Week 12: First Birthday in the Great OCM!

Hey everyone! It's still nonstop good times here in the Great OCM! This has been a fun week and there were a lot of good times. Mosiah 24:14 says  "And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I , the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions".  The Lord does not always remove our afflictions, but He is always with us through them. 

Here's a quick run through of the week:

Monday: was a really hectic day! We were running around all over the place and didn't have a lot of time to do much. We had district activities which were a lot of fun. We played tons of games and sports then had breakfast together. After that a couple members wanted us to come over and sing happy birthday which was absolutely amazing! I love this ward so much!

Tuesday: What a slow day for us. We had to go do a follow up training for me with President and Sister Stratford. They just asked us about our training experience and what we liked and what they need to change with training. Then we had to give short trainings on a topic from the talk titled, "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary". I got the topic "Putting Our Romantic Passions on the Table". Funny! So yeah it went pretty good. Nothing else really happened that day.

Wednesday: Today was an absolute blast! We had our Zone Conference and I got to show off my wooden tie that I got for Christmas. I was definitely the center of attention. We had very inspiring trainings and we had an exercise activity that they want us to implement in our morning schedule. I got to see my main man Elder Thomason there! He is still as goofy as ever! After that we met with some investigators and a couple members. Overall it was a really good day!

Thursday: Today was an alright day. It was a very slow going day. We started off in the war zone and had a lesson and did some street contacting while there. We saw a lot of interesting things there, and met a pretty interesting lady while walking in the parking lot. After that we did a lot of knocking which didn't work out too well. It went by very slow, but that's the life of a missionary.

Friday: Oh boy, my favorite day of the week: weekly planning day! A day where we have to sit down for 2 hours extra and plan out our week and talk about all the people that we need to meet with! Whoop whoop! That went by very slowly but things picked up when we got to visit with a couple members and share quick messages with them. The members in this ward are just so amazing and supportive!

Saturday: Things were pretty slow up until we went to Gary's house and he cooked us some food and we talked with him for a while. He is super nice and friendly and he said that he is always willing to cook us up some food whenever we come over. Later that night we met with a family in the ward and tried to help them fix their door. This project started a couple days ago where a family wanted us to flip their door and door frame so the door would open the opposite way. The description of the project sounded easy, however it was NOT easy. In the end we ended up actually flipping the door around but badly messing up the frame. But hey, the door opens and closes so it works! I guess I'm just your average handyman!

Sunday: There was a lot of excitement today. We had an amazing sacrament meeting and the newest Elder gave his farewell talk. After that we had plans to go to a couple members houses then go to the new missionary's house for dinner and to talk about missionary work. Elder Neddo didn't think that this was exciting enough of a day so he made things a bit more interesting. As we were getting ready to leave he accidentally sliced his pinky in the kitchen on a piece if metal. We ended up running over to a member's house and we got it super glued. He is still alive which is awesome and we still met with a lot of members. But yeah, this was a pretty exciting week!

I hope that everyone has an amazing week and thank you all for your love and support for me! 

Miracle of the week:

On Tuesday night we had just finished a lesson with a family a little bit sooner then we were planning on. So we had to figure out something to do and as we were trying to figure out something to do a member called us and told us that he needed us to come over. We raced over there and he told us his situation and he said he needed a blessing. We gave him a blessing and shared an inspirational message with him to help ease his stress. It is very interesting to see God's sense of humor when he messes with us a little bit just to throw a blessing at us later!

Funny moment of the week:

While we were in the war zone on Thursday we ran into a lady in her car while we were walking around the parking lot trying to find people to talk to. She saw us, slammed on her brakes, and told us to come over to her. We walked over and she just started talking and talking about random nonsense. She told us that, "because you's men of God, y'all can go anywhere and talk to any fooz!" She kept apologizing because she said she was listening to "devil music" and kept cussing as she talked. She was just very excited to see us white boys spreading the good word.

Love,
Elder Bohn

 

Week 11: Rushed = Short and Sweet

Hey everybody! I hope everything is going awesome for you! Today has been a really busy day so this is going to be a rushed weekly update. Thank you all so much for your love and support and Birthday wishes today!

Here's an even quicker run through of this week:

Monday was just another classic P day except for my battery was really low by the end of the day and I forgot to send the weekly to my MTC district. We got to help a family install a support beam on their porch so the roof doesn't start to sag or fall off. So that was a blast!

Tuesday was a pretty standard day. We met with a lot of members and visited a couple people we're teaching to check up on them. Other than that nothing too crazy happened.

Wednesday was District Council day and it was as fun as they usually are. We got Canes after so it wasn't too bad. After that it was a generally slow day with nothing too exciting happening.

