Feb 17, 2014

This week was lots of fun. Had a birthday and now I am 19 years old.

Monday we had p-day. There were 4 of us elders. We emailed and then we played at the church building. We had a Nerf fight and then basketball.

Tuesday we went to Sister McCowan’s in Pawnee Rock. This is about 15 minutes from Great Bend. We had lunch and then helped her with moving her firewood. We were able to have a lesson with the Swan family. They are in wheelchairs and were not able to make it to church on Sunday because of the snow.  Then we went and tried to visit with investigators and other members of the ward. Then we had Spanish class with the Spanish elders but no one came to our class.

Wednesday morning we had weekly planning. This was nice to review which members and investigators we had meet in a week and whom we need to teach and how we can help our investigators.  We then had time to take a few things to the post office to mail to the elders that left Great Bend. Then we were able to have several lessons before dinner with Brother Schwinn out in Hoisington. Hoisington is about 10 miles from Great Bend. Then we were able to have a lesson with Edward Roberts. Edward is a fellow we found by tracting.  A week before we got to Great Bend the elders left him with a copy of the Book Of Mormon. We were able to talk to him about his reading and then about Joseph Smith. 

Thursday we had time to walk to meet a few members. We were able to visit with Brother Rea who is coming back from being less active. We were able to talk to him about what changed in his life to have him come back to church. Then we meet with Sam who is on date for the 8th of March. We were able to invite Sam to church and also to read in the Book Of Mormon. Then we had dinner with the Phillips Family. They live out in Larned Kansas. Their family all speaks Spanish and we had a nice Spanish lesson at the dinner table. We had to excuse our self from the dinner table in Spanish.

Friday we had a meeting in Salina, Kansas. The Ward Bishop picked us up at 8 am and drove us the 2 hours to Salina. While in Salina he and his wife went shopping and bought lots of food for their family. We had a 3 and a half hour Zone Training from The ZLS in our Zone. They talked a lot about using what we have been given to help us in our missionary efforts. One big thing that our mission has is small books that have what we teach and we can leave these with our investigators. Then they talked to us about finding and had us set goals for our Zone. Bishop Bates and his wife took us out to eat after our zone training to a Chinese restaurant. The whole day was made up of eating and driving and meetings. When we finally made it back to our house it was 4 pm  and we then had dinner with Brother Schwinn out in Hoisington.

Saturday we had a day of walking. We walked all the way from little Mexico in Great Bend to the trailer Park across town. There was no one home all day. We knocked lots of doors and only a few people answered their doors. Then we had a ward adult dinner at the Swans house. The ward did a dinner at a few houses and you went to the house that was the closest to where you lived. There were 10 of us at the Swans house. Then we were able to see Edward Roberts. We talked about church and about him being on the city council.

Sunday was my 19th Birthday. We had church and meetings and a seminary party. Church was Great. We had about 80 people and a member of the Stake Presidency. Bishop talked about fortifying your house from the adversary. This includes the Internet and cell phones even our books and TV.  Then the member of the stake presidency talked about the pioneers and how their trials fit their time in life and how our trials are harder but they are for our time. After church we were asked to help with the seminary lesson and also have lunch with them. They had a big activity using scripture mastery. This was nice to use the scriptures I learned and help the youth learn them. One of the young Women in the ward is only 4 and a half years old. Deiah Curtis was born on 29th of February in 1996. Then we had dinner with the Carlton family. We had a nice lesson about missionary work. Then we were able to learn about the Carlton’s daughter’s missions and what we could do to help us in our mission.

This week was great. We walked about the whole town and had a great time in the smaller towns in our ward. The Great Bend Ward is a large area and few active members. Our ward has about 60 - 80 people each week. We have about 10 towns in the ward bounders.

This is Elder Nelson Having fun with the snow.

Love Elder Allen