Alright so this week was a pretty good
week. Imma just skip to all the good stuff so you don't have a boring
letter this week haha!
First awesome thing
that happened this past week was our Christmas Zone Conference. This one
was different because the Nola zone was combined with the Slidell zone
so there were so many missionaries! And it was the Christmas Zone
Conference so it was a bunch of fun and not as much just sitting and
listening to instructions. The instructions we did have were really good
tho. My favorite was by the Slidell ZL's, Elder Heninger and Elder
Bailey. Theirs was about how to have a good/memorable mission. Here are
their three points
1. Check yourself before you wreck yourself
So forget yourself
So
the basis for that one is that we need to make sure that we are doing
the things that we should be doing and making sure that this work is
about the people here and not about us.
2. Work hard, Play hard
Live Louisiana
This
one is pretty self explanatory but missionary work isn't supposed to
make us miserable. You can make it fun and you can still do fun things
but the work has to come first. Also we are called to Louisiana so we
gotta live Louisiana. You gotta get excited about the things that they
get excited about and you gotta get in and live the culture. That is
something that I firmly believe helps missionaries connect with the
people they teach.
3. #gettheshot
So
this one is kinda different. When we take a picture we are trying to
capture a moment. We are trying to capture the feeling of what was going
on so that we can look back and remember everything that we did. They
used this as an analogy for the mission. Are we capturing the feeling of
the mission so that it can look back on it and remember how amazing it
was?
Those were the three points and I thought
it was pretty cool yeah! After that it was a white elephant gift
exchange and I got a pug face pillow with a picture of the three
Chalmette sisters on it haha!
Now the other
thing that happened this week is something that I usually don't write
about because I usually don't like them, but I had a great exchange this
week haha! I got to go with Elder Boyd, the English trainee here in
Chalmette! I have never had more fun on exchanges and I have probably
never had more fun tracting lol. So the beginning of the day we planned
and Elder Boyd asks "So what's the goal for today?" and before I can
answer he gets super excited and says "LIGHT THE WORLD!" So that became
the joke for the day. After every house we knocked on and every person
we talked to we would say something along the lines of "Man, we just
freaking lit the world!" It made tracting way more fun then just going
and knocking on doors haha. And later that day Elder Boyd and I got to
go caroling with the Sisters in a trailer park over in Chalmette! Boyd
was super happy because he loves to sing haha! All in all it was a good
day!
Well that is the news for the week! Oh
actually I didn't even say anything about transfers! I am staying
another one here in Chalmette with Elder Hernandez!
Alright y'all! Have a Merry Christmas!
Elder Nathan Stoddard