Thursday was super fun! We went down to Circleville with a member and got to meet with some members down there and check up on them. When we got back to Groveport we went and got to meet with the family of a lady in the ward that got baptized a couple months ago. We got to know them more and I'm excited to keep meeting with their family!

Friday was the slowest day of the week. We had our weekly planning which eats a big chunk of our day. After that we just tried to meet with some members and contact people in the ward to schedule appointments.

Saturday was a lot of fun with our service we did in the morning. In literal freezing rain. For 2 hours. It was a blast! After that we had a few visits with members and we shared a quick message with them. Everything went so good today, I just love days like this!

Sunday was a lot of fun. We had an awesome sacrament meeting and excellent lesson in Sunday school. After that we were able to go and visit with a lot of the members of the ward and share a message about the Holy Ghost and following the promptings of the spirit. The spirit was so strong in every lesson we had and this was by far one of the best Sundays I've had out here!

Miracle of the week: 

There wasn't a super big amazing miracle that happened this week but in general this week was a huge miracle. All the lessons we had with members and messages we shared truly strengthen my testimony of serving a mission and the blessings that come from it. I absolutely love being in the service of the Lord!

Funny moment of the week:

When we went down to Circleville we met with the member that "pulled the gun on us" and talked with him for a minute. I almost burst out laughing when he starting talking about "respecting the gun" and it not being a "toy". It's hard to take him seriously when I remembered him running down the stairs gun flailing everywhere. But it's all good!

Love, 

Elder Bohn

Week 10: Women is like Spiders!

Ohio just gets better and better as time goes by! This has been an exciting week with transfers and getting a new trainer. I'm still looking forward to all the fun times that await

Here's a quick run through of the week:

Wednesday was my last P day with Elder Horsley and it was a pretty depressing day watching him get all packed. We both got along really well and we were thinking that we both had 1 more transfer together. Other than that it was a pretty normal P day.

Thursday is when we had our transfers. Once we got there we were playing the game of, "find your companion and get out of here" which is always a blast. I found my new companion Elder Neddo and he is just awesome! We are getting along well and having a lot of fun. This is going to be an awesome transfer together. It was hard saying goodbye to Elder Horsley, I know that someone in Cleveland needs him more than I do. He taught me so much and I've grown a lot as a missionary because of him and I'll always be grateful for his friendship and patience training me. When we got Elder Neddo back to the apartment and got him situated we went out knocking for a bit. We found a guy out knocking that ended up being a small miracle for us and I thank him.

Friday we had a zone meeting with our Stake President and I got to see my main man Elder Thomason. After that we went and got subway with the zone leaders and Elder Thomason and his companion and we talked for a while and it was fun. We got back to the apartment did some companionship study and then I gave Elder Neddo the run through of the area and the people. After that was done we tried to meet with some investigators and met with a family in the ward and introduced them to Elder Neddo.

Saturday we went and stopped by a member for a little bit and shared a quick message with him about taking things a day at a time. After that we went down to the war zone which is a really ghetto apartment complex in our area that our mission President has advised us to limit our time there for our safety. So naturally it's our favorite place to go! We got there and tried to meet with some investigators there but no one answered. We did get into contact with a guy named Linney who wanted a Book of Mormon. More on him will be in the bottom of the email.

On Sunday we went to church and had a fun sacrament meeting. I got to pass the sacrament with the deacons again so that was exciting. We did our sync up meeting with the Bishop and the Ward Mission Leader and they both went good. After church we had a couple lessons with families where we read in Alma 24 and talked about burying our "weapons of war" to become true disciples of Christ.

So far this has been a good week and I'm looking forward to everything that awaits! I wish you all the best!

Miracle of the week: 

When me and Elder Neddo were knocking Thursday night we knocked into one house that the guy invited us in. When we got in there he asked if we were hungry and what we wanted to eat. So we started talking with him and he started making us pizza rolls which threw both of us off. He told us that he met with missionaries 20 years ago and he really respects what we do. So we sat down with him and his son for a while just eating and getting to know each other. He said that we could stop back by anytime and he'll cook us up some food and we can talk more. It was super awesome that we were able to find him because he is a really cool guy and I think that he was hoping for some missionaries to come by.

Funny moment of the week:

A week ago when we were on training visits, Elder Horsley and Elder Lyman went to the war zone and met Linney. He was an... interesting guy who gave them some life advice which consisted of always staying strapped and women are just out there to use you and get rid of you so they ain't worth it. Then he asked them to bring a Book of Mormon by later. So on Saturday me and Elder Neddo went by and dropped it off and he got super excited and told us some more advice. To sum it up he told us: "women is like spiders, they'll eat you when they done with you, Trump is gonna blow up the world, there are some morons out there so watch out". So he was just a blast!

