Monday, June 16, 2014

Crazy Couple of Weeks

Hey y'all,

So as you may or may not know, depending on how often you actually read these emails, I didn't send anything last week. Sorry about that.   We had a super full day and I had barely enough time in the day to get everything else done, and unfortunately this sort of fell by the way side.

This week my email is more going to be informational than spiritual.

So last week was a free admission day to the Field Museum in downtown Chicago, (if you are like me and have no idea what that is, I think Google can help.) So we figured why not? It's free, it's a great
museum, and it's only a half hour train ride away? Sounds like a deal to me. So we went down and spent the entire day in downtown Chicago.  We went to the museum, took some pictures, walked around and just basically had a good time.

Tuesday we spent the entire day looking up referrals and less-active members. Side note for everyone out there, if you live in the Logan Square boundaries, but choose to go to the Westchester ward simply
because you don't like the people in Logan Square, YOU ARE STILL LESS-ACTIVE! You are supposed to be going somewhere else. The organization of the church is set up this way for a purpose. The Bishop of another ward can't receive revelation for you. You can't receive callings in another ward, which means you aren't fully living the gospel. There are all sorts of reasons why you are supposed to be attending the ward whose boundaries you live in. Not going to your ward makes you less active. Just saying.

Wednesday was a zone conference, which was about three hours longer than we had planned. Not sure how that worked, but it did. Pretty much took the entire day, except the small hour we had to teach one of our investigators, Eric. We taught him about repentance and the atonement, and really established with him that if he wants his life to be different, he needs to change his lifestyle. IE- if you don't want to
get jumped by the current members of your former gang, stop dressing like a gang-banger. Eric is amazing, and will be so solid in the gospel when he turns things around, but I'm really starting to see how hard it is for people to change their entire lives to fit what they know to be right.

Thursday was spent planning, organizing and answering questions. Our area book is so cluttered and doesn't make any sense, and none of the addresses are complete, so they won't actually register to anything when we look it up. But don't worry, I changed that. Since coming out on my mission I have learned about a whole different style of life.  Organization. Things are so much easier when everything makes sense and is where it is supposed to be. It just makes sense. Also, I started reading the Doctrine and Covenants from cover to cover this week, along with my reading of the Book of Mormon, (Cat, are you having a hard time getting spiritual things from the war chapters? Because I definitely am. We will have to go over it together and make sense of it all.) and guess what? We meet with a recent convert every week, and might be able to go to the temple with him soon, but he had a bunch of questions written down for us this Thursday, and guess what they were all about? That's right, The Doctrine and Covenants. So guess who was able to answer all his questions? This guy. That's right folks, scripture study truly is an inspired commandment.

Friday was a full day or riding around trying to contact people before Puerto Rican Weekend started up, (this is a festival celebrating Puerto Rican culture and last about four days, and this weekend was just the pre-party. The real festival is in a couple weeks and runs for about 8 days straight) with little success. We ended up biking about 22 miles that day, making it the second most we have ridden in one day since I've been here. The record for me is 26 in case anyone is wondering. And yes, that's a marathon.

Saturday I went on an exchange with our district leader, and that was a ton of fun. Unfortunately we were slowed down a little bit because he had been hit by a taxi a few days earlier, and he was fine, but his bike was toast. So we were on the bus all day, and the bus is super slow. We ended up getting close enough to our area and then walking the rest of the day. We spent a lot of time contacting the The
Projects, and answered a lot of questions about God and Jesus. The majority of the questions were serious and spiritual, but we did get quite a few people ask us why people always assume Jesus was white. We spent plenty of time explaining that Jesus very well could be black, and we would love and worship him just the same if he was, but it's not his skin color that matters, it's what he did for us. So if they want to accept black Jesus as their Savior, then feel free, because he is the same Savior no matter what color his skin is.

Sunday was a regular day of church, and it was wonderful as always, but then after studies we tried to go out for the night and found that my comp had a flat, so we came in and repaired it, went out again, and a little while later the same tire was flat, so we went back home and fixed it again, but in a different place, new hole. Third time out the door we made it a bit farther before the tire was flat again.  Returned to the apartment to find that the first patch wasn't holding, and had ripped a bigger hole in the tube. It was at this point that we gave up on the bikes and spent the last 45 minutes of the night walking around
a park near our house trying to talk with people. Apparently we just really weren't supposed to be riding bikes last night. Oh well.

That about sums up the week, and I've got to go anyway so I can get ready for a zone activity. We will be playing Chicago ball.......whatever that is..... I guess I'll let you know what it is next week.

The Church is true, your body is a temple, and don't do drugs.
God loves you.
I love you.

-Elder Logan Gifford

P.S.

This week I found a couple of really cool picture spots, but this first one is the best I got out of those. The second one was my dinner last night, proving that even though we are poor missionaries, with the right ingredients and generous leftovers from members, I can still eat like a king. And the third is just something I found walking around Logan Square. That place always feels like home. ;)

Love y'all! Have a great week!





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