December 17, 2018

Well this week was rough. Not much happened in terms of finding people or teaching people or anything like that. My flu got progressively worse each day, although that didn't really keep us from going out. I am fine now however. Highlights of this week I guess would be our lesson with Freddie and phyliss which went well yet again, we taught the restoration and gave them a book of mormon which they seemed genuine about reading. We had dinner with some different members this week and had good times sharing light the world and brainstorming with them. We went to the most northern part of our area to visit a less active up there, but they don't have a car and live an hour from the church and 30 minutes from the closest active member so I don't know how we can help them. 

We had Christmas zone conference on Tuesday and I got the two packages from mom but am still waiting on Sam's and grandma's. But I will receive those tomorrow. We watched the other side of happiness for our movie this go around even though President was pressured from everyone to show coco. Oh we also started teaching Ruben this week and he is by far the most prepared person in the world. He is more dedicated to the church than most members, he is starting the new come follow me study program, and he reads several pages in the book of mormon each morning, and he loves church and said that he doesn't think he will ever stop going, and wants to know how he can receive callings and minister and be a part of the church. I told elder barrus after the lesson that if he doesn't get baptized I might as well go home because I will never find someone more prepared than he is. 

Oh the other thing that happened this week is that we found out what is happening with transfers which are tomorrow. Me and elder barrus are staying but we are having a baby. Kind of. An elder is being reassigned from Puerto Rico after he was pulled out because of the hurricane and he is tagging along with us and our job is to train him how it is done in South Carolina. So that should be a lot of fun. As far as the Christmas call goes, we know for sure that we have an appointment at 3 for dinner but we most likely will be going somewhere else in the morning to call. But we still have to get that figured out so be patient with me on that. That's really everything. Expect more news next week. If I even email. Which I probably won't. Sorry.

Love,

Elder Bertoch

Jackson is in the middle, second row, behind the mission president:

Winter Wonderland

Busy week this week. Although I can't remember too much of what happened. Monday is a really clouded day, I have no clue what we did on that day. We most likely went to visit some people but I don't think we got in to see anyone.

Tuesday we had district council in the morning in which we set our goals high of finding 7 people this week. People were blown away at the thought of that. This district doesn't pull in numbers like my last one did, so they thought we were insane to have such a high goal, but when you have faith that you can do it and you work hard for it, it rarely is that high of a goal. So to start off with the goal that day we went and tried to visit many different potentials in our area book and the most contact we got with one was when someone told us through their ring doorbell to go away. So not the best results but it's just some trials of our faith that we had to overcome. We also have started English class this week, but it'll be a while before anyone actually shows up to that.

Wednesday not much happened until the joy to the world concert. The program was really good and had people from all these different faiths and even had this like Sri Lankan woman who is pretty famous in opera come down and perform. So it was super cool. Me and my companion were chosen as stage hands in moving the piano on the stage back and forth. And the first time we go to move the piano one of the wheels got stuck and the piano tipped over quite a bit and was fixin to fall, but by some miracle the piano like rocked back and was up righted again. God was looking out for us that day let me tell you.

Thursday was a cool day because first of all it was my 500th day on the mission! But other than me being ancient we also had a good time contacting some people and we even had a book of mormon referal, but she lives way, way, way, up in the north. Like all the way up in the "mountains". But we went up there and met with her and she was very interested in taking the lessons. So that was good news, then since we were already up there we thought we would run to some other members that people have been telling us to see but couldn't because of the distance, so we went to see someone basically on the north Carolina border, like we were a mile away from the cutoff, and we also tried by this one former super solid member but he had a big gate and we couldn't get through, and then we tried by one more whose kids aren't members. And their house is this giant log cabin on top of a hill. They have a very steep long driveway but we thought we could send it up there in our extremely low Toyota corola. We got pretty far up there until we hit the last little part of the driveway and we got stuck. So elder Barrus went to push we tried to get it out for 20ish minutes but alas it was stuck. So we walked to the house explained our predicament and they invited us in. They asked us to give it one more try while they have pointers to give as we do it. And I got it up the driveway and only made the largest ditch in the driveway by where our wheels were spinning for a solid 30 minutes. But we were invited back the next day to help move a dresser to another member.

So in the morning we helped move that dresser and brother hymen took us out to lunch at chick FIL a where a peppermint milkshake was had. Then afterwards did some weekly planning for a long while and tried to see some people's.

