October 26, 2015

Hello again everybody!  The time is sure flying by!  It is almost Halloween and I still feel like it is August!  Time flies when you're having fun for sure.  I'll give you all a quick run down of my week…

MONDAY-as we all know is P-Day.  Monday has a whole new meaning on the mission as opposed to what it meant at home.  And this P-Day was awesome!  We started off by emailing, then we went shopping.  While shopping, we ran into David Jackson, so we were able to get a lift home and that opened up SO MUCH TIME! You'd be amazed at how much time you have when you don't spend 30 minutes walking each way for groceries!  So, with the remainder of the day, we went to Bodene's.  Which gets better and better each time.  But it is better in moderation since we are really poor.  (But not in Spirit!)  But after Bodene's, we traveled to a pool hall, where me met Nathan Reid, who is another youth in our Ward and he payed for us to play pool and snooker for a few hours.  It was quite the sight: Two Mormon Missionaries in a pool hall! But hey, we didn't break any rules!  After that, we traveled to the Harkness home for dinner and family home evening.  They always do a great job and they are a good family.  Plus, every time I walk in, their son is playing Destiny, so that keeps me a little updated on what's going down. Hahaha!  After the Harkness', we headed home and crashed.  We were both exhausted and we would continue to be so all throughout the week!

TUESDAY-Tuesdays are awesome!  We travelled up to Belfast in the morning for district meeting and the Portadown Elders, Elders Thayne and Plewe, arrived at our flat early in the morning for a joint breakfast and study.  We always have good times.  Then we went up to the city to have our meeting.  We had President Thompson at this meeting and that was a really cool experience.  He had really good advice for us and had some really good tactics for finding and things like that.  We also discussed some of the things that would be going down for the upcoming Belfast Zone Blitz on Saturday.  We have a goal of finding 220 potentials!  We'll see how that goes!  And then after district meeting, I went to Portadown with Elder Thayne for an exchange.  Portadown is a fun place.  We taught a lesson to a 12 year old boy and he seemed to accept the gospel and the invitation to be baptized but he was giving the typical 12 year old boy answers like, "uhhh…I don't know" or "sure, I guess," but hey! A yes is a yes and we can work with that!  We also went to the church for a youth activity because some investigators were there.  It was pretty awesome.  The Young Men were late so we played Uno for a few minutes with the Ward Council and then when we got called into Young Men's, they were playing Risk.  So I got to play a real round of Risk!  So that was good.  Then we headed home and hit the hay.

WEDNESDAY- Wednesday was pretty booked.  Elder Thayne and I spent the morning just GQ-ing and chapping while we waited for our train to come in to take us back to Lisburn.  After we arrived back, Elder Allred and myself had some try by's to do and some lessons to teach, which all fell through…but oh well, people have their agency and I have learned that I cannot control that.  But we did get to have some dinner on Wednesday night at the Hamiltons - which was awesome!  We tried a new chippy out and they had the BEST DANG CHICKEN TENDERS! It was so good.  Chippies are amazing things.  Then we GQ-ed on our way back to the flat and headed to bed.

THURSDAY - Thursday was a crazy day!  We had weekly planning in which we planned for the first day of November!!! HOLY COW!! It's almost been three months!  So we had our usual weekly planning session, except for the fact that we have a painter in our flat and he needed all the furniture in the center of the room.  So, we had to move everything and plan in the middle and then our main room has been out of commission for the past couple of days.  But the flat is looking fantastic!  New paint and floors!  It's getting better and better everyday!  We also had to do another exchange.  So for the latter half of Thursday, it was Elder Plewe and myself tearing up Lisburn.  We had some try-by's that gave us fake addresses, but oh well, that's on them.  Then we taught an "Eternigator" named 'S', so that was all good.  'S' knows the Book of Mormon is true, he knows the church is true but he is just scared of his family so we are gonna have to work around that.  But Thursday was hectic!

FRIDAY- Friday we started off by having coordination, which is always good.  And then Elder Plewe and myself went chapping.  And that yielded minimal results since we ran into a stretch of about 30 houses that were abandoned.  So yeah, that was awesome.  Then we headed home to wait for Elders Allred and Thayne to arrive so we could exchange back.  After that, we had some lessons that fell through so we chapped.  But Friday ended up being just your normal average day.

Getting ready for the Belfast Zone Blitz!

SATURDAY- Now we get to the good stuff.  Saturday was a fantastic day!!  The whole Zone headed to Belfast to find our 220+ potentials.  The day started with really bad weather and then we prayed for good weather.  (Which in Northern Ireland means it is still cloudy but it probably won't rain) and not 5 minutes later, the sky cleared up and became cloudless and blue.  That was the first miracle of the day!  After that, we headed to various points across town to start talking to people.  I started off by chalking the Plan of Salvation, but eventually just ended up GQ-ing.  I talked to every living soul.  Not one person walked past me without getting talked to!  Saturday was the day that I found out that THIS IS AWESOME!!  Nothing I have ever done has been cooler than this.  I love it!  I even was walking towards a guy, and I said, "Elder Ward, this guy is gonna be a potential."  And we walked up and talked to him and he said he would love to hear about our church and that he wanted to come to church and to learn more!  That was the second miracle I witnessed!  And then, we gave all our numbers to the Zone Leaders to tally up during dinner and we got the news…We made it!  We had gotten 225 potentials investigators in one day!!  Miracle number three.  It was so incredible!  We spelled '225' out in pizza boxes and took a big group picture, which I will forward once I receive it.  But it was awesome!

The Belfast Zone Missionaries talked to 225 people that day!!

SUNDAY-Sunday was a good Sunday.  We went to church and then to the Jacksons for dinner.  After that we chapped and then headed home.  Saturday burned us out for sure.

Anyway! This week has been filled with so much that I can't find words for it all! It is so great to see the Lord blesses his faithful servants, and I have seen that manifested in our work!  I am so grateful for this Church!

Here is my ponderizing scripture: 
Mosiah 28:3 Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.

All the best to you all!! I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Mickelsen