The Peachtree and the Motel Nazi #36

halo jalma! Welcome back to the semi-half-monthly email of Ya boi, Kob. whose name's meaning apparently has to do with turtles? idk what it means, but they do be my favorite animal. best case.

starting off with a testimony. i LOVE. this work. i am SO happy sharing what i love with these people. i know it's true, and i love it. there is absolutely nothing greater than this. being here, doing what Christ Himself would do. that's why the spirit's so important. that's why obedience is so important. that's why finding joy in everything, is so important. i love everything about being a missionary, bad parts and all. because nothing is better.

This week's summary! (for my TLDR folks)

☆ throw up

☆ i shoved andrew down the stairs

☆ accordion lady

☆ wualirt orsyers

☆ riverbottom park

☆ be-leaf it can happen

☆ Elder Firmage at stake conf!

☆ i have way too many good email titles to use and not enough emails to use them in

☆ christmas time is NOT it for the DL and the GL

☆ the campout

☆ have we won? has it all come to an end? will the battles cease? has a 'treat'y been signed? idk. but i think we won the desert war with the sisters 

☆ zone conf! kahoot is mission approved? Who knew!

☆ a member getting nervous but very excited to share the gospel may be my favorite.

☆ don't get caught by your mp doing pushups. that's all i'll say on that one. (and i had one more star and i wanted to fill it)

Stories

- played a fun game with the youth called "throw up". It was super fun, and they really wanted us to come back the next time they had a combined activity!!

- we have a new laundry basket we found on the road. His name is Andrew. I like to abuse him. mainly push him down the stairs. yup. That's it.

- tried to type....... i think quality prayers without looking at my phone? came out as 'wualirt orsyers" walmart oysters, if you will. just thought that was funny

- we went to this BEAUTIFUL park to street contact. It was so amazing. I'll attach pictures, but ah man it was just so great. God has created such beautiful things for us!!

- raked a WHOLE lot of leaves for a ward service project for this older couple in our ward, then ended up helping her non-member neighbor as well! I still find leaves in my shoes.

- Elder Firmage, a 70, came to our stake conference! He was so amazing. talked for over an hour, and never once sounded like he didn't know exactly what he was talking about. that's how I'm tryna be. so great.

- our beloved District Leader, Elder Kartchner, and his companion, Elder Graham, (who we have dubbed the GL, or Graham Leader), HATE christmas until after thanksgiving. They live two hours away and we had stake conf and zone conf right after eachother, so they got permission to stay with us for the night. So what did we do? Of course, we borrowed a bunch of Christmas decorations from the sisters and decked our entire apartment. have a really funny video of their reaction, will attach it.

- that one ties into this one, where we talk about the rest of the time with Kartchner and Graham. I played poker for the first time, made a lot of awesome chicken, and stumped them hard with some riddles. It was a blast and a half. we still did missionary work tho, no worries ;)

- the sisters have not gotten us back after we delivered our last set of treats, and the birthday treat for Sister Broberg. and Sister Whiting's birthday is coming up on friday! I think we won. Does it mean we will stop hitting them? never. this war will never see it's end.

- we had a SICKzone conference where we literally played kahoot. brought back many good memories. i was in first place at the beginning, then ended in 11th? oh well. It was so fun!

Teaching Updates

 - Bi&S! We officially picked up B's son, S this week! He's a cute little 8 year old, and loves nerf guns. They came to stake conference and seemed super open to stuff! One of our awesome members even talked about baptism with them and they seemed super open! best case 

- N! sat with us at a stake conference. poor thing didn't know stake conference existed, and showed up to about 10x as much people as normal and had no idea what to do. we stopped confirming her coming to church, since she comes on her own every single week anyways, (16x!!!!) and yeah. forgot to mention, heh. she literally filled out a tithing slip in front of us tho, it was so great. she's literally the best ever, Elder Firmage actually came and talked to her as well, and told her himself just how amazing she was. It's true! SHE WANTS TO GET BAPTIZED SO BAD BUT SHE CANT ITS SO INFURIATING

- Br! many great street contacting experiences this week! so many great successes as well! Neither me or Elder Bales had had much experience with it, but we decided to send it anyways. talked to Br at the beautiful park aforementioned, and yeah. he's a great guy. doesn't believe in God, but he will. mark my words.

- Lo! the first success from street contacting actually! She plays the accordian, probably has a total of 3 teeth, but is VERY interested in family history work! We gave her our number, and didn't hear back from her. Then today, on p-day, had a prompting and decided to drive by her spot! lo and behold, there she was! got her number this time, so it'll all work out better :) She mentioned how in order for us to do this kind of thing, we have to really believe it. man, ain't that the truth. It was fantastic, and I believe it with my whole heart!

- Ma! the third street success this week! We saw him sitting outside, and talked to him for about half an hour about Disneyland and christmas. We started to get into family and the plan of salvation, then he saw the plan of salvation pamphlet we were holding, and asked if he could have it! he doesn't actually live here, he was just at an airbnb, but yeah. It was awesome. not as cool as handing someone a BOM through the car window at a stoplight, but yeah. super cool.

- Ca! so, she believes the sabbath is on sunday. believes Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, but does not believe the Book of Mormon to be true. very interesting. Anyways, we stopped by, her son let us in, who is an AWESOME returning member, and we had an amazing discussion! based on her notes, she was very against us beforehand. but this time, was open to us changing her mind. and wanted to continue the discussion! so that's awesome :)))

- C. we had to drop him, but it's okay because now the sisters where he lives will be able to start trying with him! it'll all work out in the end :)

- one of the coolest ones is that we had a member call us last night, sounded super nervous, and asked if it would "be alright" if he could have a Book of Mormon to give to his friend who wanted to read it. i just said "NOTHING would make us happier!!" we dropped it off, roleplayed what he would say, since he had no clue, and yeah. It was adorable. share the gospel!

Spotlight

- my little brother, who might cuddle with a girl for the first time this week. little dudes got game, shoot your shot makalaka

- some of my good school friends, Keaton and Sophie who got married apparently????????? Neither of them are on here, but dang. go you guys. throwback to the great gatsby when we were all just hangin out. good times man, good times

- Logan, got a dog. heck yeah. i love you man!

My challenges for you

- i had a member ask if i would give a prayer, and i said 'really? you sure??" to be funny, and he told me that he loved my prayers and that they were quality. man, i love that man. my challenge for y'all this week is to have a quality prayer! make it good!! use all your energy!! yeah!

Every minute, every moment...there was Jesus.

- promptings don't always have to be that we will be punished if we do not follow them. if, for example, i had a prompting not to reach out to someone and did anyways, then ended up getting hurt by them, it doesn't mean God would be mad at me for not listening! He was just trying to protect me. i have seen many examples of this so far on my mission. God just loves us so much and doesn't want to see us hurt! still try to listen, of course, but if you do something not great it doesn't mean you will be punished. it means that you could have been slightly more protected, and now you can learn, grow, and understand even more just how much God loves you :))

That's All Folks!

- elder smithity ;0