Hey everyone!!
This week has been pretty normal! For once!! Haha I mean, there's been
some hiccups along the way, but this week has been pretty smooth. I
got a little sick Sunday so we stayed home most of the day so we
didn't get any of the ward or other people sick. Secretly I almost
like getting sick because it means that I can finally rest and
sleep...but once those 4-5 hours more of sleep are up, it's actually
really boring. I mean there's not much we can do besides play
board/card games. I bought the game Munchkins if any of you remember
playing that with Aunt Jill and Uncle Randy. It's pretty
fun...especially with the elders that we have in our apartment/zone. I
think that's been one of the biggest bonuses for this area to me
(besides serving The Lord, of course). I just get along really really
well with everyone in my zone...and that's not exactly always been the
case. So it's cool!
We did a LOT of tracting this week. We even had an APF in our area.
The whole district came with us to Brookfield and we did a little
tracting. We actually were able to find about 5 potentials or so
between the APF and the tracting. That's a good sign! We're still
wanting to keep doing lots and lots of finding still to make our
teaching pool as big as possible. One man, Chris, is one that we have
a good feeling about. He's a man that we ran into while he was playing
with his two little kids in his yard (good sign). We gave him a
pamphlet and he said that we could stop by so hopefully he is willing
to let us in the next time we drop by!
I really do feel like I'm leaving. I mean, if I did stay...I would
probably only be disappointed for a little while. It's just been an
extremely long 6 months for me. Not in a bad way! Just a lot of random
weird things haha. But I do feel like I'm leaving. I wonder where I'll
go? I'll probably go to the city, but I mean at this point anything
could happen.
Sorry...there's not a whole lot that happened that was exciting this
week. Sorry it's taken me so long to email. We're all at the Keyes
family's home to hang out. They've got a pool table, ping pong table,
and air hockey! So much fun! I've never been super into ping pong but
I'm starting to really like it! I also really like skateboards and
longboards :) ever since the Arend boys got me to ride around on their
boards, I've kinda gotten hooked. Heck...I've become such a hipster on
my mission.. ;)
Well, I'm gonna have to sign off...it's getting time for us to go. Let
me know if you have any questions!! It's easier for me to answer them
all if you put them in a list form...just so I don't have to remember
all of the questions everyone asked...sorry I'm lazy :/
Have an awesome week! Love you! Sorry to everyone I wasn't able to
email. I'll do it next week! Good luck with school everyone!!
-Elder Stafford :)
Spread the Word
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Where's Waldo??
Hey everyone!!!
So this week has been pretty great so far!! Our zone's goal this week
is to get 150 contacts. A contact is talking to someone new and, at
the very least, giving them a card or a pamphlet. To reach the goal each
companionship has to get 15 each week. So far we have two haha :) it's
just kinda rough for our area in particular because we don't really
have anywhere to walk around and talk to people. Most of the homes are
pretty spread out and no one walks around so it's hard to meet a good
quantity of people. We just gotta get knocking!
To make things fun though, we made up a little game. We called it
"Where's Waldo?" And the point is to contact certain people that meet
some funny standards. For example, the two that we got on Monday was a
guy with a beard (and a turban) and somebody that has a blue front
door. Others are people like pregnant women, people wearing red shoes,
someone missing teeth, etc. It's kinda fun!! We made a list of 20
people and the first to find 15 of them gets a prize!
So because of the whole car "incident", we've got to have a "car fast"
at least once a week. That means that we go without using our car for
the whole day. So after district meeting on Monday, we had the other
elders drop us off at the apartment, we had a little snack, and then
we took off on our trek through "downtown" Bethel. We made a list of
four or so people to go see and it took us about 5 hours to see all of
them. We probably walked like 9+ miles or so. It was really tiring and
scary at times (Connecticut very rarely has sidewalks or even curbs
for the roads...most of the time it's just road and then a row of
trees/bushes running alongside it) and my feet were killing me, but it
was good to get out and feel like a missionary by walking around and
trying to talk to people.
Today we are going to play with some investigators from the Danbury
Spanish branch. We have a few guys from our ward coming so it should
be a lot of fun!! Afterwards we have a dinner with a member in our
ward. She's going to be taking us to Olive Garden (I know we're
spoiled!).
We finally had correlation meeting with our ward mission leader again!
He's been gone for a few weeks so we haven't been able to do it for
awhile. Our bishop has also been gone for a month or so, so the ward
just doesn't do ward council either haha. It's kind of pathetic how
scarce our ward gets in the summer, but it's just what the culture is
out here! You live at home during most of the spring/fall/winter and
then you're gone almost the entire summer on vacation or visiting
family or going to the countless weddings this ward seems to have!
I'm doing really well! I'm still getting more and more happy with
where I'm at. As this cycle is over halfway through, I just keep
feeling like I'm going to leave, but well see what happens! It's not
really up to me...or even the mission president! I just know that the
Lord knows exactly where we need to be. I was so excited for Akayla
when I heard that she is going to be a trainer! She's going to be so
good!
