"We had a small mouse that was getting into the house..."

Daniel’s Letter #13

This week seriously has been a blur, it's strange. Everything is beginning to blur together. I am now consistently using my planner to remind me of what actually happened. 

Monday: Not much else happened other than cleaning and napping. We went back to Wal-mart and browsed (today we'll probably hit up a pawn shop!) and there is some strange stuff at Wal-mart in the South. We did get a Church Headquarters Referral, that was a nice surprise.

Tuesday: Tuesday was the best day so far I think. We did our service for Genealogical Society and instead of editing photos like normal, we were counting all sorts of random boxed stuff in a storage room. Elder Rasmussen and I turned it into a competition for who had the box with the most stuff. We were able to visit with Sister Carter and we are going to work with her to get rides to church from the Lockharts. She was apparently baptized by Brother Lockhart a few years back, so they know each other. Then we saw Philippe and cursed rest home wifi because we weren't able to load the Christmas Initiative video (which is better each time I see it) and so we read from the Book of Mormon with him. Then we went and taught Jodie about real studying and relying on the Spirit and her own spiritual experiences to help her with smoking. Then we taught Mitzi that night and Mitzi is always awesome. We're going to get her done with smoking and on date for baptism this week! We were also able to set up an appointment with a potential investigator for Wednesday!

Wednesday: So we were supposed to go over to Jackie's home today for a lesson, but she ended up having to work over time so that fell through. She's really nice though, hopefully we can teach her! We also went over to Jodie's with the youth (2 of them haha) and built a rabbit hut for her while the kids and the leaders did dishes and mopped, that was actually super fun. She's on all sorts of stuff from her surgery so she's even more interesting than usual.

Thursday: Unfortunately uneventful day. We set up some return appointments, but that's about it. Oh, and something else, to be explained later. 

Friday: District meeting and exchanges! District meeting was good, we practiced using the "how to begin teaching" points from Preach My Gospel as door approaches and that was actually really fun. I am also studying Preach My Gospel like School notes which is super helpful for learning and I feel like I'm back in school, which is nice because I actually miss learning in awesome classes (yes I'm a nerd). I went up to Clifton Forge and that was fun. We ran into some less active Korean lady who apparently had been baptized by missionaries in Korea and then had moved to America. She's quite the character. There was a Christmas Parade in Clifton so we went to that and saw a ton of less-actives and other people there. 

Saturday: We exchanged back that morning. We weren't able to see anyone today either but there was a Christmas Parade in Covington that night so I got 2 parades in a row. I must be special. 

Sunday: We had church like normal and that was good, Fast and Testimony meetings are always good. Choir practice was fun. We are singing December 20th for the Christmas program! We are singing Still, Still, Still and This is the Night both songs are good. Still Still Still is really awesome. The Christmas devotional last night was so flipping great, all the talks were awesome. I especially likes Elder Bednar’s talk, since he talked about Samuel the Lamanite and his predictions about the signs of Christ's birth. Samuel the Lamanite is my favorite. 

Things that I've learned this week worth sharing:

The "Discover Why" part of the Christmas video and cards this year have been a large part of my pondering lately. There is a reason we are invited to discover why the Savior was born. Savior literally means a person who saves or delivers. Christ was given this title by the angels because that's what He will do in His life. He will be the one to deliver us and He is the only person who will ever be able to fully do that. That is why He was born, not so that He could do stuff for Himself, but for all of us, individually. 

Another thing that is slowly becoming easier for me to accept is that a missionary’s success is measured by their commitment to find, teach, and baptize (PMG somewhere) and not by the actual results. Hopefully I can fully grasp this, because sometimes it stinks to have empty days. 

Fun Story: 

•   Tuesday, Elder Rasmussen walked straight into a tree. 

•   Wednesday, Elder Rasmussen noticed some of his sunflower seeds were missing. So naturally he asked me if I had taken some. To which I responded that I have no idea how to even eat them, so no. Then, where did they go you ask? Well we weren't sure either. Then the next day after one trip to Wal-mart and a night of sleep this is what we found (pictured below)! Yep, we had a small mouse that was getting into the house for some sunflower seed snackage. I was pumped.  

•   Before we set up the mouse-trap, Elder Rasmussen was trying to figure out how it worked. And got his finger smashed in the process. It wasn't his week, haha. 

Love you all, hope you are all having a freezing cold December!

Elder Goold