Elder Dallin Stout

Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 1:22 PM

Good Week
   So in our car we have this thing called TIWI, this mission was the first to get it because it was tested here and now its approved to be used in other missions. Its a little box in the bottom corner of the drivers side wind shield. Its a computer that tells us when we are driving bad and sometimes reports us. He tells us to slow down, put on our seat belt and tells us if we are driving aggressively. 
Tuesday
     Our lesson with Dan fell through so we had a lesson with Zeny instead. Then we saw Brother Nolan and went over tithing with him. After dinner we had a lesson with the Goyeneche's and commited them to do daily family prayer/ scripture study.
Wednesday     We tried to see Brother Brodbeck but he wasn't home, We ran into his son and found out that he has been in a care center for the last 3 weeks. Later we had a lesson planned for Erica, who is a refferal from the zone leaders. We have not met her yet but confirmed the lesson by phone, we took 2 laurels with us but Erica fell through.
Thursday
     We had a zone meeting and got our new zone goals. They are to be exactly obedient to the daily schedule, pray for people silently who reject us and read some of our patriarchal blessing each night. We went to see the Logans, durring the visit their daughter came over and needed help moving things to her house.. So we schedules a time to help her. We had a lesson with Richard Perry and Bro Santini.
Friday
     We were walking to the Logans in our service clothes and while waiting at a light to cross the street some girl drove by and her passenger cat called at me. (Elder Martin to this day has teased me since) It was weird, when we're in a shirt and tie it usually seems to repel that kind'a stuff. When we got to the Logans we helped move stuff from the side of their house into their truck and killed many black widows in the process. Later we saw the Goyeneche's. Elder Martin is a little frustrated with them because of their procrastination to get baptized.
Saturday
     We went on a blitz, I with Elder Comin who has been out a week. We knocked doors and talked with a few people. We went to a garage sale and talked to a guy named Richard, who told us about his visit to Salt Lake. He had a big knife collection and I got one for $2, then he gave us both a utility knife free because he said "your doing the Lords work". Later we met a few less actives we didn't know and also saw Zeny. We had a lesson with her about overcoming anger by being prayerful/trusting. She says its still hard for her to pray on her own but she's improving.
Sunday
     At church the Bells spoke about member missionary work for the 40 day fast and shared some personal experiences that they have had with sharing the gospel. The Morris family had us for dinner and also invited the Perry's. Then we saw the Goyeneche's and tallked to Juan about his questions that he had in class about the gathering of Israel. Zeny sent us a text and said that she was really upset. When she came home she didn't tell us in front of her family, but we were able to cheer her up and she told us that she will tell us later.

Love,
Elder Stout
Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:34 PM

This week

     Tuesday
This morning we got 3 calls from Juan. We answered every time but our phone wasn't connecting, so we figured that he wanted help fixing his truck. We got into service clothes and drove over but only Zeny and the kids were there. We stayed and talked with her for a while, she wants to be baptized but can't because she is not married to Juan. They have been planning to get married for a long time but we found out that she is uncomfortable with marriage. We were there at the right time to comfort and encourage her. We had a lesson with Dan right afterwards. He has been doing good on his resolve to quit smoking, he has gone from 2 packs a day to gradually using only 3 cigarettes and now to a vaporizer! This is a huge improvement for him, we talked about a patriarchal blessing and how they help guide us in through our lives. We also saw the Gonzalez's after dinner and encouraged them in their efforts to quit smoking in a few weeks. They gave us a bunch of food and milk before we left.  Neither of us had money to shop on Monday so this was like manna from heaven!
     Thursday
We had a really good district meeting.  We discussed our studies about prayer in chapter 4 of Preach My Gospel. It really helped me to analyze my prayers and how I can improve them. Later we tried to visit some people, but no one was home. So we went to see Zeny and talked with her for a while before the rest of the Goyeneche family showed up and we had dinner with them later.
     Saturday
We were able to visit Sister Madsen who is less active. She is super nice and had us work on a project with her, as we talked and caught up on how her trip had been. She has been out of town and really busy for the past month so it was good to be able to visit her again. We had dinner with Brandon who took us out to an awesome Chinese restaraunt.  Apparently he knows several people from my last area in Thousand Oaks. His wife works with a member of the ward and he also knows Dago. He is a recent convert, Brandon helped teach him with the missionaries. He has horns tatooed on his head, so now I know a Mormon that really has horns.
     Sunday
Fast and testimony meeting was really good.  It was the kick-off for our ward 40 day fast and several of the members bore their testimony about missionary work and the opportunities/experiences that they are having to share the gospel with people! The Gonzalez's haven't been to church in a while, so afterwards we tried to see them. They told us that they were sick, so we couldn't meet with them.  We ended up walking to dinner and stopping on the way to see the Goyeneche's.  Only William and his siblings were home so we talked with him for a bit.

Love,
Elder Stout