Ummm...let's see...what else....oh haha it's so weird! It's like all
of my clothes and possessions that I use all the time are starting to
fall apart! My poor bag that I love is about to give up the ghost and
my p-day basketball shoes are falling apart a piece at a time (no
surprise there...I play way too much haha). It's nice though...it's
fun, it build friendships (or tears them down depending on whether you
win or not), and it keeps me slim and trim! ;) wouldn't want to get
all chubby would I?
Well...that about sums up the exciting parts of my week! I'll be the
first to tell you when we find someone to teach! ;) please just keep
praying for us and praying for our area. We need as many as we can
get. I love you all so much. Each and every one of you have played
such an important part in my life! Have an awesome week! Stay strong!
:)
-Elder Stafford
So this week has been pretty great so far!! Our zone's goal this week
is to get 150 contacts. A contact is talking to someone new and, at
the very least, giving them a card or a pamphlet. To reach the goal each
companionship has to get 15 each week. So far we have two haha :) it's
just kinda rough for our area in particular because we don't really
have anywhere to walk around and talk to people. Most of the homes are
pretty spread out and no one walks around so it's hard to meet a good
quantity of people. We just gotta get knocking!
To make things fun though, we made up a little game. We called it
"Where's Waldo?" And the point is to contact certain people that meet
some funny standards. For example, the two that we got on Monday was a
guy with a beard (and a turban) and somebody that has a blue front
door. Others are people like pregnant women, people wearing red shoes,
someone missing teeth, etc. It's kinda fun!! We made a list of 20
people and the first to find 15 of them gets a prize!
So because of the whole car "incident", we've got to have a "car fast"
at least once a week. That means that we go without using our car for
the whole day. So after district meeting on Monday, we had the other
elders drop us off at the apartment, we had a little snack, and then
we took off on our trek through "downtown" Bethel. We made a list of
four or so people to go see and it took us about 5 hours to see all of
them. We probably walked like 9+ miles or so. It was really tiring and
scary at times (Connecticut very rarely has sidewalks or even curbs
for the roads...most of the time it's just road and then a row of
trees/bushes running alongside it) and my feet were killing me, but it
was good to get out and feel like a missionary by walking around and
trying to talk to people.
Today we are going to play with some investigators from the Danbury
Spanish branch. We have a few guys from our ward coming so it should
be a lot of fun!! Afterwards we have a dinner with a member in our
ward. She's going to be taking us to Olive Garden (I know we're
spoiled!).
We finally had correlation meeting with our ward mission leader again!
He's been gone for a few weeks so we haven't been able to do it for
awhile. Our bishop has also been gone for a month or so, so the ward
just doesn't do ward council either haha. It's kind of pathetic how
scarce our ward gets in the summer, but it's just what the culture is
out here! You live at home during most of the spring/fall/winter and
then you're gone almost the entire summer on vacation or visiting
family or going to the countless weddings this ward seems to have!
I'm doing really well! I'm still getting more and more happy with
where I'm at. As this cycle is over halfway through, I just keep
feeling like I'm going to leave, but well see what happens! It's not
really up to me...or even the mission president! I just know that the
Lord knows exactly where we need to be. I was so excited for Akayla
when I heard that she is going to be a trainer! She's going to be so
good!
Ummm...let's see...what else....oh haha it's so weird! It's like all
of my clothes and possessions that I use all the time are starting to
fall apart! My poor bag that I love is about to give up the ghost and
my p-day basketball shoes are falling apart a piece at a time (no
surprise there...I play way too much haha). It's nice though...it's
fun, it build friendships (or tears them down depending on whether you
win or not), and it keeps me slim and trim! ;) wouldn't want to get
all chubby would I?
Well...that about sums up the exciting parts of my week! I'll be the
first to tell you when we find someone to teach! ;) please just keep
praying for us and praying for our area. We need as many as we can
get. I love you all so much. Each and every one of you have played
such an important part in my life! Have an awesome week! Stay strong!
:)
-Elder Stafford
Rough week...
Hey everyone!!
So this past week has been kind of strange. The work this week has been
pretty terrible...but we're still pretty happy! Things are the worst
they've ever been in this area since I've been here (we only taught 3
lessons last week), but I'm still happy and satisfied that I'm doing
all that I can personally. Sure, we've definitely struggled to stay
focused and productive all the time, but for the most part we've done
all we could. Members haven't been signing up to have us over at all
like they used to. In the summer, literally 1/2 of the ward completely
leaves, and the other half are the families that have fathers that
travel and work a lot, so no one is home! We don't have any dinner
appointments this week. We don't really have any investigators. Since
the sisters kind of freaked out Darwin's girlfriend, he's been a
little weird(er) with us. He juked our appointment Monday.
On Tuesday we spent the entire day (yes the entire day) waiting to get
our TiWi fixed (the little box that hooks up to the internal computer
of our car and measures our speed and makes sure we drive safely and
such).
