptism as well. I guess his girl friends mom was freaking out because she wanted the program to be perfect, and I guess she thinks we've never done this before or something. haha. That's ok. We'll try extra hard. 

That was all the highlights from the week! 

Love,

Elder Feller

Daniel vs Singles

Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:44:46 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net


We had a pretty good week. It was mostly slow. But it ended really well. We taught a guy, named Brandon, that Elder Schick was teaching in his last area, that is going to be coming to the singles ward pretty soon. And we had to bike 7 miles to get there because it was no drive day. But it was good. 


The bad news this week, Megan got spooked when we extended a baptismal date on the second lesson (which, by the way, is what we are supposed to do). So were not going to meet with her until part way through July when her friend gets back in town. Which is too bad because she is an awesome investigator. But that's ok. We did what we're supposed to do and she'll be back. 


The really good news, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but we've been asked to focus on our Singles ward for our work. So we have made a lot of steps and progress there. We met with our Ward Mission Leader, Matt, and made a lot of plans. On Sunday we went to Ward Council and talked about a lot of things we can do there. We've been going to all of the activities and talking to people to get to know them and see if they have friends. Its fun, but, of course, kinda awkward. Its weird being in a singles ward for a few reasons. The first, its hard to talk to single girls as a missionary. Second, I dont remember what its like to be normal! I dont remember what normal people do or what its like. And I think working in the singles ward gets us close to that. Its a line we have to stay on the right side of, for a lot of reasons. But the people in the ward are awesome, and its a ton of fun. We're doing great. Just since we decided to start focusing on it, we have had a non-member who was coming to church every week invite himself to meet with us, since he said no the first time we offered. His name is Lance. We met him last night at the church building. He's really sincere and wants to know the truth for the right reasons, not for his girlfriend. 


Also, in Priesthood meeting on Sunday, we were introduced to Pattrick, a former investigator from before I was here. He told us he investigated the church for a while, and then disappeared for a few months, but now he is back and is thinking about being baptized. We set up an appointment for later this week. 


Love,
Elder Feller

Elder Schick and I at the Gilbert Temple