Love,

Elder Bohn

Week 9: Transfers, what a roller coaster!

Hey everyone back at home, happy late New Years! Things have been a blast this past week and it's been a roller coaster. There have been so many highs and just as many lows. I have learned so much this first transfer out and I am excited for this new one.

Here is a run through of what happened this week:

Monday was just another normal P day for me. Nothing too exciting happened that day which was expected so it's fine. 

Tuesday was New Years eve and we decided to go down to Circleville to finish off the year with some fun. We had a couple lessons with members and one investigator took us out to dinner. We made sure we drove back extra careful in case anyone decided to take their New Years eve party on the road. 

Wednesday we had our district council and that was as fun as any district council can get, especially with it being the last one with this district. After that we had dinner at an investigators house and we ate like KINGS. We had baby back ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, mac and cheese, coleslaw, and salad. I felt like I was going to pop after eating there. 

Thursday we had training visits and I got to be companions with the District Leader for the day. We got along super well and had fun going around meeting with members. We ended off the day with having dinner with all 4 Elders in the district at Little Italy's Pizza. 

Friday was the highlight of my week honestly. It started off pretty rough. Absolutely nothing happened the entire day. We had so many lessons and visits with members planned, but they all fell through. Then we experienced a miracle that will be in the bottom of the email.

Saturday we did quite a bit of trying to meet with people that didn't go too well. Most people we went to visit either didn't answer or were busy and just said to come back another day. So we had to do quite a bit of knocking. Like a lot of knocking. It was kind of the worst but it's fine, this is what I signed up for. 

Sunday we had 9am church which really sucks for missionaries. 11:30am church worked so much better for our schedule but it's fine. It was still an awesome day at church. We got quite a few member support visits after church. On visit was one of the more interesting ones I've had and it will be in the bottom in my funny moment of the week.

Monday was rough because I was in the mindset of "today is P day so I can relax" only it wasn't P day. With transfers this week on Thursday our P day got moved to Wednesday. We helped a member move some stuff in his basement so he could get ready to move out and shared a message with him about trials. After that we had our vehicle coordinator Elder Bower come over and inspect our apartment. While he was there we talked for a while and we got to know more about him. He is such an inspiration to me and I absolutely loved him to death before meeting with him, but I loved him 1,000,000x more after talking with him. When he left we had a couple more lessons and we had fun teaching.

Tuesday was a day of roller coasters. We went over to the war zone for a little bit and it was sketchy as always. After that we helped a family in the ward clean out their basement. We didn't get a whole lot done but it looked better than before. After that it was hard trying to figure out what to do. We ended up knocking for the rest of the night. It was pretty fun, we would share Mosiah 16:9 with people and ask if they were interested in hearing more about Christ. We found 2 new people that night so we were on the high of the roller coaster. Then the roller coaster just flew right off the tracks and exploded when I found out my companion Elder Horsley is getting transferred up to Cleveland leaving me in charge of the area. I am SO upset with this! We were getting along so well and things were amazing but now it's all getting changed. I guess this is where I put my my money where my mouth is. The message we shared with people this week was to trust in the Lord and his will for all of us. So now I got to start accepting it. I'm excited and nervous for what the future brings. 

Thank you all for your love and support for me and I hope you all have an awesome week! 

Miracle of the week:

On Friday night we decided to pray to know where we should knock to find people that would be willing to hear our message. Then after we prayed  we both picked 5 streets without showing each other and then we would knock the ones that match up. We picked our 5 and we had 1 street that matched so we headed there. We started knocking and when we got to the end of the street we found a lady who was okay with us sharing a scripture with her. When we read the scripture, Mosiah 16:9 and gave her a short message about Christ she started crying. She said that she has really been having a rough time lately and was just praying that God would send a someone to her to help comfort her. And then we knocked on the door. She said we were a blessing in her life and she wants to meet again sometime soon. This was my first time where I first hand experienced this kind of miracle and it was amazing. It strengthened my testimony that God really does hear our prayers and the spirit does guide us to those who he has prepared for us. 

Funny moment of the week:

On Sunday we went over to a guys house cause he wanted to know more about the Plan of Salvation. We get over there and start talking with him and it gets so far off topic super fast. We ended up talking about him being an up and coming rapper, him hating Trump, him having like 17 different bibles. It was getting strange, and then he pulls out a joint and lights it. He starts smoking it and he is literally blowing the smoke on us! We look at each other and are just like, "yep it's time to go" and we make out exit. So yeah that was definitely a first for me. It was bad because we had some lessons after that we hoped that they didn't smell weed on us.

Love,

Elder Bohn