Email from August 15, 2022
Hey all!
It’s been a good week! We have definitely worked super hard, and this week has flown by. President Farias has put a huge emphasis on finding these last two weeks, and as a mission, we are doing super good! It is really cool to see the miracles that have been happening in the mission, because we believe in miracles!
Monday, our lesson fell through, so we pretty much made a bunch of phone calls. That was pretty much the excitement of Monday haha. We didn’t have a district p-day, and we cleaned and did laundry, but that’s pretty much it.
Tuesday, we had a Zone Leadership Council (ZLC) and that was super good. The Zone Leaders had some really cool things that they learned from Mission Leader Council (MLC), and some really cool insights that we got to learn from. We have been challenged to find someone new every single day, so that has been the goal! To consider someone officially ‘new’ you have to teach a lesson with them and have a return appointment. We didn’t get that every day, but we did meet new people that did seem interested every day! Every day, there have been really cool experiences where we were in the right place at the right time and got to meet some really cool people.
Wednesday, we had district council in the morning. It was another super good district council! After District council, we went on exchanges, so Elder Suhaka came to Stilesboro for the day, and we crushed it! It was a super good exchange day, where we went to this neighborhood that had massive houses. We’ve never been there before, so we felt like it would be a good place to knock. We went to this house and there was someone who said that they had been praying for more, and then we showed up. Those are always cool moments to know the reason why you are somewhere :).
Thursday, we finished exchanges and went to Chick-fi-la for lunch and unexchanged there. We went to the store for a little bit of store contacting, and then to the Dallas building for interviews with President Farias. Interviews were running super late, so we ended up weekly planning at the church waiting for our interviews. Kind of a random fun fact, but I was the 3rd to last person in the entire mission to have my interview haha! The Macland Sisters were the last ones in the mission, so that’s fun haha. After interviews, we went to the Harris family’s house and had burgers. They were tasty.
Friday, we pretty much just had a bunch of finding. We called some peeps, knocked some doors, and we watched the mission Facebook page. Friday night, we had our first successful lesson with one of our friends who we’ve been teaching for a while now, and so that was super good to be able to teach a solid lesson :).
Saturday, we decided to visit member’s houses and knock around their neighborhoods. We got to know some members that I didn’t know as well, and we met a lot of super cool people! We had housing inspections at like 4:45, so we went back to the apartment for that and got to see the Allred’s, so that was good! We were kind of out of miles at that point, so we stayed and called a bunch of people to invite them to church. There was one person who said they were out of town this weekend, but next week they would like to come! Hopefully we can follow up and remind them, and they will make it!
Sunday, Sacrament meeting was super good. There was a new family that just moved in named the Sheen family, and they gave some really good talks. We went to the Young Men/Young Woman’s classes for second hour because we wanted to try to hype up the youth about missionary work. That was fun haha! The rest of the day, we had reports and went to dinner at the Bleazard’s house. They are awesome!
That brings us to today! Today, we went to an old Pickett’s Mill battlefield hike with the District. It was super cool! The hike reminded everyone about Utah haha because it was hilly and rocky a little bit. After that, we went to the church and played some games.
For a spiritual thought, this week, we have also been invited to read all of the scriptures in the Topical Guide about Jesus Christ. I’ve decided to just start in the section called “Jesus Christ” and not one of the 50+ subtopics (there’s a lot!). This section gives a summary/overview of the life of Jesus Christ, and it has actually been really cool to read from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John not as a book, but in parallel with all of the books. (for example, read Jesus Getting Baptized in Matthew, then mark, then Luke, etc.). It has been really cool to see the different points of view, and it has helped me make a more accurate timeline of His life. There are some stories that I have read time and time again, but because I am reading it in the (arguably) correct context, it has meant so much more to me to learn about my Savior. To be able to study and learn about Him has helped me to see what I can do better and how I can become a more converted Disciple of Jesus Christ.
This week has been a super awesome week, and I hope that all is well for everyone back home! I have 100% slacked in writing emails to everyone (once again), so I apologize! Know that I do read all of the emails that I receive from y’all, and I love to hear from everyone!! I hope that everyone has a fire week, and I will write next week!
-Elder Claussen
