Elder Oldroyd: Book of Mormon in a hurry

Yes definitely another CRAZY week!

Thanks pops for giving me suggestions on what I should start writing about and more into detail about the life down here in the good ol Lorain haha. First off the pictures are truly great!! I love seeing the kids going back to school, Haircuts are looking really good! That panda is huge!!! There would be no room in the house for that!! Haha that kind of reminds me of that huge stuffed dog I had growing up. This week was a really interesting week. But to tell you a little more about the area. Well first off, it’s super weird not having mountains that you can see. It seems like you can see so much of the sky haha. I will have to take more pictures of the area. But just picture the worst roads and sidewalks you know of.. That’s where I am at on a daily basis haha. No joke. It’s a good thing we have mountain bikes because regular bikes wouldn’t be able to handle what we have to ride on! All the houses are super old and some are actually really cool antique looking houses. I will definitely have to take more pictures. It’s hard to explain and to have you picture something in your mind. Pictures speak a thousand words! Because Elder Jenson and I are on bikes, we are able to talk to sooooo many people! A lot of people are always walking around. But for instance we ran into a black lady named Shenequa. Awesome name right?? We started talking to her and she seems pretty interested, she reads religious things to this guy who can’t really communicate with people really well. I can’t remember how she worded it, but this guy loves reading about religion and is really smart but can’t communicate with people? So what did we give her to read to him? A Book Of Mormon of course! We told her about the Book but she was in a hurry. So we exchanged information and hopefully we can get an appointment with her to tell her more about the Book Of Mormon. There is so many religions down here it’s not even funny. Again I will have to take pictures of the churches down here. Some are actually really cool looking buildings! We have two appointments with two different Jehovah Witness’s. This will be interesting visits, haha we don’t want to bible bash with them because that’s not what we are here to do. We simply are here in God’s hands to do his work. I haven’t done anything, God has done all the work. It’s crazy to think that but it’s so true. I can’t take credit for anything. I always say “We are not here to convince you to do anything, the spirit with testify to you. That’s how you will gain an answer, not through me.”

Elder Jenson crashed and went over his handle bars again. Not just once this week but twice hahaha I feel bad but it’s really hard not to laugh. At least this time he fell on grass Elder Jenson truly is a great guy, he has helped me so much spiritually. I am learning the Doctrine really well and loving every single second learning. This is probably something you have never heard, but I love reading! I love reading talks from General Authorities! My favorite talk right now go to speeches.byu.edu read/listen to Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox. GREAT talk. I would highly recommend reading that. Elder Jenson is the District Leader, he became the District Leader as soon as I came out. We have District meetings on Tuesday mornings. Last week we focused on how to simply teach the Restoration. We would go over and phrase each point in one sentence. It takes some practice to just get all the most important things to teach each point in one sentence. But if you can get it in one sentence with your companion, you will be able to hit the most important thing with an investigator and be able to expand in more detail. Us as missionaries need to be able to teach everything so simple that a kid can understand what we are teaching. Teaching more simple is easier for everyone to understand. 1.) God is our loving Heavenly Father. 2.) The Gospel blesses Families. 3.) Heavenly Father Reveals His Gospel in Every Dispensation. 4.) Savior’s Earthly Ministry and Atonement. 5.) Great Apostasy. 6.) Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith. 7.) The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. 8.) Pray to know the Truth through the Holy Ghost. Getting those points down was difficult but fun. I memorized all the points for the lessons and also Articles of Faith and more teachings on How to Begin teaching. Elder Jenson went to BYU for a year before his mission, he loves acting. He has been in a couple of movies! haha Elder Jenson really is an awesome guy. I was truly blessed to have him as my first companion. We haven’t had any disagreements or been upset with one another.

The zone leaders are Elder Burt (Las Vegas) and Elder Burt (Seattle) are great zone leaders. We used to live in the same apartment with them, but we were lucky enough to be able to move apartments. We have gone on exchanges and I went with Elder Graf, I asked him at the end of the day on how I he thinks I’m doing. He said out of all honesty the best new missionary I have been with. I was able to do things other missionaries couldn’t apparently which was a great feeling. Gave me a lot of confidence.

We don’t really hang out with any certain members or people. We are always busy! We only have like 6 family/ part member families in our area. Which as you can see isn’t a lot. There is a transfer every six weeks in the mission. So last week was the end of my first transfer! It doesn’t feel like it, but we taught a total of 110 lessons in those six weeks. That’s a good amount of lessons! And to think I have said at least half that much of opening prayers. It’s crazy but amazing saying so many prayers a day. I have easily prayed maybe double the amount of prayers so far on my mission than in my whole life! I love the Gospel and it’s truly a blessing to be a missionary. I want to thank you so much for keeping me here on a mission. I can’t express how much that truly means to me! I’m not to worried about anything back at home, Facebook is no problem or anything. Nothing is making me feel like I wish I was somewhere else. I am definitely losing myself here in Ohio. Which is nothing but an amazing thing. I want to become the best missionary I can become and so far Elder Jenson says I’m doing great. I have gotten down on myself like the first week because I didn’t know too much about the scriptures but it’s coming to me. I love it, I’m happy with myself and happy where I am. I have been able to use the references you put in my scriptures. Ether 12:26 is always a good one, I have used it a lot. You can apply that scripture to anyone’s life’s.

So I was riding my bike on Thursday and all of a sudden I felt a sting on my rib, I just itched my rib and kept on riding. It didn’t really phase me. Then I felt it again on my tricep. I hurried and got off my bike, feeling my arm over my shirt and felt a bug or something in there. I pushed it against my skin to try and smash it to kill it. I put my hand up my shirt and pulled out a wasp… That thing literally stung me 5 freaking times!! Talking about Satan, trying to stop me from going out to do missionary work! We went to Maria’s house and had a lesson and was there for about an hour. I started getting all hot and I started swelling up! My face was getting just a little swollen and my arms were getting swollen! I ended up taking 2 Benadryl pills to stop the swelling. But you know what those pills do, it made me sooo drowsy. This happened around four in the afternoon haha. We were at a part members house eating a couple of hours later when it kicked in and the seat I was in was really comfortable. My eyes were real heavy. I had to stand up and teach the lesson so I didn’t fall asleep, when I was on my bike riding though I was okay because I was moving around. My arm is still a little swollen but Satan stinks. I can tell  you that much haha. But I gotta go family I love you guys so much though and I hope you feel the spirit all day everyday. I pray about your well-being everyday and hope you can feel the spirit. Sometimes it is hard to recognize the spirit. But just know Heavenly Father is with you every single step of the way and is cheering you on to make the correct choices. He has a plan for each and every single one of us. He knows us better than we knows ourselves! Have an amazing week family!!

Love Elder Oldroyd