So finally I have been able to get to a computer now. We have been really busy and are working towards new goals.
So last week was pretty good but also pretty crazy ... I'm not going to lie! I can barely remember it and have been struggling lately to write it in my journal. I have just got so busy with everything with leadership things and then preparing myself to help the district. So I am going to tell you about last week .. Don't worry about me though.
So on Monday, Elder Li and I had to travel all day on the bus to be able to get to a doctors consultancy appointment at the very edge of our area. While traveling there we took pictures of the wide open spaces ... man do I miss that! All of the places that I have over here are closed and tight and I'm used to .. well ... not that! But I am getting to feel like this is part of me now. Like England is another part of my home. Just like the farm in Saskatchewan and the California road trips :) Great memories have been made in my life through the hard work of my loving family. So when we got to Washington we realized that we had an hour to spare so we went and walked around the mall to see what was there and other things. We then traveled to the doctor and I had my consultancy appointment. He checked my vitals, my lungs, my heart, my history of health and other things. He is sending to me to get a ECG/EKG test while I am running on a treadmill and an echo test (ultrasound of my heart) next Friday April 4th. Then I have my result appointment the following Monday. After the appointment we went back to our area and had a lesson with a less active who is returning to church.
Tuesday was a pretty good day, we had great studies! I loved preparing for district meeting with President Pilkington that happened Friday. After that we took down all the chairs from stake conference and that took not long at all. That was quite a shock to me. We then cooked a really good meal of chicken breast bathed in cream sauce and some piri piri sauce. After that we went and saw E again. He is doing alright, I just wish he could pull himself out of depression and see the beauties of life. He has many grandchildren and a fun little bunny rabbit that hangs out with him all the time. After that we went and had a great tea appointment with the Liddle family. I love going there because we laugh ... A LOT! We just laugh about the stupid things often. After that we had a good lesson with Alex and Star at the chapel. On the way there though, I tripped and ATE IT ... HARD!! It was great.
Wednesday was Elder Li's 20th birthday. I woke up early and made bacon, eggs and pancakes! With my peanut butter from home and authentic maple syrup. We then went finding the entire day! Throughout the day we had lunch with Mavis. So good and then a lesson with some recent converts. We had tea with Geoff in which we had stir fry for Elder Li's birthday. The evening of Wednesday consisted of ward council and a lesson with a less active that is returning to church.
Thursday we traveled to district meeting in Newcastle at noon where President and Sister Pilkington joined us. We discussed the opportunity of being on a mission and what it means to see people as they can become. We discussed how everyone has potential and the abilities to improve their lives ... even us missionaries! We talked about the talk from President Monson in October 2012 General Conference called "See Others as They May Become". It was a great talk in which we learn that we must see through God's eyes and look at everyone with hope and patience for the people that they can become. I would recommend everyone watch it and read the talk. It has honestly changed me as a missionary and as a person. I used to be quite critical of people and their mistakes that they make but after this I have no desire to pull anyone down. Life is trying to pull us down as it is, we should lift each other higher to a new plane of thinking and a new vision of what they can become.
Here is the link for the talk:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/see-others-as-they-may-become?lang=eng
Immediately when we got back into the area, we had a tea appointment to gravel to at the L family's house again. They made us burgers and pancakes. I was so full! We then went on splits with the brethren from our ward. We met a less active and discussed the hard fact that if he does not do what he has promised to do when he was baptised that he would not receive the blessings that God has in store for him.
Friday was an interesting day. We had one zone leader and one assistant to the president join our weekly planning - that was stressful! LOL After that we found out that we are not allowed to play board games in the flat other than on P-day ... whoops! Didn't know that. So after that Elder Li and I went finding around Roker Beach and had a pretty good conversation with this guy who was adamant that there are problems in this world right now that could have been avoided if people minded their own business. He was pretty interesting hahaha. We then went and had tea at the flat, went to meet Jack but he didn't show up :( So we were kind of worried about him because we haven't had contact with him for almost two weeks. We then went straight to sport night where there were only four of us. Two recent converts, 1 less active and .... Jack! It was so great to see that he was still alive to be honest. He looked so tired. There is a major job shortage over here so he had taken a job to make some money for food and was not able to meet us because he couldn't spare the time and couldn't let us know because he couldn't afford the $30 a month for a cell phone to contact us. We had a lesson with him and he told us that he had a job interview for MacDonalds on Saturday! At least its a job right! We had a wonderful spiritual lesson with him ... honestly the best lesson of my mission thus far. We scheduled him fro baptism on April 12th and he is very He said he could do the rest. We then went and had an ....... interesting ward coordination meeting. We changed the time so that a ward missionary could come but it was not the best decision in my mind because the entire time they were contentious, always believing they were right and just wouldn't listen at all. Lets just say as soon as closing prayer was said I was out of that room in no more than 10 seconds. We then went to go finding which was fun. As we were on the bus to go on to an area to go finding I saw a guy with a Canada hoodie and we IMMEDIATELY got off the bus to find him and talk to him. We spent an hour just having fun talking to a lot of people in town trying to locate this man but sadly in the end we were not able to find him ... shucks! After that we had tea with Mavis. We just enjoyed the possible last time with her because she is in Utah now and wont get back til after transfers. Then we had a lesson with the ward mission leader at his Nana's house. Took some pretty great pictures and headed home.
