Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone, 

This week was pretty good

Tuesday was district meeting and we set some goals for the rest of the transfer and talked about how to get the work moving. We also started exchanges after so I went out to Rivannah (the boonies) and tracted with Elder Munson, the district leader.

Wednesday we ended exchanges and that night we had an awesome lesson with our investigator Helen. We taught the restoration again because I guess she didn’t get it the first time... idk. But it was super in depth and awesome she wasn't able to come to church this week because she had oral surgery on Saturday... dang satan hindering the work.

Thursday was a "work day" President and the AP's came out to our areas and we were supposed to plan "meaningful finding activities" so we planned all of our lessons during our time with President and then again at night with the AP’s, and of course they all fell through, so we went "finding" tracting lol!

Saturday the Zone leaders came to do a mini exchange with us but Willis (my comp) was sick and so was Elder Noorda, one of the ZL's so they piled out in our apartment while me and Elder Galloway, the other zone leader went and contacted 2 bible referrals, one was a less active member and the other was a self referral from mormon.org, we were able to teach him the restoration and get a return appointment His name is Osei (pronounced Jose) and i’m excited about him. 

Sunday we biked 9 1/2 miles because our dinner, who lives forever away couldn't come pick us up.... smh. So we took the bus as far as we could and biked the rest.

Thats all for this week, love you all

Elder McArthur

Hey All!

Hey fam, im just gonna go day by day because I can't remember anything that stands out this week.  

Tuesday- We had zone conference and it was awesome we talked a lot about planning and how to make it more effective, as well as the new and improved PMG chapter 8 about goal setting. President was teaching that each companionship should really be a trio with the 3rd member being the Holy Ghost. And then we talked about how to do that. 

Wednesday-Today was really just tracting without much sucess, we had a lesson with Helen that went well and we set some goals for her with her that shes pumped about so lets see if she actually keeps them.....

Thursday-Was also mostly tracting, we had a lesson with a potential named Rita, we had seen her once before and left her a restoration pamphlet and a BOM,  and she committed to read, which she did but the whole lesson she just reffered to the BOM as the "New Bible" I was getting angry because we explained to her like a million times that ITS. NOT. THE. BIBLE. these black baptists man smh.... 

Friday we tracted and same with saturday. 

In other news I set a goal to read the New Testament before our mission wide temple trip and I'm now in Mark. The New Testament is awesome I love it, everyone should read the four gospels .

Thats all for this week! Elder McArthur

Halloween

Hello everyone, this week was halloween, and we have to be in by 5, so President Smith started this thing called Halloclean last year, we clean our apartments and send in a video and the winners get a steak dinner at the mission home, so pray that we win lol. 

Other than that a lot of our appointments fell through and we ended up dropping a lot of people this week because no one has kept their commitments at all. So really the only half way solid people we have is Helen and Nikki. Nikki read for the first time in 8 weeks so thats a plus. Helen has been sick for forever but we have video lessons with her like once a week. 

Yesterday we were knocking doors and a guy answered and we gave him a book of mormon and shared the restoration and he said we could come back. Thats the highlight of the week. This week was pretty darn rough. But thats the highlight. Sorry for the short letter, just not a lot happened. Hopefully next week ill have some exciting stuff to report on. Love you all thanks for the support.

Elder McArthur

Another week down!

This week was pretty much the same, nothing much happened. Helen has been sick so we haven't met with her at all and our other investigators have been super flakey, so Ill just hit the highlights. 

We met with a former investigator who has almost read the whole Book of Mormon he just doesnt feel like its Jesus talking in 3rd Nephi, he thinks it sounds too harsh and not like Jesus would talk or teach. But he's going to finish the BOM and said he'd call us when he finished. 

Then Thursday we had exchanges with the Rivannah Elders again it was super fun we both went out to their area which is super pretty. We tracted a little bit and met 2 guys at different houses who were both named Charlie, not important but when you're a missionary everything is exciting. They were not interested.

Saturday we had our ward trunk or treat party which was super fun, mostly becuse there was free food, and lots of delicious cornbread. 

Sunday it poured rain and we were locked out of our apartment because the Mandarin elders locked it...

Oh yeah, we got another mandarin missionary so they split the trio into two and two and one set lives with us and covers this half of the mission, and the other set lives in richmond and covers that half of the mission. They moved in about a week ago. that's pretty much it for this week 

Elder McArthur

Statue of Thomas Jefferson

The famous statue of Homer, (google UVA Homer statue)

The Rotunda at UVA grounds, was built a really long time ago.

Halloween party

very large spider we found