July 15, 2024
Hey Everyone!
This week has been an interesting one. We had some great lessons, did a bunch of service, and had Zone Conference! Good stuff all around, lots of good times and not so good, but what can ya do. That's life!
Tuesday - Tuesday was a fun time. We had a lesson with our friend Ricky in the morning, which was an interesting lesson. He's been on the books for a long time, and even been on date before. But his major issue is his family really doesn't want him to get baptized and he doesn't want to lose his family over it. So, if y'all could pray for him to find the courage to follow Christ's example, that'd be awesome! We had dinner with the Cox family who just moved into the ward. And they're already shooting for favorite family in the ward. It's been kind of an ongoing battle between the Days and the Vogls. But the Cox family has got the nerdy end to it! When we helped move them in, the young men all got to hold swords of different franchises and even their salt and eer shakers are red and blue lightsabers! And to top it off, they said if we have an open spot on the calendar for dinner, shoot them a message and they'll try to make it work to come over! Hopefully we won't have to use that, but they had some good carne asada tacos, so I wonder what else they have up their sleeve! Then afterwards, we had a lesson with the Wei family. Well, it was actually with just Zhenyi. Max was feeling sick, so they missed church and Jiongjiong kept Max home from the lesson, so it was just Zhenyi and Madison. But it was such a good lesson. We were planning on a Plan of Salvation, but we read 2 Nephi 31 instead to rehash the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Zhenyi had some good questions about the Holy Ghost, so it was great to help him recognize that he's already had time where he's felt it. They're so awesome! Unfortunately, they're going on a trip for a month at the end of the month, but we showed them that there are congregations in China they can go to. It'll be an awesome experience to go to a church speaking their native language!
Wednesday - Today was a pretty ok day. There wasn't much that went on. We had a lesson with a lady named Regina that we met walking away from the JW convention. We shared the restoration with her and I think she liked it. We need to get better at having more in person lessons on the first go around. Then, in the evening we headed out to Plainview to have an in person lesson with our friend Devan. We read 2 Nephi 31 to go over the Plan of Salvation with him. At the end of the lesson, I just couldn't shake the feeling that we needed to ask if he wanted to be baptized. He said yes, and we proceeded to put him on date for August 16th. His biggest problem though is he's not super great at getting to church. So if y'all could pray for him to get that motivation, that would be amazing!
Thursday - Today was Zone Conference! It was a very interesting one, too. We left Rochester to go to Bloomington in P-Day clothes! They had a little carnival of lessons set up for us. We did things like an obstacle course, three-legged kickball, and, my favorite, we have bottle rockets! They all did have lessons behind them, too. The obstacle course had the idea of spiritual maturity and being able to pass that to the next person. Three-legged kickball was learning more about working in tandem with our companion. and the bottle rocket had the idea of, as we help people find Christ in their lives and face their challenges head on, we can help them soar higher than they could on their own. It was a fun day, and I was glad I got to see some of my Duluth Zone friends, too!
Friday- Thursday was fun. We went out and did some service for a couple hours for one of our people named Vicki. She recommended we wear long-sleeve shirts to avoid stinging nettles while weeding, so I was sweating up a storm out there. We then used Acts 1 to teach her about how the church is organized and put the question forth about why don't other churches have the same organization as Christ charged them to have in the New Testament. She liked what we said because she said no one had explained it that way before. She's progressing slowly, but I think she'll make it someday! We then had lunch with the Roch 4 Elders at one of our recent convert's house. Brother Lao made some Lasagna and a killer pecan pie! It was so good. He's a great guy.
Saturday - Today was just full service day. We started at 8am by helping load up the Harmer's moving truck. They're moving to Indianapolis, so it's sad to see them go. Their kids are some of the funny ones in the ward. After a couple hours of that, we went home and did our P-Study in our service clothes because we weren't gonna have time to do anything else before we headed out to Audrey's house to help mow her yard. I don't think I've experienced the full effect of hot and humid until mowing on Saturday. I was just sweating the whole time and was just so tired afterwards. It just means I got a really good workout in that day.
Sunday - And we make it to the Sabbath! The Sabbath is always an amazing day. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to go and renew my covenants and worship Heavenly Father and My Savior. Elder Timothy got to speak in sacrament meeting on the Come, Follow Me for the week. He did a great job! We later had dinner with the Ketchum family. And we learned that Brother Ketchum DMs DND games! So we might be able to get a one shot in before the transfer is over, or if I'm here next transfer, a small campaign. It was just so cool because he's made all his own equipment, table and everything. And we only figured out this because he wore a DND themed shirt! Wished he would've worn it last time we were over!
So that's the week! Just a lot of fun times to be had. If y'all could pray for our people and our missionary efforts, that'd be awesome! Someday it's a bit discouraging here, but the ward is awesome and we have some friends that are progressing really well, so I can't complain too hard! This week I read in Luke 19, about Zacchaeus. He's a great example of what we should do when we can't really see the Savior in our lives. Since he was shorter and couldn't see through the crowd of people, he made a way so he could see the Savior by climbing a tree. My challenge to you this week is to find a way to figuratively climb the tree to see the Savior more clearly in your lives!
Love y'all! Keep looking for miracles!
Sincerely,
Elder Buchanan
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