Tuscon-- #7

Hey Everyone!

P-day got moved to today because today was transfers. Sorry for not letting
you guys know that you wouldn't receive my update yesterday. For the last
week I was in a threesome companionship with Elder Woodland who had just
gotten back from a 3-4 week medical leave for cystic fibrosis. Some people
enjoy three-somes but I did not enjoy it because it made teaching very very
awkward so we needed to pick and choose who we would visit and would
actually have enough room for us. Given the overall age of the mission, 11
zone leaders needed to be replaced this transfer! Elder McKenna was called
to be a zone leader in the Rincoln Tucson Stake and Elder Woodland is
staying as my companion. President Killpack introduces all of the new
missionaries at the beginning of transfers. One of the sisters that came in
was Sister Mayo and she was from Michigan. That name sounded really
familiar because there was a Cameron Mayo in my ward up at BYU. Long story
short is that she is the sister of Cameron. It is a small world! Last
Monday, Jaidee, who is an excommunicated member that we are helping to get
back called us and asked for a blessing because she was in the hospital
preparing for surgery that would require a shunt in her brain because she
gets really bad and frequent migraines. We went over and gave the blessing
and talked with her for a little bit. Before we left she asked for a Book
of Mormon because she felt like she needed to give it to someone. Tuesday
morning we get a call from her saying that she gave it to Juanna who was a
lady in the hospital bed next to her and wanted us to come over and teach
her. We went over and taught he Restoration and challenged her to read,
ponder and pray about the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong during
the lesson and I know that she felt the Spirit. We went to visit her again
on Thursday but she had already been discharged :( Hopefully Juanna will be
able to get in contact with the missionaries in the area that she lives in.
This whole election with Romney running for President has people from all
different types of life coming up to us and wanting to talk to us. Most of
the time they want us to speak politics with them, which is pretty hard for
me NOT to do since I need to stay neutral. It provides a perfect
opportunity to try and teach them. The tire on our car blew out while we
were driving. That was fun! We were driving and hear a weird noise. I
looked out the window and smelt burnt rubber and saw that if we didn't pull
over we would only have three tires to drive on. When we stopped and put
the spare on, there was a couple huge gashes and the tire was really about
to come off. Good thing that we stopped haha! Missionary work wise, nothing
really happened in my area. I was on exchanges for three of the days. In
the Campbell ward area that I was in, we taught a lady, Sister Brooks who
is a returning member. We taught her the second half of the Plan of
Salvation and she asked a lot and I mean a LOT of questions which was
great! They were getting pretty deep too. Good thing that she had been
coming back to church and really had a strong testimony of the Gospel
because we got into a good discussion about the spirit world, resurrection,
order of the resurrection, judgement, missionary work in spirit world and
temple work for the dead. She was asking really good questions and I can't
remember where I heard it but someone said that if someone is asking
questions as you teach them, the Spirit is working in them and helping them
learn. Sister Shelley came to church on Sunday but left after Sacrament
meeting. We went over Sunday night to meet with her. She shared her
favorite scripture in Isaiah and I was prompted to share the scripture
mastery chapter in Isaiah 53 (sorry I don't know verses). I talked a little
bit about the Atonement and then had the impression to show two of the New
Testament videos that the church has been doing. The first one was when
Chirst was in the Garden of Gethsemane and the second one was about Christ
being scourged and crucified. The Spirit was strong during those two
videos. Afterwards I asked her how the Atonement can apply to her life. She
gave an answer like, "Well I can learn more about Him. That's probably not
the answer you were looking for though." It wasn't what I was directing the
discussion towards. I told her that you got out what the Spirit and
Heavenly Father wanted you to get out of the video and then I asked, "How
can you learn more about Him?" She paused for a moment and then broke down
in tears. I yelled "Uh-Oh, what did I do!?" in my head. She talked about
how Christ did EVERYTHING, suffered EVERYTHING for us and she had trouble
reading her scriptures for just 10 minutes? That was what I wanted the
discussion to go towards: reading the scriptures. After that lesson I
learned the importance of listening to the Spirit and asking inspired
questions to help people learn and grow in the Gospel.

Love,

Elder Urry