Elder Ethan May's Missionary Adventure

  Bonjour amis et familles! What an amazing week out in the field! Weeks like these are why I'm out here on a mission. When we received news that since one of the two families that shows up at church had COVID and because of that, they weren't going to have services for 2 weeks, we thought it was going to be another slow week. Let's explain that was not the case: MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK This week was the complete opposite of last week. The complete opposite of a lot of weeks I've had so far. For the first time since I got here, we have someone new who we're teaching! In fact, we have 3 new people! The first lesson we had this week was with a girl who I'll call 'Sophie.' Sophie's grandma is a member, she is not. Sophie's grandma invited us over for dinner last Sunday so we went over there and Sophie was there. She started asking questions about our church and it led into one of the most spirit-filled lessons on what we believe I've ever...

Bonjour amis et familles! Shoutout to Elder Groom for providing this week's subject line. Alright here goes: MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK No lessons this week. We planned 3 lessons and none of them happened. But, as the hymn says, we "press on in the work of the Lord!" This older gentleman came up to us at Walmart (where else) and complimented Elder Mills's boots. Or at least tried to. He couldn't talk real well because he was having some mouth pain (which was the reason he was at Walmart). So, Elder Mills jumped at the chance and asked for his number so we could talk about shoes (and hopefully the restored Gospel) later! Quick thinking by my companion for sure. Nothing has come from that interaction yet, but it falls under that 'missionary moment' umbrella. FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Have you ever had the uncontrollable urge to consume rice?" No, Elder Groom. I have never had that urge before. I ask you, how many times has that unquenchable desi...

  Bonjour amis et familles! As I write this, our porch is covered in a sheet of ice. How we wish it would be snow. But, alack. This leads to this week's subject line. We're just a little too south to get full-on snow apparently. Would've been cool.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK After not meeting with him in person for 3 whole weeks, we had multilple great interactions with Carl! We called him up on Thursday and he proceeded to give a 45-minute dissertation on how he thinks God put us in his life and that he's so grateful and proud of what we do as missionaries. We're trying to get him to understand that it's because of God and our message, not us, that he feels that way, but it was nonetheless great to hear that as a missionary! We were able to teach him again on Friday and we ended up being there for 2 1/2 hours, which isn't supposed to be how lessons work, but he's a very talkative fellow. He said that if he decides to get baptized, it'll be befo...

  Bonjour amis et familles! Good news! We have survived quarantine relatively unscathed! Elder Kephart can even taste again! MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK We had little opportunity to teach people or do other things where we could have cool moments with people, since we only got out of quarantine on Saturday.  The first thing we did on Saturday that we couldn't do while in quarantine was help build an extension for the house of a family in the branch. We were there for 5 hours and got the whole wall in place - at least the wood part of it! It wasn't as spiritually uplifting or enriching as a great lesson or a cool finding experience, but it does highlight the 'other half' of missionary service - the service part of it! I love all of the chances I get to go and do projects like that and I've really been missing them these past two weeks since we've been quarantined. FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK This week's edition isn't necessarily a 'quote' - in the ...