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Wow, it's been quite a week. It's been one of the more emotionally hard weeks I've had in a long time. I'll explain why more at the end of the email.
Monday - Received a reference, and visited the Familia Carela again. They know a ton. Both the lessons did. It was an awesome day. Solid investigators, who are all progressing.
Tuesday - Solid day. Contacts in the morning that went OK. Good lessons in the evening. Talked to another reference who's been coming to church for around 2 months. Almost a certain baptism. We'll keep working with him. He's named Robert. We also visited Francia. We were about ready to drop her. She always asked questions like "I don't understand why you don't have kids?" or "Do you guys accept visits in your house?" Sketchy sketchy stuff like that. But then she watched the whole movie of the Restoration, read the introduction to the BOFM, and we left her with some questions as homework and she answered all of them. Awesome. We can't believe she's progressing. Too. Weird.
Wednesday - Lots of contacts in the morning. Some of them have panned out. Decent lessons in the evening. We taught Ranquel and Katherine again. It was a rough lesson. They hadn't read yet and didn't have any questions, and we were dead. Long lessons. Not much else happened that day.
Thursday - Awesome day. Last zone/district meeting together. I want to tell you about Elder Murphy. I've always judged him a bit since he has lots of time in the mission and still struggles with Spanish. He shared a spiritual experience with us. He invited and brought the Spirit more than I have in my entire mission. It was very humbling to show how the Lord works. Through those who are humble. Taught me a lot. Then in the evening we had normal lessons. We found this kid named Jose Miquel. He's 12, and goes to the Adventist church alone. We were walking and he told us to come in to talk to him about the word of God. The kid is 12. Nuts. And he has a job. He was like "hurry up, I've got to go to work!" Weirded me out. We went back another day though and it was more of a joke. Rough. We also visited Yomairy again, the reference from Monday. She read a lot and has tons of questions. Good stuff.
Friday - Lots of the contacts from other days panned out really well in the morning. I was happy about that. Normal lessons in the evening again. Robert. Francia. Family Carela. This family is amazing. We asked them if they thought there should be prophets and the mom was like "duh." Haha. And we asked them if the Pope is called of God. And these people are catholic. The Mom was like "No. They vote on it." Haha she's like anti-Catholic, yet catholic. I have high high high hopes for them. I just hope that they're married and all.
Saturday - Rougher day. Ranquel and Katherine in the morning. They both read A TON and accept the BOFM as the word of God. Progressing really really well. An RM came back this week and he's on fire too. Really pumped to help us with anything. He served in southern Mexico and has an accent from there. Super weird. Then Familia Carela again. They're awesome.
Sunday - 9 investigators in the church. Members brought some. Ranquel and Katherine came which is awesome. Just need to keep them coming. While eating lunch, President Corbitt called me. More on that in a second. Then we visited the Familia Brito. They’ve come a long ways with their relationship. I'm excited and hopeful for them. More contacting with a lady with potential.
Today - Cleaning. Some packing being done in the house as well.
Transfers. The big news. Elder Martinez is leaving. He's going to Punta Cana, about as far away as possible. Super bummed about that cuz I got along with him really well. I'm going to be with Elder Solis, a Mexican from St. George. He's got 20 months in the mission.
Bigger news for transfers. I'm going to be District Leader. President called me on Sunday to tell me. Scares me. A lot haha. Everyone in my district is super experienced and has more time than me too. I've always been the youngest in my district and it's going to continue. Wish me luck too. I have to teach my comp the area too which worries me a bit as well. President told me all the leaders he's been thinking about calling have had hard weeks. So I believe it's because of that.
Other transfer news:
Elder Pawn-Kalilikane is going to be DL as well. (Lived with him)
Elder Davis and Brady are going to be DL (from my MTC group)
Elder Romero is going to be my ZL (my former comp/brother)
Elder Richards is going to be a DL (has two transfers less than me in the mission and is a stud)
Also we KILLED it this week. I'm going to brag about our numbers a bit. 51 lessons for the week. 11 progressing investigators. 9 at church. Highest numbers of my mission, and the president split us up. We'll see if I can keep it up with Elder Solis though!
