Well another week has come and gone, and I still can't believe it! Time goes by so fast! It really does! I have already been out 7 1/2 months! Say what?! Its crazy! I am sometimes scared at how fast the time goes!
Well I am going to do this week by day:
Monday:
Well as boring as our P-days have been these last 2 transfers, we got to spice them up a bit with some pool with our friend Clayton, aka "Swearing Mormon", He has a pool table and we got to play some 9 ball with him! It was a lot of fun and he taught us some really cool tricks! He swears a ton, but the whole time he was talking about letting "It" guide our shots. (It being the spirit...haha) He is funny, and we like him! He said he will expect us every week at the same time so we don't have to call ahead, he said "Just come!" But today we had to cancel because we are having dinner at the Hovances tonight. But it should be a fun activity for p-days now. haha And next time he said we will do a little less pool so we could discuss God as well. haha
Tuesday:
Like always we had our food pantry service in the morning, and then had our Mormon.org time, and then went out with Bro Duffy to visit Norm and helped with a few concerns he had with tithing, because he is only on social security and then relies a lot on his family members to take care of the rest. But it was a good discussion and we think it helped him out a lot. Then we got to see Rob and Misty. We found this cool pamphlet to help people start family history on the church website. Here is a link to it: https://familysearch.org/myfamily
We printed out part of in and used it in our lesson in which we were able to challenge them to write down a story of one of their relatives. And then we could help them get onto Familysearch and put it on the site. They liked it and said they would so Im excited to see how it went!
Wednesday:
Sadly on Wednesday we called Frank to see if we could come over again and talk with him, and he seemed WAY more quiet than usual and he replied, "No, Not really..." it was silent for a moment. Then I said, "Alright, well is there anything we can do for you and your wife?" And he said, "No, we are all set." And that is a phrase that here in New England means "We are not interested and we satisfied the way we are." So yeah, that was a let down...we will call him after a little more time passes by, and try to offer service again. But then we called Mark and Crystal to just check up on them and see if we could help them in anyway, and it was once again the perfect time to call! Crystal said, "No, way! When you guys call is always amazing!" She then explained that we were in her dream the previous night and how after she told Mark about it that Mark said, "you know, now the Elders are going to call you." And what do you know 15 minutes later we called! haha It was really cool and they said they would welcome another visit, and so we got to see them on Thursday!
But before I get to that. We had district meeting and then went on exchange. I stayed here again, with Elder Farnworth, our district leader, and Elder Dally went up to Augusta with Elder Shupe.
And so Elder Farnworth got to help me teach the first session of our Book of Mormon Class. The sister, Bro Duffy, Bro. & Sis. Royer, Norm, and Brother Dowdy were there! And it went really well. We are using the list of chapters that testify of the savoir in Preach My Gospel chapter 2 under the Plan of Salvation. There are about 50 chapters total. So we are thinking it will be able to last close to a year. We really just introduced the class, and went over the title page and the introduction. But it went really well and we showed a couple of great videos that went along with our discussion as well! We will be teaching the Book of Mormon class again next week, but from then on out, the sisters will rotate teaching it with us. So yeah, the word will get out and hopefully more will come, but even if we only get those same people it would be a success. It is really going to be good for Brother Dowdy! We are excited to see him become more of a part of the Branch and more active!
Thursday:
We got to do service at the library! Then went to to see Mark and Crystal! It went well, and we asked them if we could bring a member next time and they were game for it! So we will hopefully seeing them again this week wit a member!
Then we got to go out teaching with Brother Hutchins again! He met us down in Boothbay and saw sister Perry first! We got her all set up with familysearch and talked about the importance and power of family history work and going to the temple. Brother Hutchins made some great comments that just brought so much more to our lesson. And afterwards we as well say Ellen. She is an off and on investigator and has been for many years. But we helped her with family search as well! She was so excited about it though! You could tell she was super interested in it! Hopefully we will see some progress from this new excitement!
Then we got to exchange back with our normal companions. It was a great full day of teaching though, which was sooo nice!
Friday:
We had a long weekly planning day but it has been because of all of the records we have been making recently! I will explain more in the sunday section.
But after weekly planning, we went out to contact some more less actives that we hadn't met yet that were on the branch list, and had some good contacts there. But the miracle was following up with a former investigator. Her name is Jessica Gallant, and we stopped by and asked if she would be interested in meeting with us again, and she said yes and that she has quite the load of questions ready for us too! They are looking for a new church that is more in line with their beliefs but the father's health is kind of sketchy so she didn't know when. But she committed to come to a church tour the next day! I connected with her really well, because she was a homeschooling mom. Idk why, but I just knew it and had to ask! She was happy to hear how my homeschooling experience was very much influenced and enhanced by the church. It was cool!
Saturday:
We had lunch with the Quinlans (SIster Quinlan is a vegan, so I am always happy to go over there! haha) Then we came back to damariscotta for the church tour. Sadly she didn't show but our member that came to be our extra male, Brother Goldrup, was a really good sport and offered to play the investigator. So we practiced on him and it was really good to do! So that was still really good.
Sunday:
We had a great testimony meeting! And the rest of the day was updating records with the sisters! We are going through the branch list and getting EVERYONE contacted! We are practically all done. Now we need to organize all the information that we have gathered to present it to our branch clerk and Pres. Quinlan. We are excited to get those who have moved (16+ people) on to their new wards, and the rest of the list updated! It has been quite a process, but very productive!
We also met with Brother Dowdy. He is so great! We talked more about the plan of salvation and as well how to repent! After we talked, he asked for an assignment, HOW COOL! haha, so yeah we gave him a few chapters to read in the Book of Mormon. And then he told us "thanks for meeting with me, this really helps!" He is such a nice guy and really wants to be better!
Well thats my week! I hope it strengths all those who read this, in some way! The Lords work is great work! And Im so proud to be a part of it!
I love you all!
-Elder Swalberg
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