Elder Casey Grow: February 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

2 Months

Well its been a good week this week We had a lot of really good lessons and we had one of our families come to church this time! we were so excited for them and we introduced them to members and did our best to show to them how important church is. We have been doing a lot of walking and even though its Summer now and its HOT its all worth it to see that family and the inactive families we have come back to church. That is really all that matters out here... its not about you and how tired or sick you are... you just get up, put on a white shirt and tie, grab your bag and get to work cause you have no idea what is going to happen You might run into someone that has been waiting to hear your message and they just happened to be home at the right time and felt like listening this time. That's really what i have learned out here. Missionary work isn't about you at all. You just get to introduce The Gospel to them. The Gospel just does the rest. As a Missionary you just need to learn what to teach to your investigator and in return you end up learning just as much as them. hahaha That's about it... you don't need a name tag that reminds you who you are every day because as Members of the Church you have the name of Jesus Christ imprinted on your heart and you can choose if you are going to let the name be shown on the outside with your actions or the inside. That is something me and Elder Pajela have taught to our ward here about missionary work and how all members of the church are and should be missionaries. That reminded me of Elder Costa's talk about being a missionary everyday of his life now and how he talks to everyone about the church and he just asks after introducing himself (as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and saying "Are you a member?" they reply "No" and he just asks "Well Why not?" hahaha soo simple yet so hard to do. Unless you have a name tag ;) hahaha well sorry if that all sounded preachy but thats really about it this week nothing crazy happened... oh wait Elder Pajela thought a BIG dog was going to bite him and he started to swing his back pack at it and well the dog was just going to sniff him but after the back pack swinging the dog was going to bite him... i just laughed at him and kept walking hahahaha the dog eventually just ran away... hahahahaha oh the joy of random dogs barking at you and following you! hahahaha well love ya all! hope you are all staying alive!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Blog

yeah sooo i really dont have much to say... last week was rather dull and unexciting just work work work so if you have questions to ask that would be helpful in writing =P

How is Ivy doing? Is her family members? Do you have any investigators that seem serious?

Ivy's mom is less active and Ivy comes to church and been reading the book of mormon from the beginning one chapter a day. she is the oldest in her family too. We have investigators who ask a lot of questions that we answer but wont come to church because its too early yet they continue to read and listen. we have one investigator that was a previous investigator a year ago and she is 30-32 i think and has 3 kids and her mom is listening and even made her friends come listen to us who have families of their own one of them after listening to us teach Aye Montepolka (the previous investigator) about the BOM and praying to know, said to us that she is 53 years old and never ever let or wanted to hear what the missionaries had to say to her.. but now she wants to hear. so we teach them all together the Nanay's we call them which means Mom's so the three Mom's are all friends and we teach them all together because one its fun they have some of the funnest questions and comments and two because they are all close friends and will encourage each other to go to church and such ( gots to love peer pressure ) yeah so thats really our main investigator because the others are not taking that step of sacrificing their time to go to church. There has been a lot of changes in teaching around here as well and how to be more effective we have been changing up the way the mission field works here in the Angeles Mission. So we are still working out the kinks and what not how to manage time and teach to people. And focusing on Less Actives. Which is the main thing here in Jaen because there are 609 members in our ward 331 member households (but the records are messed up i noticed and need to be fixed soo probably about 250 member households) and yet 82 average attendance in sacrament and we counted the most active members on our fingers last night.. we came up with 11 active families... We have been focusing on activating less actives and we had a lot come yesterday even one we stopped teaching for the last 3 weeks and he is an RM and used to be a ward missionary he came to church we asked him to come work with us and come to PEC meeting and Coordination meeting and he came back later and shaved and cleaned up and worked with us and really had fun with us and started to ask us to come teach his family. so yeah thats about the highlights of the week!

Was Sacrament Meeting switched to the end of the 3 hour block? Also, did you buy a watch?

nope we still have 8am and its really not helping anyone...
and nope no watch we dont really use it cause we have such a set schedule that it doesnt matter its not like we are going to skip teaching someone if we are late we still stop by cause we have to walk by their house hahaha

the juices are getting used up fast! oh the slushy things dont really work... hahaha but thats fine i just like the juice and kool aids and the gatorade was gone in 3 days.... =D
Can you buy the juices there?

not really sure... we dont have real supermarkets and the juices around here are like Mango weird fruit things or Tang
but i have plenty [of] kool aid even tho the ones [powdered juices] in the tube are WAY good and no sugar - i was shocked! well only the cherry and fruit punch is what i like

Monday, February 8, 2010

Letter!

So i am glad you liked the pictures! well we went back to that place for p day so the pics are the same just different elders! hahaha well nothing really new has happened... just been teaching and watching our investigators not go to church! grrr but thats just how it goes i guess! You can bring the horse to the water but you can't force him to drink! Me and Elder Pajela are still having fun annoying each other and i have just been working on learning and teaching in the language. I should probably talk a lot more to elder pajela in tagalog... people are starting to say he sounds american a lot more then he ever has! hahahaha yeah his english has gotten a lot better! I still have to proof read his letter to the mission president for all the bad grammar mistakes that for some reason Word doesnt think is wrong! hahaha but who knows if i am even right cause if it sounds right to me, then its good enough! hahahaha =P soo its getting reallllly hot in the day but reallllly cold at night! sooo a lot of sweating has been going on and a lot of "WOW Mainit Talaga!" being said! ("Wow it's really hot") so yeah, i am a live, i am healthy and i love to eat ice cream! hahahaha that is really one of the great pleasures... i have really enjoyed coming home and being all hot and eating a big bowl of ice cream! hahaha well thats about all i gots for you Oh, Elder Pajela thought he was going to get eaten by a dog the other day and freaked out and scared the dog... then the dog was really going to bite him cause he was swingin his back pack at it! hahahaha oh i just kept walking laughing at him! hahahaha well i hope everyone is having a good time in the states! love ya!