September 2, 2019 This isnt my first rodeo

Hey yall this week was pretty great, we kicked things off with Service!  We did this thing called Elderly boxes, we carry out boxes of food to peoples cars and yeah we did that for a few hours.  We had another project but it fell through.  The rest of the day was easy going and we had a dinner.  Wednesday we had interviews, I haven't seen President Ence in like 12 weeks, so its been a minute.  We had our last district council meeting and it was pretty awesome, mostly just talked about using our phones to fulfill our missionary purpose and find more people to teach.  We watched a couple training video and they were super cheesy but gave us a bunch of ideas of what to do.  All the elders went to costco for lunch and it was fun.  We drove back to Brookings and dropped off Watertown, then literally ran all over Brookings for the rest of the night, we had a dinner appointment at 6:15, then Institute at 6:45 then a follow up appointment at 8.  It was fun.  Institute was amazing!  I have never gone before cause I thought I was too cool for it back at home.  It is taught by a member who teaches at SDSU therefore we get to use one of the SDSU conference rooms which are super nice and fancy, the campus is so awesome to be one and meet all the students!  The lesson was on the importance of the Book of Mormon and she asked an inspired question that really stood out to me.  It was, "What does it mean to you to open your heart and mind to the Word of Christ in this time of your life?"  oh man I spent a whole study hour just on that one question and it was pretty good.  so yall thinking about going to institute you should go!  Wont be as good as mine but still go haha.  Thursday was pretty epic, was walked around Brookings go to different areas like parks or neighbor hoods trying to talk to people on the street.  Didnt have much luck but got a good walk in.  We came home and ate lunch, got our comp done then did some more finding around our weekly service project, we talked to a handful of people, including a old lady who was sun tanning lol.  Feeding Brookings was pretty good, just carried boxes out to cars.  We had a member drop off a gift card to a buffet, so of course we hit that up for dinner.  We taught Riggin and oh man, we showed up and he had all of his friends gathered around the table, and some had Bibles...  So me being me, I also set my Bible and Book of Mormon on the table too, we were sitting in a draw....  like back in the good old days like the cowboys but instead of guns we had the Word of God.  I was so ready, our team up (a ysa from SDSU) came and said "dont worry this isnt my first rodeo" We started teaching Riggin and asking questions and big boy on the other side of the table was literally answering every single question.  We ended up teaching part of the lesson before I lanched my Bible across the table and yeah that didnt happen, all the dudes ended up leaving part way through the lesson #miracle!  We ended up setting Riggin on Baptism date and this is something he wants to do!  Hype miracle!  Our lesson was so lit, our team up was beast mode and it was awesome.  Friday was also another day of finding, we did another huge car fast and tried to talk to people on the streets for a few hours and again didnt have much luck.  We did some more comp studding and ate lunch then drove around trying people with interest for the next few hours and knocking doors around them as well.  We did weekly planning which was ight.  The rest of the night we spent with a member dinner and knocking college apartments.  Saturday was freaking fun, last day of the month and we had over 400 miles left on our car, so we set up a dinner appointment that lives an hour away and they have been wanting to feed us to months!  But before we went, we had an elders qurom service project we went too, just pulled weeds at a restore center and set up Christmas stuff... yay... We drove to the boonies of our area and started finding in Arlington, a place where missionaries have been but not for a while.  We didnt have much time so we tired the dots on our map and members.  We knocked on one door and ended up helping a lady with a back injury move some stuff into her new apartment and gave her a Bible with a Book of Mormon!  afterwards we drove out to Desmet where our dinner was and that was super fun!  on the way home we stopped in Lake Preston and tired the dots there as well.  We got a media referral and ended off the night trying to contact him.  Sunday was a funday, we had Riggin and his roommate who we had the stand off with come to church!  after church we did all of our studies and stuff then did some findings and then dinner with the Bishop.  We taught our recent convert Shang more about commandments and it was really interesting but good!  Thats it for today follks!  This week is transfers so we shall see what happens!

Love yall Elder Phelon

Pics

Drive back from Sioux Falls 

My grandson & great grandson

Sick ranger