Final Touches

At the beginning of the week I put the finishing touches on the temple scheduler system. It’s now fully automatic (sends out each Sunday), accessible to update eligible companionships on mobile (through the Google Sheet), and we wrote instructions for the temple workers' side of things. I’m thankful that the Lord has made this possible and has enabled me to quickly and straightforwardly roll this out. It’s streamlined enough that it isn’t dependent on me, and should work fairly independently, only requiring that the companionships are updated on the Google Sheet each transfer. I’m unsure how long they will continue scheduling missionaries on the temple grounds, but as for the foreseeable future it seems that it will continue to be used.

Activity Work is Finally Rolling Forward

We went over to Tommy’s place for lunch. The branch is getting him a calling to get him involved and in-charge of the Activity Share program; because of that, he wanted to have us over and give him a run-down on how it all works. It was great, I’m glad that he’s engaged and willing to help push forward this program. It’s going to do amazing things for the branch. Elder Ellis and him geeked out over League of Legends for half of it haha. I’m glad he was able to find someone to finally talk to about his League knowledge.

Exploring Trinity Western University

YSA finding has definitely been a difficult endeavor, and we were looking forward to trying something new. The idea of exploring some college campuses has been in the back of our minds, but we’ve been very skeptical and careful with it; we were scoping out the information that we would need to see if this would even be a possibility. We chatted with a few members, and even talked with a member who was attending Trinity Western University. She gave us recommendations on where to park, what to do and what not to do. In summary, actively proselyting didn’t seem like much of an option which is what we thought, but we could try going in, doing studies and giving people the opportunity to approach us if they want to learn more.

The sisters who we are ward sharing with had the idea to interview people on campus for finding. We counseled together about it, this has been something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. We shared with them it probably would be best to reach out to President Gill to confirm if that’s something we can do. He responded and said that they should get into contact with security and see what their policies are regarding it. The Sisters walked to the front desk and asked them about it, and they weren’t sure haha.

So Monday rolled around and we drove up to the University, found the free parking spot that was outside of it and made our trek over there. It was pretty rainy, so there weren’t many students out and about on campus. Even before we got to the entrance of the University, someone was driving out and gave us a look. Here we go, we are in, no going back now. We weren’t going to actively proselyte, so we didn’t talk to or stop anyone. We headed straight for the library. As soon as we walked into the entrance of the library, it felt like everyone was looking at us. We quickly sat down and continued on with our weekly planning. I believe we were planning for about twenty minutes, before we were approached by a security guard.

He told us that he was here because he received a call. Honestly, he kicked us out in the kindest way possible, I really don’t think he wanted to kick us out at all. He said that we are all under the Christian umbrella, and he really respects the work that we do; he looked down and saw that we had a New Testament, and said, even though you are doing good work and sharing your Bibles, others may see it as soliciting. He then shared that the campus had a policy against soliciting, and since we are on private property we can be seen as soliciting. I’m grateful to meet the guy, he was super cool about it. After talking with him, we quickly made our descent out. Our hopes and dreams of doing finding at a Christian University quickly had fallen away.

Out of Service Tiwi

We received a call from our vehicle coordinator that he wanted to switch out our vehicle to get an oil change. Elder Kuta said that the new vehicle that we received needed to have the Tiwi setup again. It’s kind of funny, he knows that I understand the whole process so he was like: you know what to do, give me a call if you run into any problems. We didn’t get a chance to set up the Tiwi until the next morning. The problem is that the Tiwi wasn’t even turning on. I attempted to unplug it and plug it back in, but found no success. We called Orbcomm to see if they could recognize the device and do anything on their end. They said that the device wasn’t coming up on their system and it hadn’t been set up in the first place. We attempted to call Elder Kuta, but it was Saturday so the office was closed.

We’ve basically been driving Tiwiless for the past couple of days now. We were able to get a hold of Elder Kuta yesterday. He said that it sounds like a faulty cable or Tiwi, so we’ll have to replace it. He told me for the time being, I can keep driving without a Tiwi, and he trusts me. So that’s good. I’ll try my best haha. It’s not too common that we get to drive without it, but I’ll still continue to drive it like I have one.

Call from Sister Gill

We were at a Family Home Evening Activity in the church. We were playing this charades game in the hallway with everyone, they had music playing on a speaker and everything. All of a sudden, my companion checks his phone and it’s Sister Gill calling. We both were like, oh boy here we go. We quickly ran over to a quiet room and answered the phone. She was calling me about a tech problem she was having haha. I find it funny that she didn’t call the tech Elders about it, but I’m happy to help. She was trying to share her Google Calendar with the new mission leaders who were coming in and it wasn’t working. I provided some potential solutions, so hopefully it helps.

Attending the House of the Lord After Far Too Long

The last two temple trips that we were supposed to have, have been cancelled. And I’ve been in outer Zones for the past five transfers. So all together, I haven’t been to the temple in about ten and half months. It’s been quite refreshing to be back. I’m grateful for the time that we’ve had there. Today I’ve definitely been able to draw closer to my Savior through worshiping in His Holy House. I look forward to this upcoming General Conference, it’s quite special. We’ve had the opportunity to attend the temple just before in preparation for it.