Arizona Week 41 - Day of Rest?

Hey Everyone,

This week was great. We had a zone conference on Wednesday, which went really well. President and Sister Sweeney came and taught us many great things about the Atonement and how to use our unique strengths in our missionary work. We took a personality test to better understand ourselves and our motives for action. Using this scale I am Personality Color "white". What this means is that my main motive for things is retain peace. This means that I am a good listener who won't interrupt, and I'm good at gathering information from things I see and discern people’s needs when perhaps others would miss clues. It was kind-of neat.

 

Also, the vehicle coordinator inspects the cars and the cleanest one wins "The Golden Plates". We went hardcore on cleaning our truck. Went to the car wash owned by the stake president. We did the manual side of the car wash first to clean the engine and the wheel wells. Then, we went to the automatic side and got the "Signature Wash." Next, we went to the vacuums, then to the scent sprayer and finally, we used armor-all on all the interior plastic. Oh yeah, we were serious about it this time. Yeah, we won the golden plates.

The seminary teacher for the local high school is building a home in our area. We found some spare time and went over to help him with painting the interior. For some reason, I really enjoy painting and, it turns out that I'm pretty good at it. It was a great time.

We met this really neat guy the other day. A family in the ward that lives on the reservation was having a yard sale, so we stopped in. There was a man there with a backpack (the backpacking kind of backpack). It turns out that he is walking from LA to Florida, up to New York (or Maine), over to Washington state, and back down to LA to raise awareness about veteran homelessness. He wants to end up getting a plot of land and putting some kind of residence on it for homeless veterans. It was really neat. He just walks and then sets up a tent to sleep and starts up again. He started this adventure in November so it'll probably take a while to complete. He was an inspiring guy though.

Sunday was so busy this week. We get to the church at 7:50am for ward council in one ward. Then, we both spoke in Sacrament Meeting for that same ward. Next, we went to the ward council in the other ward. We went to their Sacrament Meeting, too. In that ward, we taught the youth like we had done with the other ward in the previous week. Oh, but we are not done yet. Then, we had a ward mission correlation meeting. We went out to make visits for the rest of the night. I felt kind of like a chicken without a head, just running all over the place. But it went very well, and we really enjoyed being able to do so much. We would much rather be busy than bored.

We had some extra mattresses...Of course, we made a fort.

Hey Hodgson Clan...check this out!
The biggest, most beautiful burrito ever!
The Macho Burrito at Los Corales

Missed the dart board...they are not even metal tips...but they stuck!

Love you all,

Elder Kirk

Arizona Week 40 - The Strength of Youth

Hey Everyone,

It's been a good week. For me, I think the best weeks are when we struggle to get anything done for the first day or two and then everything falls into place toward the end. It makes me more grateful for success I suppose.

This week, we had a lesson with a lady that went really well. We read Alma chapter 32 with her and (I love this) she had a pencil out to highlight things and take notes. She was really pleased that in the chapter it said to "experiment" or to try the things that are learned. She was very happy to hear that questions are encouraged in the church. She had a sad experience with the Nazarene church: she was asked to not come to their Bible study because she asked too many questions. We are really happy that we get to work with her.

This Sunday, we got to teach all of the youth in one of our wards during Sunday School. We were asked to teach them about missionary work and to encourage them to invite a friend to an upcoming fireside in April. It was SOOO much fun teaching them. I wasn't sure how well we would do (we aren't used to teaching so many young people at once) but it went really well. We were able to keep them interested pretty much the whole time, and they were participating. We get to teach the other ward's youth this coming Sunday so hopefully that will go just as well. The youth of the church are really fantastic. They are much more prepared to serve missions than I ever was. It gives me a lot of hope for the future as I interact with them.

Spring break is getting started and since Pinetop is a sort of vacation spot anyway we have about as many people visiting as we do people that are out-of-town. Haha

Things are going very well here. We have zone conference coming up and a visit from the church's mission department soon. We're hoping that they bring the iPads with them. The pattern shows that when they visit, iPads follow close behind.

I love you all and I pray for you. Hope you have a great week.

Elder Kirk

Arizona Week 39 - Aloha

Hey everyone,

It's been a good week. Some neat things have happened. I got to conduct two baptismal interviews this week for some little girls that were being taught by elders in Whiteriver. The girls were 12 and 9, and they were just so cute. They were a little nervous, but they did great, and I'm happy that I was able to help them take the next step toward baptism. 

We got to do go to the Snowflake temple this week also and that was a good day. We went to get lunch afterward with the whole zone. BIG PARTY...haha.

My companion and I were driving near where we live and saw a sign for a sale. It looked like a nice sign so we figured it would be a nice sale. Our thought was that we would meet some people and see if they would be willing to listen to us preach =P but when we got there and saw the stuff, our plan went out the window. They were liquidating everything in the house and it was like dirt cheap. We went to the closet and found some new shirts that are totally awesome! The title of this post will give you hint about that. We also got a dart board for $1 but all the darts broke within 2 days...they were old. 


Then this morning, I opened a package from my mother with some neat stuff in it. But the thing in the box that I want to focus on is a box of hostess cupcakes with a candle taped to the front for my birthday. So what am I going to do with it? Yeah, I'm going to light the candle while it's on the box; can you blame me?



It's been a good week and things are going very well. We have a lot of things to keep us busy and we're getting even more happening in the area. 

This week’s letter is short because I don't have a lot of time, but I love you all and pray for you. Have a good week.

Elder Kirk

Arizona Week 38 - Dedication

Hey everyone,

The main event of this week was the dedication of the Gilbert Arizona Temple. In preparation for the event, every ward in our stake was assigned a portion of the stake center to clean. The wards we work with were in charge of the chapel and the cultural hall. Yes, the two biggest jobs. We mostly helped with the chapel. It was really neat to see how well everyone was able to come together and work to fulfill this task. In helping with this, I was able to get some new experiences that will likely never happen again. So, inside the chapel on the sides is a ledge type thing with lights in it. You can't ordinarily see on top of the ledge. Boy, let me tell you that dust collects up there. Let me also tell you that it is a might higher off the ground than it appears. I had to stand up on top of that ledge and clean the vents of the heating and AC ducts. Those were really dusty too. It was a very detailed cleaning. Many nooks and crannies that I didn't know existed got cleaned. It was very well worth it though.

The next morning, we went to view the dedication of the temple and the Spirit was felt throughout. During these dedication events, the chapels where we view the proceedings in are basically extensions of the temple. This is why it was so important to have such a thorough cleaning. 

The dedication was a beautiful event. The choirs that sang and the people that spoke did wonderfully in inviting the Spirit of the Lord into the temple. An address was given about how fortunate we are to have temples so accessible to us. A story was told about a bus load of people that had come from Guatemala to the Mesa Temple because it was the nearest one at the time. The sacrifices they made to be there were testaments of their faith and dedication in following Christ. It makes me sad that there are people who CAN go to the temple often but DON'T. I hope that one day everyone can realize the blessings of the temple and have the resolve to go there often. It is the place where we can be nearest to God and why would that not be the greatest desire of our hearts. I love the temple, and I love every opportunity I get to be there. It is a privilege and a blessing that should be more present in our lives. I love you all and I hope that things go well in your lives.

Elder Kirk