Amazing Week

So October is almost over... I'll be at 14 months in about 2 weeks. Time just keeps ticking.

So we've had an amazing week. This week we've set 4 baptism dates. One was an investigator who's been making progress, but been having a few issues (mostly drinking, but I don't think he's had a drink in a week). But we've just kept visiting him, and he finally set a date for the 24th on November. He's a guy I've built a really good relationship with.

 

The other 3 were people we use to teach, but then dropped us, then came back around. One is a 20 year old kid who after the 1st meeting didn't look promising at all. We called to set up another appointment and he said he wasn't ready to meet with missionaries. Over the course of 2-4 weeks, whatever it was, we got a call saying that he wanted to meet again. This time he was completely changed. Everything was the exact opposite what it was in the 1st meeting, and the change was amazing. He's been dating an LDS girl and I'm sure she had something to do with that. But he's not doing it for her, she leaves for a mission soon, I feel he's truly feeling it. But the change in him was the most amazing part of it all. Committed to baptism for the 24th of November.

 

The 3rd and 4th were referrals from the bishop. This family came in to get some help, and he invited them to meet with us and they agreed. So we tried to stop by for like, a month, but not response. They had some major health issues and it was never a good time. Just as I was ready to give up and stop trying to visit them, I had the prompting to give it one last shot. This time, we had a good visit and set up an appointment for the next day. They've both had a rough life, so we shared a message on the atonement and how Jesus Christ can help us with whatever problems we have. They said they wanted to do this and committed to baptism on the 24th of November. We're visiting them about twice a week at least and are taking them to the temple open house tomorrow night. They're not married yet, and they have a smoking problem, but those are minor issues.

 

The 24th should be a wet day for us as we say. We got 4 baptism lined up for that day. Gonna be busy, but gonna be good. Our area's just exploded this week. We're busy working with these 4 people, keeping them strong, keeping up on their commitments, getting them to church, etc. Constantly trying to find new people to teach, but we're pretty busy at the moment.

Nothing exciting for Halloween. I've been getting a costume made, I'm gonna be the Jack in the Box guy. Hopefully it's done now, been having a member make it, but I haven't heard back yet. There's a ward activity in one of our wards going on, stake president doesn't want any ward functions going on due to the temple open house, he doesn't want to detract from that, but some wards are some wards aren't doing that.

That's pretty much been this week. Been so busy and I've been so tired. That's why I haven't responded to any letters yet. I have them on my desk all ready to write, but 've just been so beat I've not been motivated to write them. Hopefully soon I'll find some energy = P

So... there's one last thing... I give you full permission to laugh or facepalm, or whatever you wanna do. There are some stories you don't write home about, but I think you'll get a kick outta this one... So for a district meeting and elder brought some nerf swords for an activity he was doing. After the meeting, we had a little fun. This elder and I (elder Nicholls from Zimbabwe) took turns bending over the car and whacking each other as hard as we could on the rump. Can you believe we we re the only ones who wanted to do this? No one else wanted to participate... We each got 2 good whacks on each other, and let me tell ya, those nerf swords hurt! For the rest of the day it hurt to sit. We sat on a couch for an hour long lesson and I had to stand up right quick afterwards it hurt pretty bad. Checked it out and I have a bruise a little bigger than a baseball sittin there on my rump. Friday and Saturday it hurt, Sunday it was feeling better, and now it doesn't hurt at all. IT was fun, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But like I said, you can laugh if ya want, just thought you'd get a kick outta this story.

Take care everyone!

Elder Blomquist

Training's pretty tough, and It's only been a week. He's a good guy, but def green around the ears.

I'm so tired... I think I've worked harder in the past week than I have for a long time now. It feels good, but I'm exhausted at the same time. Last night I wasn't feeling the best, so I went to bed early and I slept right through the alarms. Ended up waking up at like, 8 and getting 10 hours of sleep. Felt pretty good.

Nothing major happened this week. Monday we had a trainers meeting with President Cannon, Tuesday we took the new missionaries through the temple open house then went out tracting, then Wednesday we picked them up at started working. We had splits that night too. 1st day in the field and I threw him out to the world. He wasn't too thrilled about that, but it's good for him. That's what happened to me, and I think I turned out alright.