Also a one-eyed pit-bull scared the crap out of me while contacting this week. Almost fell off the stairs we were on.
I think that's about it! Sorry this is a ridiculously long email. Lots and lots happened this week.
Love y'all tons! Elder Potokar.
(Emailed to Family)
First off, before everything else, HAPPY BIRTHDAY mom!! I hope you have a great one. Sounds like you had a wonderful week leading up to it. I'm very jealous of the hikes you got to go on (St. George)! There's no freedom from people here like that and I would love that sometime. That's something I definitely really miss.
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| Elder Potokar & Elder Martinez |
This is kind of how it's worked out. Elder Romero revived my area before with me. And then he was DL after. Then I came here, revived the area, and now I'm DL. I think the same will happen to Elder Martinez out in his area. He's got lots of work to do. He's really fired up now. He was going to work hard with me this transfer, but it's going to have to be with someone else. Then I think he'll be a DL too.
President wants the whole mission having 15-20 progressing investigators. He said it's my job to get us up to that point. One of the companionships is already there.
Training bombed on Saturday. No one showed up. The bishop has us give it on Sunday during Sunday School instead. It went well. We'll see if we made a difference in the next couple of weeks.
I'm super excited to see how this next transfer goes. I'm going to start pushing for some baptism dates. We'll see how it goes. I don't want to pressure them, but I feel like we should set dates sooner. That's what PMG says. In Erin's email she said they're going to put a baptism date on the second visit with someone. That’s unheard of here. Here if you ask someone to be baptized, it has to be pretty certain they’ll say yes. No guessing. I think there should be some guessing with that. (I wonder if your president will have you work on that as you get more investigators?) I think he will. I talked to him about it a bit in my interview. It's definitely something that's devolved in the mission. Missionaries are scared of getting no's, so they only ask when it's a for sure yes. Need to have more faith!
Romero as ZL. And the other ZL is super cool and I'm not nervous around him. haha
District Leaders:
Decker
Me
Pronk (a good friend of Decker)
Ramos (a former companion of Elder Romero)
So it's a solid group.
(This will be your first American comp. Keep practicing your Spanish.) He's actually Mexican so I count all my comps as Latinos still:) I plan on only talking Spanish still. No English whatsoever.
Juan Carlos is still visiting his mom. We only see him once or twice weekly.
We only visited the Brito family once this week. They seemed better. Lots better. They're still a work in progress. I know she did the service thing, but don't know if he has yet. I think so though. He cooked for her which is huge progress. They did know I was filming. It was just for the sound, he was going to use it to propose to her. They wanted to do it again, but I don't know when it'll happen since Martinez is gone and we don't have anyone to play the guitar.
Sebastian has school once a week, and that's Sundays. We talked to him a bit about sacrifices, so we'll see if he'll come for like an hour or so at least. I hesitate to baptize him cuz he just wants to come to church for the activities. To be a member for that.
Another nuts thing. We were talking to this lady and her drunk neighbor called us over to talk to us. We went over and started to talk to him, thinking we could help him out a lot. He told us he's killed three people. I got a little scared after that! Lots of prayers were said while talking to this guy. Then he said he knew the bible better than Elder Martinez and he said what's in John 3:5 and Elder Martinez told him, and he's like no, that's not it! And then Martinez was right, but the guy was drunk and didn't really understand. It was pretty nuts haha.
Elder Murphy really really surprised me. He's a DL and he's training and both of that really surprised me. It makes sense now though. Taught me a huge lesson.
No pictures of the parade, it was really small and passed by in like 2 minutes. I don't think there were any fireworks. I don't remember honestly, so I don't think so. I think I would've remembered if there was!
I did get your letter this week as well! I forget to tell you. I've been listening to the music and have already read that whole article. It was way awesome. I really really enjoyed it. I've gotten a few good ideas from it that I think I'm going to try to implement as a district.
Love you tons as well. Have a great week! Thanks for the advice. I'm sure it'll help.
Love you always and miss you tons! Elder Easton Potokar.
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| Zone Meeting |
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| Elder Potokar & an Haitian Elder that is waiting for his Visa. He is going to the New York New York Mission. He can speak 5 languages! |
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| Elder Richards & Elder Potokar |
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