Friday the Arends called and needed us to come over and help
them move furniture and paint their house. We didn't have much going
on that day, so we went over and ended up spending the majority of the
day there. Those poor people had no idea how to paint or put painters
tape on correctly, so I had to do a lot of it haha. I'm actually
pretty surprised about how much I actually do know about houses and
stuff (thanks dad!). I've actually been thinking, and I kind of want
something like that to be a little side income for my family. I LOVE
taking dirty, old things and making them look new. Like at the Arends,
for example, they had this really cool wooden banister thing along their
stairs that looked absolutely horrible. It was right in front of the
front door as you walked in, though, so I kind of made it my own
little project to make it look nice. I took a sharp object and cleaned
all the dust and gunk from the little crevices in it, wiped it down
really well, and painted it really nice. By the end of it, it looked
SO good! I've found that I actually do enjoy cleaning. Sorry mom for
not figuring that out when I was back home (hehe) but I love living in
a nicely furnished, clean, happy home. I think it would be so fun to
buy a run down home and paint it, fix it up, make the yard look really
nice, and then sell it or rent it out! I don't know...I'll have to
talk to dad about whether or no that would be a good idea ;)
Sunday was kind of disappointing...hardly anyone showed up really
(members or nonmembers), so all the classes were super sparse. Sister
Baez (Darwin's mom) showed up, however, so that was nice! :)
I don't know...it's just been a weird week. It's like we've been
productive, but not at the same time haha. We're happy, though. Our
companionship is doing well. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job
as a trainer. I can ALWAYS improve...a lot. But I feel like he has a
good taste in his mouth about missions and missionary work. And
hey...even though the work here is doing atrocious...it can only get
better right? :)
Haha as you can tell, I'm trying to have a good attitude about the
work. It's actually really stressful, but that's okay! Stress builds
us all up and is good as long as you don't let it get to you.
Well, I gotta get going, but I hope you all have a great week...I
really do. I pray for all of you often. Love you!!
-Elder Stafford :)
So this past week has been kind of strange. The work this week has been
pretty terrible...but we're still pretty happy! Things are the worst
they've ever been in this area since I've been here (we only taught 3
lessons last week), but I'm still happy and satisfied that I'm doing
all that I can personally. Sure, we've definitely struggled to stay
focused and productive all the time, but for the most part we've done
all we could. Members haven't been signing up to have us over at all
like they used to. In the summer, literally 1/2 of the ward completely
leaves, and the other half are the families that have fathers that
travel and work a lot, so no one is home! We don't have any dinner
appointments this week. We don't really have any investigators. Since
the sisters kind of freaked out Darwin's girlfriend, he's been a
little weird(er) with us. He juked our appointment Monday.
On Tuesday we spent the entire day (yes the entire day) waiting to get
our TiWi fixed (the little box that hooks up to the internal computer
of our car and measures our speed and makes sure we drive safely and
such).
Friday the Arends called and needed us to come over and help
them move furniture and paint their house. We didn't have much going
on that day, so we went over and ended up spending the majority of the
day there. Those poor people had no idea how to paint or put painters
tape on correctly, so I had to do a lot of it haha. I'm actually
pretty surprised about how much I actually do know about houses and
stuff (thanks dad!). I've actually been thinking, and I kind of want
something like that to be a little side income for my family. I LOVE
taking dirty, old things and making them look new. Like at the Arends,
for example, they had this really cool wooden banister thing along their
stairs that looked absolutely horrible. It was right in front of the
front door as you walked in, though, so I kind of made it my own
little project to make it look nice. I took a sharp object and cleaned
all the dust and gunk from the little crevices in it, wiped it down
really well, and painted it really nice. By the end of it, it looked
SO good! I've found that I actually do enjoy cleaning. Sorry mom for
not figuring that out when I was back home (hehe) but I love living in
a nicely furnished, clean, happy home. I think it would be so fun to
buy a run down home and paint it, fix it up, make the yard look really
nice, and then sell it or rent it out! I don't know...I'll have to
talk to dad about whether or no that would be a good idea ;)
Sunday was kind of disappointing...hardly anyone showed up really
(members or nonmembers), so all the classes were super sparse. Sister
Baez (Darwin's mom) showed up, however, so that was nice! :)
I don't know...it's just been a weird week. It's like we've been
productive, but not at the same time haha. We're happy, though. Our
companionship is doing well. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job
as a trainer. I can ALWAYS improve...a lot. But I feel like he has a
good taste in his mouth about missions and missionary work. And
hey...even though the work here is doing atrocious...it can only get
better right? :)
Haha as you can tell, I'm trying to have a good attitude about the
work. It's actually really stressful, but that's okay! Stress builds
us all up and is good as long as you don't let it get to you.
Well, I gotta get going, but I hope you all have a great week...I
really do. I pray for all of you often. Love you!!
-Elder Stafford :)
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