Sunday, June 9, 2013

NEW COMPANION JUNE 3, 2013

Hey everyone. Not much happened this past week. gotta new companion, Elder R. we get along good, he's been serving for a while and already knows Spanish anyways. the past 2 weeks we've gotten zero's, but we've had some success in other ways. we are really focusing on getting the members working together. there isn't much unity in our branch; we really don't want it to get dissolved. its frustrating when we report our numbers and they are pretty weak, and the zone leaders ask what's up.. gotta stay positive though. success isn't really based off of numbers anyways. other than that, I cant say much.. sorry this isn't the best email :\ have a wonderful week! love you all :)
 
Sincerely,
Elder Jacob James

COUCH THIEVES April 29th, 2013

hey everyone
soo things aren't quite looking our way here but here are some things anyways: the English speaking elders live down the street a little ways. they stole our couch that we got from the sister missionaries.. we liked that couch because our apartment has basically no furniture. So.. in the morning we broke into their house while they were gone. We found our couch upstairs and started to take it back, but then I asked, "why are we taking this? there is a huge couch downstairs..." haha so we dropped our small couch and went for the big one. we left, and headed our way back home, carrying the couch in the street. we got a lot of funny looks, but one car stopped and asked if we were missionaries. the lady driving was about 50 years old or so, and the passenger was actually a member, a returned missionary. he got here the day before, and was looking for members to help him figure our what church he should be going to and stuff. she said she loves hearing the word of God, but isn't LDS. we haven't been able to come in contact with them yet, but sometimes stealing a couch is what you're supposed to be doing! maybe.
also, we contacted a dropped investigator. Elder E. and his prior companion dropped him because he didn't want to change or progress.. well we visited him. he said he had a question for us. he said that the day before, he had a feeling to open the book of Mormon, for the first time. he opened to Moroni 8 (of all the places in the book of Mormon..) and started reading. He read how children don't need to be baptized. So he asked why we believed that. We explained the best we could but he was pretty stubborn.. ironically, he was going to baptize his children a few days after (this past Sunday). He was pretty upset with that chapter.. we haven't contacted him again to see how he's doing but it was cool to see how that all worked out.
Other small side notes: we met an ex-marine from ghost recon, and he was in a sniper squad of 6. he was drunk so we didn't want to teach him but he told us all about himself so it was kinda cool.
And our water smells really bad. Apparently this whole city gets its water from a nasty lake or something. Either way, showering and brushing my teeth have become more of a pain than a relief.
Also, little Hispanic kids were messing around and knocked our bikes over.. both of our rear brakes on our bikes no longer work haha
 
Well this isn't much of a letter/email and I'm sorry for that. We had very little success this past week and its quite miserable to be honest.  But this is where I have to push forward with faith and keep trying.  Pride just ruins this whole thing, and I'm tired of being selfish and want to lose myself in this work. But desires are only half the battle. All will be well here though :) I know I can do this with His help!
 
I hope all is well for everyone though. I'm super glad to hear from all of you, and keep you in my prayers.
 
Sincerely,
Elder Jacob James