Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Peoria Week 75 *January 19, 2015

This week was definitely rough for me due to the fact that I caught
the cold/ flu bug this wintery season, which is never fun. It's really
lame getting sick as a missionary because this is one of those jobs
that you hate to miss. It really isn't our personal time to just do
whatever. For these two years we are on the lords errand and missing
time out there working is keeping someone from getting the gospel. I
basically have been functioning off of DayQuil and then passing out
every night thanks to my friend NyQuil haha. I am at the tail end of
the sickness so hopefully this next week is a whole lot better.

We were able to do some good stuff this week including exchanges with
our zone members. Exchanges are a great way to actually get the know
the missionaries that you work around  and see how they are doing in
the different areas of missionary work. We all basically know what the
rules are and what we should be doing so when we go with other
missionaries is pretty obvious when they are not doing those things.
My favorite exchanges are the ones where both of us missionaries are
our real selves. When we don't put on some show for the other guy and
truly talk about the things we are struggling with or working on. That
is how we can really help each other. None of us are any better then
the next guy. We just have different strengths and weaknesses. I
stayed in our area this time and got to drive the truck around. Since
we have iPads we also have gps to I didn't get lost once. That was
definitely a perk. The day we went on exchanges we had a few really
great lessons and sorted out our list of people that could potentially
be willing to learn more about the gospel.

This year the Peoria stake theme is "Anxiously engaged in the work of
salvation for both the living and the dead". We are so stoked for
this. For the first time the entire stake will be centered on
missionary work and is missionaries get to help them teach their
friends and share the gospel to all the world. It will be a good year
for sure.

We met a part member family this week named the Brinkerhoffs. The wife
is a member and has been trying for some time now to get the husband
to take the missionary lessons. Well something happened in his life
that made him want to do it all on his own. He works on a drilling rig
and is gone from home for months on end so scheduling a time that
would work for him was really tough. He called his wife and told her
to set everything up with us so that when he comes home this next week
we can just sit down and bang out the needed lessons so that he can be
baptized asap. We are excited to see where it all leads to. I don't
know if we will be able to do it as fast as he wants us to but we will
try our best to make sure he knows everything before he has to make
the steps into the baptismal font.

On Saturday I had a really neat experience. Many of you know that my
dad is a convert to the church. Well one of the missionaries that
baptized him lives here in Arizona. I got a hold of him and set up a
lunch. He was so excited to meet me and show his sons what can happen
if you go on a mission and do the very best that you can. It was
interesting to see the other side of the conversion story of my dad.
He had all this amazing photos of my dad and mom in the 80s rocking
the stone washed pants and huge mullets. He could not stop saying good
things about my dad and the experience that he had. It was a huge
blessing to get to do that because it helped me to see that this work
doesn't just stop after we go home. The effects of our service go way
beyond anything we can realize.

Well I will talk to you all next week. Happy trails.

Elder Cole Safford

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