Sunday was church. We were at the chapel from 9:40 in the morning to 8:40 in the night! WHEW! I learned a lot more about the atonement and not only the redeeming power of it but also the enabling power of it. After church we had a tea appointment at the chapel with the bishop, his wife and their five kids! It was fun because it was a beautiful sunny day so as they were preparing the food Elder L and I played with the kids outside. After that we had a cottage evening at the chapel in which we discussed the things that truly matter the most. We watched that Mormon Message called Moments That Matter Most. I would suggest everyone watch it!
Here's the link for it:
https://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#moments-that-matter-most
Then we went home and I went to be early at 9:30 and then we got woken up by the elders yelling the code word to practice our zombie war plans. We needed to fortify the flat, get dressed, get weapons from the stuff in the flat and choose a vehicle to take. Lets just say that it was funny cause I was half asleep and nearly fell down the stairs :P Hahahahahaha As soon as it was done I went back to sleep in moments.
Monday was a good day! I woke up at 6am with Elder Fischer and we went on a run to the top of a big hill behind the chapel and the bishops home. We could see the entire coast from the top of it! It was a beautiful and sunny morning! We took some pretty epic pictures at the top of the coast and me with my new rugby ball. Also some pretty gross selfies, be warned I just woke up lol. After breakfast we went shopping at Tesco again with the member of the ward that buys us the food. We spent the equivalent of over $500 for food for us and I bought food to keep helping me lose weight! I am now down to 91 kg! So I'm hoping that I stay when transfer calls come (I like the food lol). After that we went to the chapel to have zone P-day. We played a few games and ate pizza (I cheated on my "diet" or "eating habits" :P) after that Elder Mielacher and I went on an exchange in Sunderland and Elder Li went to South Shields with Elder Koojiman. We were meant to have a lesson with Jack at Geoff's house but once again he never showed up. Can you all please pray for him by name ... Thank you! When we were done our lesson with Geoff we travelled to FHE with Alex & Star at the tip of our area. Before we got into the house a miracle happened ... Elder Koojiman and Elder Li found and scheduled one new investigator and scheduled another one of theirs that they have been working with for over three months! Whoot! After that we had FHE with Alex and Star. When we were heading home though, NONE OF THE BUSSES WOULD PICK UP UP!!! We finally called Star's dad and got a ride home with him. When we got home we were alone in the huge house the entire night because the other team went to York for a training/trainee conference.
Tuesday, Elder Mielacher and I sent to Seaham all day! It is the edge of the are on the coast and it was pretty good. We almost got kicked off the bus though because our ticket does not cover that area .. weird huh? People are a lot nicer there and more open to give us directions and help. We even got invited back to this one lady's house and taught her and made her our new investigator. She is 35 and is just so nice :) She just wanted to take care of us and help us. She even suggested that her partner would listen to us and get baptized. Her partner is an underwater worker. He is down near Liverpool right now building a wind farm off the coast. They have a 14 month baby and two dogs. It was great to talk to her and see how God blesses us with miracles. After that Elder Mielacher and I went around Seaham talking to some pretty nice people. We talked to a cop, a body builder/body guard and a nurse. They all had dogs as well. We played with them and I got mud on my suit trousers lol. In the evening Elder Mielacher and I traveled back home to have tea and poor Elder Mielacher got cornered on the bus by a guy who was having a diabetic fit (we thought he was high on drugs). He asked if we had anything to boost his blood sugar and we sadly didn't so I went up and down the bus explaining to people what was going on and bless those people they gave him some stuff to help it. The guy then invited us back to his house to teach him and help him so we traveled to the opposite tip of our area to make sure that he got home safe and sound. We were excited to teach him, but over time he admitted to us that he was a hard drug addict and we graciously declined the offer to come into his home and watch him do drugs. It was weird cause he even showed us some of the stuff that he had so when we got home I called the assistants to the president and asked what I should do and they told me that I had to report it to the cops. That was an interesting call to the cops. Kind of an exciting day (not really but definitely a good story to tell).
Today we had District Meeting in Sunderland, in which we discussed the difference in thinking that we need to have so that we can work more effectively and truly see people as they become. To me there is no such thing as a potential investigator. Either they are an investigator or they are not. The time that we say that there is chance of working with them is when we sat that they are a FUTURE investigator. They are people who we plan when to see them, where to see them and what we want teach to them. I was feeling fired up and was very worried about the district because they did not react the way that I thought that they would. I was expecting them to be fired up and ready to take on the world but nope ... I am not upset anymore because I have realized that I am a very outspoken person with my feelings about what I think and the rest of the district isn't. They are a quiet bunch of lads but I love each of them as my brothers in the gospel and in the service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. After DDM we had lunch in which I had a salad of 1/4 cucumber, 1/2 tomato, 1/2 can tuna, 1 hard boiled egg, 100g of spring onion filled cottage cheese, 1/2 onion, 1 TBSP Chinese chili sauce and 1 tsp of lemon infused olive oil! YUM! So after that we went emailing and here I am now ... whew! That took me a long time to write all that! I must go now and talk to those children of God that need this glorious gospel.
Talk to you next Tuesday because of transfers. I don't think that I am moving because of my doctors appointments for my tests are after transfers but who knows. I will keep you all posted. Tuesday is P-day.
I love you all! Take care of yourselves and remember that your Heavenly Father loves you.
You are in my prayers.
Love
Elder Zachary Lee Dotschkat
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| As a missionary you learn to sleep when you can, where you can |
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