Saturday we had our ward Christmas party, which was polar express themed and had lots of breakfast food and non members there. And it was all very nice and good. The highlight of this day was when we found Freddie and Phyllis who are so prepared for the gospel. They understand how corrupt most churches are and the weirdness of having paid clergy and how not many churches meet any qualifications for Jesus' church that he organized. They just kept asking question after question and we just kept giving them answers and they loved it. We were there for over 2 hours before we realized and had to go to another lesson. But they are very excited for when we come back next week. It also started snowing in the evening and we got word from the zone leaders that we need to go back and be on lockdown.

Sunday was miserable. Firstly I woke up with the flu, then we learned that the lockdown is still in affect, and that church is canceled. It wasn't to bad of a situation for me since I was sick anyways, so I had an extra reason to just sleep that day, but it was quite the boring day. And then last night was miserable times 10 because I had a super high fever at 104 in the evening, and fought with all my life to get it to break, it finally broke, but then I was just fighting smaller fevers on and off, all through the night, so it really was not a fun time, but I am feeling better now, as in I don't have a fever and I don't think I'll get another one, so I'm hoping that by tomorrow all will be good.

Something else that happened but I cant remember which day is we visited this old cowboy who is in love with the people at our church, he has this huge farm and holds barn dances for the ysas. So we went up there and he talked to us for a while and showed us around his farm, he said that he needs some help one of these days so we're going over there soon to help him out.

Elder Bertoch 

December 3, 2018

Aloha!

This week has been really good. It started off well and ended well. Monday we had a good night when we knocked on this dude's door and he let us in. His name is Travis and he has realized that he has wandered off of God's path and would like to know how to get on good terms with him again. So we taught him a gospel of Jesus christ and he said he would be happy to let us come back another time.

Tuesday was a switch up in where we didn't have district council, instead we used the day to prepare for the start of English class. Making and printing fliers. Most of the day was spent at staples trying to print out the things, that was quite the 4 hour long ordeal, but it did eventually happen. Then we went to the lozanos and talked about setting up some family home evenings with some less active members and they fed us dinner and we had a good time with them.

Wednesday we had a day of trying to contact different less Actives and formers. We had some success with the less Actives side of things and got to know more people here. Then later we had dinner with Sister Smith at Arbys and she took us to a lesson with Scott and Ashley pitcher, the inactive part member family that they told us about before. The lesson went very well, we taught the restoration and the spirit was very strong and they were very excited to have us back once they return from vacation.

Thursday was a strange day. We had district council in the morning and afterwards had a very mini zone conference, the APs gave a training on how to contact referrals and then we were given a zone leader for the day and were told to do whatever we should do that day to be trained effectively and use the extra person to the best of our ability. Not much happened however until night when we knocked on a door and a guy named Huber from el Salvador let us in and we taught the plan of salvation and he was really excited to have us back and so we set up a time for Saturday to see him.

Friday was weekly planning, we helped someone move, had dinner with the young men's president who is a young guy with a new baby. And they are very missionary minded and we're great in giving potential referals and inviting some different people to some upcoming activities. Then we saw a Bible referral and invited her to the joy to the world concert as well and she said she would be there as well as invite all her friends to go too.

Saturday we finished up doing everything for English class and going around to tiendas to place fliers and stuff. We also had that lesson with Huber and his wife surma joined in as well. It was super nice because as we were teaching the gospel of Jesus christ he asked, why are there so many churches and how am I supposed to know which one is true? So we did a quick 180 and taught the restoration and gave a book of mormon and he seemed quite interested in reading it. Then we went over to the Salinas and did the same thing with them that we did with the lozanos.

Sunday was stake conference which was really good. We sat by a new member family that had just moved from Houston. I mentioned to them that my uncle was stake president over there and it turns out that they were in the same ward as David. So they took a picture of me and sent it to Stacy. Stacy should have a picture of me with brother Campbell if you don't already know about it. After stake conference we went over to one of the Ward members who is having surgery today to give a blessing to her. Then we later went to visit some more different less Actives and potentials. We are very busy all the time it is so nice and equally exhausting. But we are seeing fruits of it and we are very excited for this joy to the world concert because we should have a lot of people there.

That is all,

Elder Bertoch