November 17, 2014 Week 71

SNOW!

Well we got our first snow of the season! It wasn't anything to get too excited about though--it was just a small dusting!  

I am wearing my ski tie today though! It was great to see that we may have a chance of a white Christmas. 

We have some great news,  we received transfer doctrine last night and..... the trinity is staying together!  

I have been blessed to have great companions! especially during Christmas time!  We are pretty excited about it! 

This next transfer will go all the way to January! No one is really moving in the mission.  I guess president wants to keep everyone together! 

SO this week Monica got baptized! It was great.  It was crazy though.  

Bishop was the one going to baptize her and he thought it started at 10:30, when it actually was going to start at 10...hijole! 

It was 10:05 and Bishop still wasn't there.  We called him up and luckily  he was able to make it around 10:20 ish. 

We were able to delay it by watching Mormon Messages!  

But the service went great after that! Everyone really felt the spirit. Especially Monica.  When she came up out of the water she said she was so happy! 

It is has been amazing to see the change in her these past few months.  

She now has the vision to go to the temple and partake of all of the blessing that come from that!  

We found Monica by doing less active work.  

Her husband was a less active member and in the attempts to get him back to church we were able to bring his wife along. 

In most of their prayers to close our lessons they talk about being sealed in the temple.  I had the opportunity to confirm her on Sunday in sacrament meeting.  It was great!

Also yesterday we finally got a ward mission leader!  His name is Brother Hanson and he is a news anchor here in town.  It is going to be nice to have one again! 

The ward is getting already for the turkey bowl!  Hopefully it will be a nice day. 

 I have really been pondering on what needs to be done in this ward and I recalled the successful missionary section in PMG---

You can know you have been a successful missionary when you:

• Feel the Spirit testify to people through you.

• Love people and desire their salvation.

• Obey with exactness.

• Live so that you can receive and know how to follow the Spirit, who will show you where to go, what to do, and what to say.

• Develop Christlike attributes.

• Work effectively every day, do your very best to bring souls to Christ, and seek earnestly to learn and improve.

• Help build up the Church (the ward) wherever you are assigned to work.

• Warn people of the consequences of sin. Invite them to make and keep commitments.

• Teach and serve other missionaries.

• Go about doing good and serving people at every opportunity, whether or not they accept your message.

Now this isn't just for us full time missionaries.  If you are a part of this church you are expected to be a missionary.  

This has been something that I have been pondering a lot lately.  

I am going to go through these points and find the thing that I am struggling with the most.  

The desire of my heart is to be a successful missionary( thankfully PMG is very clear on what the means)

Well I hope y'all have a great week I love ya!

ELDER FINLINSON

 Monica's Baptism- Elder Rodriguez, Elder Finlinson, Monica's Husband, Monica, Elder Barrett

 The Very Happy Trio-Elder Rodriguez, Elder Barrett, Elder Finlinson

Elder Finlinson in front of Wichita Falls

November 10, 2014 Week 70

Hey ya'll!

 Sounds like you had a great week!  That is awesome that Joel was able to experience a championship game!  

I still have my hoof so they don't need to worry about that! It is hard though having an effective workout with such limited time! (hoof = tricep muscle)

What is up comoco being a woman what the heck?! I saw a kid playing clash of clans the other day, it made me laugh! (Comoco=woman in Fin Clan of Clash of Clans, Doug and I met her and her husband for dinner last week when we were in Las Vegas. )

The work is going great here! 

You asked how many less active we have found in the Wichita Falls ward... well a ton! We don't have an exact number! 

But less active story for the week. 

So we have every single person who is on the ward roster punched into the gps, this is super helpful when we have some free time.  No matter where we are in our area we are close to at least 3 or 4 less actives.  We have not gone 'tracting' once this transfer.  

But back to the story, we were driving around last night and it was 8:45... and everyone who has served a mission knows that 8:45 can be a rough time, just because it is 15 minutes before we can go in.  

