President Rebuked the Elders!!...Me, Not So Much (from April 9, 2012)

Hi fellas life is good in Des Moines......... Some of this presidents email was cut out

 

 

Dear President Jergensen

   Much of our time is finding and that has been a reason for Elder ____ low motivation to go out and work. We have been knocking doors and contacting people on the trails and streets. We met with some folks who aren't yet new investigators, but within a week or so they will be on their way to becoming investigators.
  We met with Sheri who will be married to Chris on May 1st, and she has a 12 year old son who wants to be baptized as well. We are really excited to begin teaching him and letting him in on the conversations. Chris read through the entire Book of Mormon and says that it trully is the word or God. Sheri now has a study guide and they are going through it together.
  Brandon wasn't ready for his baptism and he doen't have a date now but we will be getting things figured out and get him reading the Book of Mormon more frequently so that he can have that spiritual conversion more fully.
  I'm glad that we are having this Book of Mormon only focus because it will bring Elder Steele and I closer in unity as a companionship as we study and teach from it. It's something that he is not happy about but it will do him good.
  The district is in a bit of a slump right now and I know that Elder Hanna and Mckeon have been struggling and we will continue to work with them on that. Sister Thompson and Neville are having some trouble finding others to teach. I'll going to do some phone calls during the week to see how everyone in the district is doing. I'm glad that the district meetings are now layed out in a more spiritually focused way. That will help keep the mood strictly on the work.
 Thanks for everything and I'll talk to you some more at interviews.
                                Elder Gonzalez   Des Moines 2nd

  So I'm so glad that we were able to have Easter with some investigators at church.  My talk had to be shortened because by the time I got up to talk it was already 11:58 and so I took about 12 minutes and didn't include some of my stories about "Feed my Sheep".  It was good and so hopefully the members of the ward will take an extra step in helping us out as missionaries.

  We had a fun p-day and we played indoor football and kickball and even a bit of basketball. I was way tired after all of that and it didn't help that we had to walk all the way back to the apartment and my legs were done.

  So the work here has been tough mostly because I have a companion who wishes he was home and with his non member girlfriend. It is tough to try to drag him out the door and to get him to talk to people when we walk be them. I'm not trying to complain but it's hard to do something that takes to 2 people and get it to works with 1-1/2 people. I'm definantly putting prayer to the test here and I'm trying to be as obedient as possible so that I can get every blessing that I can. This past district meeting was alright and it doesn't help when you have Elders goofing off and not trying or paying attention as they should. So after that President Jergensen had us ( Elder steele, Hanna, and Mkceon) show up to the mission home and he gave them a talking to and it wasn't pretty. He told me that I needed to be there for these Elders but assured me that I was placed in a tough situation and that he expected much more from Elder Hanna who's been out 18 months and has been a problem missionary for sometime. I do take responsibility for what's been going on but I know that it is ultimatley their decision to do what is right.

 

 

  Ok so enough with all the complaining... some of the cool stuff that happened this week is that our investigator Sheri has a 12 year old son who wants to join in the conversation and since Chris is already an Aaronic Priesthood holder he can do both baptisms.  During our lesson he already was talking about how he was going to plan in a year or so a trip to Salt Lake to get sealed in the temple and I was like DO IT!!

 

 That's cool that you got Justin address I'm not so sure how much it will cost to send a letter to the Dominican Republic so you may want to tell me that one before i load it with 4 stamps. 

 

For sure you will have to send out more pictures because people want to know my past life and the stories aren't doing as much justice without the pictures to go ahead and send whatever you want out as far as that and go aheaad and include any dance pictures with that.

 

FYI .... I cannot email back and forth really fast anymore... it is not allowed because it's just like texting with a computer and like Nephi... I must obey   because i could really use the blessings and it is going to suck but that's the sacrifice that I must make.

 

I love yall and I think that I'm starting to see how Tony has long emails... he uses lots of paragraph space... or he is just a typing demon!!  So i[m finally going to be able to send the memory chip back to ya and get that in the mail since we actually have a car this week with miles.

 

Something cool that we did is a member took us out to the woods and we had a bbq and it was awesome to have smores and hotdogs on the fire.

 

I love you all and I hope that you continue to recover from your chemo and that God will continue to bless as I know that he is.

 

                      One Love   Elder Gonzalez    Des Moines 2nd ward                                Go Bubba hahaha!!!