03 March 2014 It was like The Amazing Race-Missionary Edition!

Greetings Earthlings!

THIS WEEK WAS AMAZING! I LOVE THIS LIFE!

At the beginning of the week , we started out a little slow.   Our last P-day, my companion crocheted me an awesome beanie! Not real important but I thought it was cool.  We lived on top ramen and also mac and cheese for the last week and a half of the month.   On the 26th of February, we were able to ask for a blessing from the bishop and received one.   I now have no doubt that the bishop here in Nixa is spiritually guided.   He knew exactly what to say and what I was going through.  I can  not believe how awesome that was and how much I needed that blessing.

Really exciting news...0n Thursday our area got blitzed by the zone leaders (aka my first trainer Elder Hughes and Elder Sudberry.)  We took to the streets.  Knocking on doors and talking to random people.  It was like The Amazing Race-Missionary Edition!  We were challenging each other to see who could get the most lessons.  They had to be real lessons.  In a total of 4 hours, we got 2 new investigators and 9 total lessons in between all of us!   I was with Elder Hughes.  Elder Marriott was with Elder Sudberry.  In between the two companionships we got all those numbers.   Totally revitalized my desire to serve the Lord. 

The Friday after that, Elder Marriott and I got a total of 6 lessons.  The area will explode with numbers. All in good time.  A little bit of a push and we started rising up to the occasion.  We were able to finish out the week strong  hitting 21 lessons total.  The standard of excellence is 20.  I feel pretty good about this week. 

Also on Thursday, one of those investigators we found came to a Nerf war that we set up at the church.  It was pretty awesome!  You want to see missionaries go crazy?  Give them Nerf Guns and chair barricades. We also gave him a tour of the Church.  He is 17 years old and is writing a book about world religions. Pretty interesting.  He is a very intelligent kid.  He even tested out of High School.  Anyways, that was a pretty awesome experience.

We have not had one investigator come to church since this last transfer started.  We had 3 planning on coming this last Sunday and then church got canceled because of the icy road conditions.  Hey, there is always another week and another Sunday.

I love tracting in the hail and snow...mostly hail!  Ha, ha!  We have this joke going around the mission- the more raindrops that hit your Mission Tag, the prettier your wife will be.   My take on that is:  Wow!  if raindrops will do that, then what is in store for hail pelting your face??   I thought it was kinda an awesome experience to go through.  

Other experiences??  We were able to play Hockey with a guy on 2 inches of ice in the street.  Pretty cool opportunity.   Also, we had someone telling us that the Bible was Perfect.  It's so hard to not fight with scriptures when its pretty obvious to me that in common sense,  if the Bible was perfect and they did not need more, then why are there so many versions of the Bible?   If it was perfect, it would make sense that there would only be one version of the Bible. 

This last P-day we could not go anywhere because we got 5 inches of snow and so we ended up cleaning our kitchen and decorating it, too.  We found some Christmas lights, some pom-poms, those clear fish tank rocks, a light bulb, and some yarn and made this beautiful lamp for our kitchen! I Love it!!! The things that Missionaries do when we start to find arts and crafts items and putting them together to make something pretty amazing!   I can not even express how cool that lamp is!  It turned out better then I ever would have imagined!!

Love,

     Elder Caldwell

My awesome hat-crocheted by Elder Marriott!

Our wonderfully clean Kitchen!  Elder Marriott's tie is too beautiful to hang in the closet.  It is a piece of art displayed properly on the kitchen wall!

Our cleaned kitchen decorated by amazing Elders.  Notice the beautiful pics of the Mountains (thanks Mom), the duct tape that is doubling as an easel for my calligraphy message, and the boombox antenna that doubles nicely as a hat rack.  PERFECTION!!

Our amazing new kitchen lamp!  Who've thunk two missionaries to make something so wonderful!!