Week 20 (Week 3 in Michigan)

Yes, I feel very welcomed now.

Another week has flown by! Seriously, this week has gone by super fast for me. At the start of our week Elder Christiansen and I said goodbye to Elder Palmer, who traveled up to Traverse City to train a "new" missionary, who was in Brazil for one week before being sent home. We miss him, but we can still video chat here and there to see how he is doing! It turns out his trainee didn't buy a phone before he came out, but luckily with our work moving into Phase 1, it's not all over the phone anymore.

So technically, we still aren't supposed to purposefully go around talking to people, but we are allowed to go on walks and talk with anybody willing. My companion and I like to go on walks to get to know the town better and, of course, we talk with those we bump into. We managed to find 2 new people to teach while walking around, and had some other good conversations with people too. That was such a nice experience, to be able to talk with people again, face to face. In fact, while talking to one new person named Shawn, I saw out of the corner of my eye some dude get out of his car and start sprinting towards us. Several thoughts ran through my head such as "is this guy about to run up to us and Bible bash us?" Or "maybe he's just going for a jog.. directly towards us". But when he made it to us he took off his sunglasses and said "Do you remember me? We met a couple of weeks ago!". On my very first day with my companions we went to Lake Huron and took pictures at the dock. While walking back to the shore we ended up talking with a man and his girlfriend, and although they weren't really interested in our church, we still had an awesome conversation that apparently left an impression on the guy considering he pulled over and ran up to us to say hi. 

We also found out this week that a couple of missionaries from Saginaw, Michigan would be temporarily staying at the senior couple house just down the street from our apartment. Apparently, their apartment was in very poor condition, and they wanted to get the missionaries out of there, so they brought them up to Bad Axe! It's been fun to have other missionaries so close. However, I just hope we don't get too distracted from our work with such cool guys so close to us.

On Sunday, we were able to have sacrament meeting in person again, and our friend Noah came!! It was fast and testimony meeting, and he seemed to enjoy it! However, what he really liked was the community and how nice everyone was. Even after sacrament we all talked for an hour or so outside, even hearing a super cool conversion story from a member who just moved into the branch. Noah is an interesting guy, with very strong political views, but we are excited to have a lesson with him this week, IN PERSON!! We also got a self-referral the other day of a woman named Karen. For some reason a lot of "self-referrals" we get, when we call insist that they never looked into the church or have no idea what we are talking about, but Karen did! She was looking for people or a place nearby to study the Bible with, and stumbled across some link on social media where she referred herself to missionaries. We have a meeting set up this coming Wednesday to get to know her and study with her, and we are very excited!

I've also been noticing missionaries with ukuleles and such around the mission and, although I don't know for sure yet if I can actually get an instrument, I might just have to get myself a piano keyboard, because I really want to get better at playing the piano.

These past 2 weeks I have begun to read the New Testament, and I really enjoyed this scripture which says "With men it is impossible. But not with God: for with God all things are possible" (Mark 10:27). If we rely on our strength alone, some tasks may be impossible, but with the strength of Christ, all things are possible.

I love you all, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Until next time!

~Elder Lightheart

Just a good ole selfie :)

My sweetheart back home sent me this adorable picture
and picture frame of us for my Birthday!

We saw this Welcome to Bad Axe sign and had to take pictures in front of it!