Hello Everyone, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
This week was really good spiritually, but I was sick, so it was hard. So I'm gonna start with a good!
This past week we received a referral, contacted 150 people, had an awesome lesson with our investigators, and we were able to help with festival of lights parking last night!
We met with a family from Ethiopia last Saturday. They seem super super solid and appear, for the most part, to understand what we're saying. There is still a really really big language barrier though. At the very beginning of our appointment we gave them some stuff in Amharic, which is the language that they speak in Ethiopia. We gave each of them a Book of Mormon and some pamphlets that were all in Amharic. When they got them, something within them just kind of clicked. They seem to get a better understanding of what the Book of Mormon was. So after we taught them about the Book of Mormon, we reviewed with them the importance of prayer, scripture reading, and keeping the Sabbath day holy. It was really awesome because they already understood the importance of prayer and reading scriptures, even if they don't do them very much. We committed them to pray every night before they go to bed. To kneel down as a family and pray together and read a little bit of scriptures. They agreed to do so :). During a discussion about keeping the Sabbath day holy we were able to talk about the sacrament and how it is tied in with baptism. They had been invited to be baptized previously, but we don't think they fully understood what that meant. So with the sacrament we were able to explain more fully what baptism is and why we partake of the sacrament. We then committed them to (when they pray as a family) to pray to know if baptism is something they need to partake of and join the church. They again agreed and said they would :).
So as I have mentioned before in my previous emails, our mission has been putting a huge focus on the Festival of Lights this year. They even took all of the sisters out of the southern part of the mission so the would be able to work more in the Visitors' center. Not this past Sunday, but the previous Sunday I think they said they had a count of over 6,000 people come to visit the Visitor's Center, so the help is needed!
While people are in the Visitor's Center looking around, sister missionaries, ward members from around the mission, and sometimes Elders are going around and talking to people to see if they're interested in learning more about the message we have to share and what they've seen in the visitor center. They call it "upper boxing". This means that they have filled out the "upper box" on the pamphlet with their information saying that they are interested in learning more. The lower half is for if they are referring others to hear the message. Well this past week we got 2 referrals from that! Unfortunately one of them doesn't speak English very well and the other one doesn't have a complete address. However, we were able to meet with the one that doesn't speak English very well and we set up an appointment for this Friday. We're pretty excited to go back this Friday and meet with the referral. His name is Abebe Chuwaka (a-bay-bay chew-aw-ka) or as we like to call him "a baby Chewbacca"!
Also this past week as I mentioned that we are able to contact about 150 people between elder Humphrey and I! That doesn't even count the contacts that Elder Humphrey and Elder Crandall made when we went on exchanges. (I'll talk about that later.) That is the most contacts I've ever made in one week as a companionship on my mission! It was nuts! This has been a great season to contact people using the "He is the Gift" cards and also the pass along cards that are advertising the Festival of Lights. So many more people are willing to either listen to us or take the cards because we're able to say "Merry Christmas! We would love to give this to you!" And give them the card and talk about it a bit. So it's been good!
The last thing that I mentioned was that we were able to help with the Festival of Lights last night. It was my second time being able to do it, which was super fun. Elder Humphrey had never helped with the Festival of Lights before though, so that was his first time. I asked him how he felt about it and he said it was "flippin sweet!". Sometimes it was hard to find places for everyone to park and a few people got cranky, other than that however the night was super fun and it was awesome using the walkie-talkie! Haha
The bad part that I mentioned earlier was that I got sick! That's why we had exchanges. Last Monday I woke up and my sinuses were on fire. It felt like they were completely dried out. My sinuses burned the entire day. The next morning, on Tuesday, I woke up and I was really congested. It wasn't very fun being on bike at that point I was sniffing all the time. Then by Wednesday morning not only was I congested but I just felt sick, really sick. So I decided that I was going to stay in so I could rest. By the end of the night I began to wheeze. I remembered, while growing up, that whenever I started to wheeze, it was a super bad sign and I should probably go to the doctor. So I called Sister Cooke and told her what was going on and the symptoms that I had. At the end of the phone call she told me that I needed to find the nearest Instacare and go that night if I could. If not that night, then early the next morning.
Luckily we knew of a place that was relatively nearby because an elder in our same apartment complex had to go there for an infection in his leg. So we called one of the senior couples and they gave me a ride to the doctor. We made it just in time, a little bit before they closed. They took my temperature, they swabbed me for strep, they took x-rays of my chest, gave me a nebulizer treatment and some medicine. My temperature was fine, the strep test came back negative, and the x-rays, he said, were perfect. By listening to my chest, however, he could hear and tell that I was having a hard time breathing. He could also hear all of the mucus in my lungs. So that's why he gave me the nebulizer treatment and the medicine. In the end he told me he wasn't 100% sure what it was, but that his very best guess would be that it was the beginning stages of Bronchitis. He sent me home with three prescriptions: an inhaler, Prednisone for my lungs, and an antibiotic. As of now I have tons more energy than I did when I was sick, but I still am wheezing, coughing, and congested which isn't very fun. The work, however, must go on! Ha
Well this has been our awesome fantastic week! I'm loving the area so far! I love being with Elder Humphrey! I love the people we're teaching! I attribute it all to the fact that I feel I have, for the first time, truly gotten into the spirit of Christmas and really applied the true meaning of Christmas in my life :). I promise as you do the same your Christmas will be ten times better when you do so! Those presents you give/receive will mean so much more! The time you spend with family this season will make it the best Christmas yet! I promise you, as a representative of Jesus Christ, that it will happen.
I love you all and I hope you have an amazing Christmas!
Love,
Elder Gold
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