Had a few good lessons this week. One of our investigators is working to quit drinking, and it was a great lesson. He went to the temple open house and had a great experience there. We talked about some of the things it takes to get back after it's dedicated (the baptism interview questions) and he's on board with most of them. We gave him a blessing to be able to quit drinking, and it was perfect. He talked about how he had fear and anxiety as we started the blessing, but as it progressed he felt peace and at ease. Showed him a couple scriptures about that, and confirmed to him that he was feeling the Holy Ghost. He recognized that, and says he's gonna work harder to get there. Been working with him for almost 5 months now, I think we're making some good headway.

Another good lesson with a less active. He's been listening to the Book of Mormon on CD as he drives to work, but he never prayed. That's been going on for a couple months now. But last week he finally said a prayer, so we focused on prayers this week. Read Enos with him and talked about some of the things I had learned from it. Committed him to pray at least once every day, and he said the prayer again this week, starting it all off. Another lesson with him on Thursday, so we'll follow up then.

We've actually got some pretty good things going on for us. This week we got a lot of referrals, and contacted most of them. We have a few potential investigators, and things are looking pretty good. We have a few investigators who seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth, but working on them too. Ups and downs, that's the way it goes.

Well, that's about our week. I'll be here in Nampa for prolly 3 more months, which is ridiculous since I got here early June... I could leave after only 6 weeks of training, but we'll find out in 5 more weeks. Gonna be spending Thanksgiving here, so that should be fun. Kinda ready to leave Nampa, ready to go explore. I don't like staying in places for 6 months, especially after just having spent 6 months in Caldwell. Oh well. at least I had better companions here.

 

Take care everyone!

Elder Blomquist

New Greenie Companion

Got my new comp today. Elder Shumway from guess where... Arizona. That makes 3 Arizona companions here in Nampa. Elder Bell from Mesa, Fullmer from Glendale, and now Shumway from Gilbert. I just can't get away from Arizona.

 

Training is gonna be a new experience. Of course I'm scared, it's gonna be interesting. Hopefully things turn out ok. Lots of work needs to be put into this area, let's make it happen!

Elder Blomquist

 

Elder Blomquist, Elder Shumway, President Cannon

 

 

 

 

 

Going to be a Trainer

So got some big news. I'm staying in Nampa, and I'm training a greenie!! That'll make 6 months here in Nampa at the end of next transfer (Nov. 26 I believe). And since I'm training there's a chance I could stay another, which will put me here till Christmas. I kinda was hoping to leave, but training is exciting. I'm stoked for it.

 

So I found out why I haven't heard from y'all in a while. Eli, the 6 year old, it's his job to get the mail and bring it in. Of course he doesn't check to see if it's for us or not and just brings it all in. One time I asked him if there was any mail for us and he said "no, but there's lots for us". That night we get a text saying we have five letters... So last week we get a text saying I have a letter. Go and check it out and it was postmarked the 27th of September. Eli brought it in then they kept forgetting to tell me about it.

 

Got to go to the Boise temple open house on Saturday. Brought an investigator, and it was an amazing experience. Especially when we walked into the celestial room. I felt this peace I haven't in a long time. It felt as if everything was right... like I was welcome in His house. I felt good about training and I got some answers to some problems I was having, it was a good experience. We'll be following up with those investigators on Wednesday, but I think it was a good experience.

 

I'm stoked to train a greenie. I don't get a new comp till Wednesday though. Dropped Elder Fullmer off this morning and have just been chilling with some other missionaries for now. There are 8 companionships in our zone, and 6 of them are training and 1 of them are being follow-up trained. I think we are gonna have the youngest zone in the mission. We got a meeting tonight, some meetings tomorrow, then we get our new comps on Wednesday. It's gonna be tough at times I bet, but it's gonna be a lot of fun.

 

Well, gonna be able to email again on Wednesday, so I'll be able to have my comp's info then. Name, home, etc. Until then...

