Chicken Wire and Paper Mache (Week #32)

Preface by the momma:

Elder Hess has shared a number of times about how experiences from the past have helped him on his mission so far. A few weeks back, he and his companion passed around a service sign-up at church. He was very interested to see what they'd be asked to do. It ends up that they did a number of things one of them being help decorate floats....Just one more thing he has had experience with. Funny, no? I thought it was.

The first section of this email, prior to the questions, are his answers to a number of my questions....You may recall that Elder Hess broke his ankle right at the time he turned his mission papers in. Thus the comments about the ankle.

I love to watch, through his weekly emails, how he's growing and developing into a thoughtful, caring human being. What an awesome experience mission life is!...Particularly, I'm loving his answer to the goal question this week....Not sure I know too many 20 year old young men who are working on this particular goal among those you run into on any given street--unless they're missionaries. So grateful for this experience for my young man!

*****

It was a good week! The razor is awesome! I love it! I had a lot of random emails from people that I've never talked to...which was nice! 

Building the float was a lot of fun! It wasn't at all like the ones in Portland. These were a bunch of chicken wire and paper mache and stuff like that instead of seeds and stuff. 

J, as soon as she told [her boyfriend] she was getting baptized, got proposed to haha so as soon as he gets back in December they're getting married!! Really cool miracle. So she has a ring and everything now. 

My ankle's doing fine. Occasionally it'll hurt randomly but it's all good. Yeah we bike everyday to save miles. We drive into a town and park it so we can bike. Thank you so much for the package! It was perfect! I'll be sending the ties this week! I'm going to put in my journal and some stuff in there too.

What has been your biggest challenge this week?We got challenged throughout the mission to find people that will come to church. So we really focused on finding people that would be willing to come and commiting them to do it.

What has been your biggest concern?Making sure J gets to church. She got confirmed this last Sunday, but she hasn't been feeling well so we were worried about it for a bit.

What has been your biggest success?We met a girl named C about a week ago. She's 25 with 4 kids living alone and has some tough times. But every time we visit her, it's just at the right time to meet her and it's always when she's going through a tough time. She told us when she was younger, her cousin died and so she stopped believing in God and everything, but missionaries came by and helped her out and started believing again, and now she's going through some of the same stuff and we showed up!

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?Probably Sister B. She's one of the members on our street and she has a less active son named D who's around our age. We go by her a lot to help her out cause she has a broken leg and to try to help D. We've become really good friends with both of them. She always gives us Dr. Peppers (apparently a really big thing here)

What has been your most significant tender mercy?J brought her brother and mom to church! It was awesome! They've been saying they'll come for a while but they finally did!

What are you looking forward to this coming week?

We have a TON of members and investigators with humongous problems. One family has a dad with a blocked artery in his neck and a misplaced disk in his back, his wife has a spine fractured in 2 places, and his daughter has chronic anxiety. And they expect us to fix all those problems... Tons of pressure but I'm excited to see how it turns out!

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it.I've made plans on how to develop love for everybody! So I'm going to pray for love in every prayer!

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?

D and C 123:17. Also my favorite scripture for your ponderizing list!

Love you guys a lot! Have a great week!

Elder Hess