ELDER OLDROYD: The Beauty Of Service

This week was a ton of service! I think I am going to own a landscaping business because we are doing a ton of it and we mow a ton of lawns haha. Just joking.. I have no idea what I want to do. Speaking of service, we have a member named Bro. Daugherty. He volunteers at an organic food place called “Local Roots”. He gave us a referral named Veronica who was the manager. We came into contact with her and to make a long story short her husband can’t live there anymore because somebody thinks he is molesting their children and turned him in. The kids at the moment are living somewhere else but only Veronica can see them. As of right now, the only people are living at the house is Veronica and her 79 year old mother Mary. They needed help with service. Mary had some things she needed to do. Well in this garage they have there is a ton of bricks for the floor. It’s super uneven, so we pulled up all the bricks and laid them on a rack so that we were able to scrub them clean. Yeah I said it, Mary wanted us to scrub these bricks, level the ground in the garage (because it’s dirt) and put the clean bricks right back where they were. I want to say there is at least 325 bricks and we scrubbed every single one of them on both sides haha. It was a blast!…  It isn’t the most fun service I have done. But we are helping them haha. Veronica has met missionaries in the past when she lived in Cali. She told us she wants to take the discussions. She told us that she loves how we carry ourselves and how happy we look. So that is a great prospect. We have about 4 solid investigators and they all got put into our hands it felt like.

Terry and Tina didn’t come to church this week which was a bummer. Hopefully we can come into contact and see what’s going on. This Saturday we had a Pioneer Day Celebration! It was supposed to be outside which would be awesome! But we had a heavy heavy rainfall haha. The Ohio rain is insane! It amazes me every time when it rains! They had handcarts and everything! But it got spoiled by the crazy rain. We had good entertainment with musical numbers. It was a ton of fun. There was also a crazy amount of food haha and also dessert. I couldn’t believe it! haha we had a tug and war pull and the stick game where you sit down, feet to feet and pull. It was a fun time. The most important thing though for me, was to think about how much the Saints really did suffer. And to try and imagine the Saints walking all the way from where I am now all the way to where you guys are in Utah. That’s insane! Could you pack up and leave right now if the Lord told you to? My first reaction would be No that’s for sure! I couldn’t believe the Faith that they had to leave and also to keep going after seeing loved ones die right at their feet. That would be way too hard.

It was a fun hard working week. Elder Mitchell is an overweight guy and our very first companionship study. I told him to grab a piece of paper and pen. “We are writing goals!” Well they goals he set were great, they are making him strive and to learn. He is doing better and better each day. The most important goal that I have been working with him is that he wanted to lose weight. It was like 20 pounds in 3 months. Well I really have been focusing on that goal of his, we have been running like crazy outside in the mornings and I won’t let him give up. He has had a tendency of walking and giving up sometimes. Well with encouragement we are doing great! He is half way to his goal and he are half way through our companionship! Sometimes in our life we want to “give up”. When things are hard the thing we want to do is run away from our problems. Being on my mission I have noticed that I can’t do that. Nor can my companion. Just like the Savior does, he encourages us to become better. Sometimes we need to have somebody kick us in the rear to move and keep going. We are doing great. Ashland Ohio is an amazing place!!