 

 

Take care!

 

Elder Blomquist



Boise Temple

Just a few days till the Boise Temple open house!!! I'm pretty stoked for that. It's been closed the whole time I've been here and I get to go through it! We're taking some investigators Saturday, so that's gonna be cool. It'll be open for about a month and they're expecting about 350,000 people or so to go through. Dedication is on the 18th of November.
 

 

Transfers are in a week, next Monday. I think I'm leaving. I've been here in Nampa 4 1/2  months now, I've almost spent my last year in 2 areas, 6 months in Caldwell then if I do stay here it'll be 6 months here. I'm kinda ready to leave though, ready to explore more of Idaho. I kinda hope I go to Boise or Meridian, I wanna get back on bike again.

 

Weather's starting to go down. It's about 30-40s in the mornings, then gets 60-70s during the day. I think we just had a cold front come in and it should warm up a bit again later.

 

General conference was amazing! It seems like they really just hit home being truly converted to Jesus Christ and taking His doctrine deeper into our hearts. There was a lot of good talks. Some of my favorites have been Elder Christofferson in priesthood session, Elder Bednar's Sunday afternoon, and one other I can't remember right of the top of my head. But they were all good talks. We had one of our investigators watching it with us Sunday morning, and I think they liked it. Haven't followed up with them about it yet, but should be doing that soon.

 

What did y'all think about the missionary age change? Overall, I think it's a good idea. I feel like I didn't grow up in that year from high school to mission, it woulda been nice to go right outta school. I don't know if I woulda been ready at 18, but I think it'll be a good thing for a lot of young men and women out there.

 

Last week of the transfer is always rough. Anxious for transfer calls, and it's hard to work. We're kinda stuck right now as to what to do. We've already visited a lot of the members in our wards and committed them to do missionary work, gotten referrals, etc, that now we've almost visited them all. We've been making a second run through them getting ready for the temple, but I still feel like there's something more we need to be doing. We could be out tracting, but that's so unproductive I feel it's not worth doing. I'm out of ideas. What do you think we could do, either to excite members to do missionary work or find more people to teach?

 

But the month of September we found an average of about 2 investigators a week, better than I've done almost the whole mission put together. But not many of them keep their appointments. We have about a dozen people to teach or so, and with families that makes about 8 investigator lessons possible in a week. But out of those 8 we usually only get 2 or 3. It's tough at times, there's a million reasons to cancel. Mostly it's either they forgot, are busy, family, or are a no-show. We've been trying to make plans to go visit them again throughout the week (just dropping by. It's amazing how much more we catch people at home when we aren't expected). If only more people listened to Elder Nelson's talk... "Ask the missionaries!"

 

well, will let ya know next week what happens with transfers. It's a time of high excitement. Suitcoat season is about to start, not too happy about that, but it is what it is. It's my last one!

 

Take Care!

Elder Blomquist

1 Year in the Area

October... One year from the 5th (4 days) marks my 1 year of my 1st area. My last September is gone!! the time is really flying by. Heard it put very well yesterday, "the days are long but the weeks are short". Very true

 

Nothing new this week. We've been pretty busy actually. in the past 4 weeks or so we've found about 7 new investigators or so, with 1 more on Tuesday and hopefully another 2 coming soon, just waiting for them to get back to us.

 

Our new investigator for Tuesday was pretty cool, we met him at church at our singles ward. He actually went up and bore his testimony and said he wanted to learn more. After sacrament meeting we went and met him and his roommates (2 members) invited him to take the discussions and he said yes. Set up the appointment for Tuesday and we'll go from there.

 

Things are pretty good right now. There's been a lot of personal trials lately (in the past few weeks), but after a lot of work and effort I've managed to pull myself outta them and have grown so much from them. It's pretty amazing to think of where I am now vs where I was a year ago. I am def not the same person I was when I left home. It's pretty amazing to think about. This gospel is one of change, it's never easy, never quick, but it's so worth it.

 

Well, I tried to send some pictures last week, but they sent em back with some error... I'll try to send em again.

 

take care!

 

Elder Blomquist