But Elder Barrett was inspired to see one of the less actives that we haven't visited.  

So we go over to this persons house and they dont answer--hijole. 

As we were walking to the car the door opened! 

We then ran up to the door and were able to meet this man and set up an appointment for next week.  

We didn't think much about it.  

But that night we were talking to the other missionaries in our district and they told us that that night a member told them to visit the less active man we just saw!! it was crazy! 

We talked and the time that we decided to go see them was the same time they were talking to the member! 

I don't know why 2 people felt like this person needed a visit. But I am sure we will find out this week! 

I guess he used be a member of the bishopric and hasn't been to church for 5+ years! It should be a fun one!! LA work is the best! 

WE are having a baptism this week for Monica McCawly so keep her in your prayers! 

I am now 2 for 2 in getting pulled over and getting away clean!  We were driving down the street and all of the sudden it happened blue and red everywhere! 

We pulled into a street and waited...as usual.  Well the officer got out of his car and phoned in for back up... I guess a Chevy Cruz with no tint and a picture of Jesus looked pretty suspicious! Ha he even pulled out his flashlight and was looking into our car (we did have those giant pixie stixs in the back, maybe he thought it was cocaine...).  But it ended up we didn't have our lights on! 

I guess before we were making a phone call and the call was a little lengthy so I turned off the lights and then forgot to turn them on...

But I have gotten away from the Oklahoma and THE GReat Texas police... but not the Sandy police. I guess that shows who has charity haha no, it probably helps being dressed as a missionary (they just look at us and think "well they are already going to hell, might as well give um a break') ahh good times! 

I studied in 2 nephi 26:22"...yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever." 

This is a great parallel to the power of the adversary and how he works. I have seen this in my life as the adversary has tried to place this little 'flaxen cords' in front of me.  I have seen how those small cords, which initially could be broken easy, turn into powerful cords capable of bearing much tension.

So lets break them strands before they turn into rope!

LOVE YA 

ELDER FINlinSON

November 3, 2014 Week 69

November!

Wow, October is gone!  

The weather here finally caught up! 

Thanks for the Halloween package!... the scone mix exploded and smelt kinda bad but that's ok, the rest of the stuff was great!  

It is awesome to hear the everyone is playing some November football that is always a good sign! Go kill those hawks this week!  

It is great that y'all live in a neighborhood that is safe enough to have trick or treating! Most of the people we have visited this past week didn't let their kids go! I guess there was one neighborhood that did it just because they are huge houses--so people drove to it and went trick or treating!... It is going to be interesting how much longer trick or treating stays around!

This week was great though we got some good work done! I like the time change but I hate it at the same time! Missionary work is hard in the dark!  I guess Texans dont really like the change either.  We had a gun pulled on us last night doing some less active hunting! fun fun its alright he was drunk;)  But we have been having a good time!  

For the past month we have been having Family Home Evenings with Sister Allen (She is a single mother of five ages 8 and younger! The youngest was born 2 weeks ago! Then 1 week ago her son broke his leg and is now rolling around in a wheelchair!) but anyways I had the opportunity to baptize/confirm 8 year old Juliana.  It was kinda weird doing it for an active family especially since the 'dad' (who is a RM, and was active a few week ago) was there.  But it was a great experience!  And another testament for me to always be loyal to your family and those you truly love!

Yesterday we had dinner at the Bishop's house! This ward is blessed with a great bishop who really cares for the people here! But during dinner their dogs escaped! Well this wouldn't be a problem if they lived in the city... but they live in the sticks! So we were all looking for them for about 30 minutes and gave up... Bishop said  that they would probably come back and luckily they did!  But it was kinda fun running around in the sticks--and cactus...I got to see the beauty of Texas (which is sparse)

Well that is about it for today! There is just too much to talk about i cant even think:)

BUENO, BUENO

LOVE YA 

ELDER FINLINSON