It Was Lit!

This week was pretty awesome, we had 3 lessons, which is 3 more than we had last week! We had two lessons with the investigators we found last week and they both went really well. We taught the restoration to both of them. Steve, the first guy we taught accepted a copy of the BOM when we found him well when we went back for our return appointment he said, "I didn't get to read that much" and then went on to explain he had read 1st and 2nd Nephi, Jacob, ect ect all the way to the begining of Alma!! It was nuts. He wasn't able to make it to church on Sunday cause he works at the pentagon and had to work.  

The second lesson was with a kid named James. He is about to turn 18, at first I didn't think he was all that interested, but when we went back for the return appointment he had read the first 30 pages of the BOM, which doesn't sound all that impressive after hearing about Steve, but 30 pages is approximatly 30x more than anyone else reads when we have return appointments. So I'm excited about those two guys, we'll see where they go. The 3rd lesson was with another guy named Steve, me and elder newton found him a long time ago, we went back one night to follow up and see if he was still interested and he invited us in. We ended up having an hour long discussion. He is the nicest guy in the world, but he's southern baptist and believes very strongly in the trinity and the bible, he also thinks our beliefs about Christ and the Godhead are so far from the truth its leading us to perdition. So I was told in the nicest way possible that I'm going to perdition this week..... Turns out he hadn't read any of the BOM in between visits, so we challenged him to actually read the Book. were gonna follow up in a week or so. In other news transfer calls are this week and I am most likely going to get the boot. I have been in White Oak for 6 months so we will see what happens. It has also been dumping rain, and I mean DUMPING rain, buckets, cats and dogs, you name it. sooo much rain, but then like an hour later its sunny and more humid than you could ever imagine and then an hour later its back to pouring rain. I'm as confused as you are. 

Elder McArthur

district pic

fireflies!!! the best part about VA, there are so many, driving at night is like when Han and Chewy hit light speed there are so many fireflies. 

Another Day in the Life of A VRM Elder!

Well not too much happened this week, we did find 2 new investigators for the first time in a long time which was awesome. We have appointmnets with them for this upcoming week so we'll see if they show. We had exchanges with the zone leaders so we got to go to the Accokeeek area for the day and Elder Rustand and I had a good time. We met a messianic Jew and talked to her for a long time, we taught her like a 45 minute lesson it was awesome she was the nicest/coolest lady. We also had a zone meeting this week which was awesome we talked about charity and member work and consecration and goals. Pretty much my zone is the standard for what president wants the mission to be doing. Our stake pres. is running the show for us on member work which is cool, however members are lazy haha, in this area, which is basically a suburb of D.C. everyone works in D.C. so the only way for us to find is thru the members, so weve been teaching themm the missionary discussions and inviting them to do missionary work in various ways. But thats as much as we can do, and most members dont do anything after we leave lol, especially in our tiny ward. example: we recently had dinner with a family who had a family friend over who recently got back from his mission in OREM UTAH pshhhh, but after dinner and the lesson and our invitation, we got up to leave and he says, "do yall have any referals for the full time missionaries?" #utahmissionaires lol, and the member said, "no because every time I referred someone they weren't interested so I'm not giving any more" Once again, welcome to Virginia.  But there are a few who are awesome and have invited friends to dinners and stuff. But moral of the story, EVERY MEMBER A MISSIONARY, and dont give up, you never know who's gonna be ready. Also when we were tracting we met a guy who called Mormons, "The Canadians of the religious world" lol  

ELDER MCARTHUR

I dont have any pictures this week sorry, but i did save a tiny bird that fell out of the nest, i monkeyed out on our balcony on the second story with littly johnny in hand and saved his life by putting him back up in his nest. So just imagine how adorable that must've been and that can be your picture for the week:) 

Time Keeps on Ticking, Ticking, Ticking...into the Future

Hey y'all, this week was pretty uneventful. We had interviews with President which is always good. We talked about how numbers don't matter to God, of course its always a good thing when we have a baptism, but I hav'nt had a baptism in my whole almost 10 months. But we talked about that what does matter is that we CONSISTENTLY give 100% to the lord every day, and that that is what matters.  

This week we sanded a ton of furniture for ward members, love doing service. We also had exchanges and I went out to King George county again so that was fun, got to spend some time on Dahlgren Naval base. 

Tracted a lot, and got bit by a lot of mosquitos. 

I also finished Jesus the Christ and holy cow that book is so awesome, if you've ever been confused by the four Gospels read Jesus the Christ and Elder Talmage will blow you away. This is one of my favorite quotes from Jesus the Christ...

"The predicted gathering of Israel from their long dispersion is in progress under the commission given by the Lord through Moses. The “mountain of the Lord’s house” is already established in the top of the mountains, and all peoples flow unto it; while the elders of the Church go forth among the nations, saying: “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

Nowhere else can the children of God be taught his ways except for in the house of the Lord, this is the most important work that has ever happened, so invite everyone to come to the God of Jacob and learn of his ways. Love you all have a good week!

exchanges

zone p day

Virginia; It's a Love/Hate Thing

Well this is going to be a pretty short email probably, to sum up the week I tracted a lot in the rain and 100% humidity. Twas a hot one. You know its bad when you can see fog during the day. It rained like half the week and the other half it was hot and very very humid.  

We had a lesson with Lili this wednesday and it was awesome we talked about how she can apply the scriptures to herself and we read 2 Nephi 31 and afterwards she said, "I got the message loud and clear" haha so we talked about her being baptized and she is really busy with school and 2 kids so she said sometime after the summer. Next time we meet were going to explain to her about baptism and how the ordinance takes like 2 minutes if she's worried about being too busy. 

Cheryl wont respond to our messages and was "asleep" when we went to her house. So RIP to us. 

Friday was the Highlight of the week. It was zone conference and we talked about how we can better do member missionary work with the ward. or in other words, how to motivate the ward to give us referrals haha. Finding in VA is very difficult, anyone solid usually comes thru a member, but problem is members aren't motivated to do missionary work, or they don't trust enough to give us referrals. But we talked about how we can change that. My zone over the last 5 months has been implementing a program where we eat for 20 minutes and then teach one of the PMG lessons for the rest of the 40 at member dinners. and this is mandatory so it kinda stinks but its also good to improve our teaching skills for all the people we don't teach, and to let the members know were serious about this and you should be too. But also at zone conference Elder and Sister Ringwood, were there Elder Ringwood is a genral authority 70 and Sister Ringwood is the PROPHETS DAUGHTER (I put that in all bold in case any of you slackers were just gonna skip to the pictures, and it would catch your attention) but they were awesome Elder Ringwood is a wizard at the sciptures he has them all memorized basically its nuts, and sister Ringwood talked a-lot about personal revelation (go figure lol) and I sang a musical number with some other missionaries, so you could say I sang for the princess leia of the church. yeah im that cool... jk no I'm not haha. Elder McArthur

This week on Kayden's critter another turtle, these things are like flys out here

 this is an actual text from an actual investigator, this is basically my life out here. RIP