Mission Theme

Mission Theme for 2015 & 2016--Learn it, Live it, Share it

Monday, September 28, 2015

Week 47 When the Pope Comes to Town

I am sure many of you are wondering what it was like with Pope Francis in Philadelphia. I am here to tell you that I don't know. The mission didn't want missionaries in Center City during the Pope’s visit, so we were not allowed to work in the city. Instead we helped the set of Elders that work in the ward that our apartment is in.

It is weird that it has been just little less then eleven months since my mission started. The time seems to be flying by so quickly that I don't know where it is going. It is starting to be the time of year here that it will be cloudy most days. I wish I was further north so I can see all the leaves change colors to the beautiful red, orange, and yellows.

Next week is the start of what the missionaries call in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia mission the sweater season. Between the October and April General Conferences, all Elders are required to wear a sweater unless the temperature is over 72 degrees. This season also says that it is going to get cold soon so we need to make sure we are getting coats and scarves if we don't already have them.

It is sad to hear of the passing of Elder Scott. We now have three vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve so we are going to most likely get three new members this following weekend. It is a sad and exciting time because of it though. I am looking forward to see who will be called, but I will miss hearing talks from the people who have passed away.


Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives

Week 46

It’s been a slow week in the city. Elder Harl and I seem to be good at talking to people who live outside of our area, so we give a lot of referrals out.

We did talk to someone interesting though. As we were waiting for the bus (which was late for a reason we don't understand), we started up a conversation with a person. I don't remember how the conversation started, but it seemed to go all over the place. We said one thing and he would say another thing so we just went with it. In the end, we got his number and we are planning on calling him at some point.

Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives

Monday, September 14, 2015

Week 45

It was my first full week in Philadelphia and I am liking it. I would rather be in the suburbs. The city is too crowded and fast paced for my liking. It may not be what I prefer, but I still like it all the same.

It has started to cool a little lately, and I am looking forward to the not so humid time of the year. It has started to get a little chilly when the sun goes down, but it is not too bad yet. I will probably need my sweaters when conference comes around.

The Pope is going to visit the area on September 26th and 27th. The Pope’s visit is going to cause us problems because we don’t even know how we are going to get to our area. Even if we can most of our area is off limits to proselytizing during his stay. We might be told to work around our current apartment during that time, but we will find out soon. Mom here—remember he lives 20-30 minutes outside his area until they can get housing.

We are struggling to find anyone that lives in our area that is interested. We are finding people we can refer to another set of missionaries almost every other day if not every day. Just last Saturday, we came across someone who was a member but lost contact with the church shortly after her baptism. They rearranged the boundaries and she did not know where she was supposed to go to attend church.

Last Sunday was stake conference. It was different than the other ones that I have been to on my mission, mostly because it was not at a school's auditorium. Instead, the main meeting was at the Broomall building and then they broadcasted to another building so the whole stake could watch it.


View from the appartment


Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives

Monday, September 7, 2015

Week 44

So this was an interesting week. I got doubled out of my last area just to get doubled in to another. (Mom here -- Doubled out means that a companionship leaves the area together. Doubled in means that a new companionship goes into the area.) The crazy thing is Elder Harl and I decided to stop somewhere for breakfast. It turned out we had breakfast in our new area. (He stayed with Elder Harl.) Speaking of my new area, I am in South Philadelphia, but it also includes a lot of Center City. It's also a new area, so what they did was take part of the South Philadelphia Branch and gave it to us to work in, and left the other half for the elders that were already in the branch. It is a walking area, but we use public transportation to get around.

One thing about opening a new area, we have almost no investigators. We inherited a few because they live in our area, but for the most part our area is pretty untouched. We did find someone though. We wanted to see a less-active. He was not answering his phone, so we taught his door man instead. He seems interested, but we don't know how interested he is. We are hoping we can continue to teach him, or to be able to refer him to another set of missionaries because he lives outside our area.

In case anyone was wondering, we are currently living quite a bit away from our area. We don't have an apartment in our area yet. From what we can gather, they had located one for us. Before they could rent it someone else got it, so we are currently living about a twenty to thirty minute commute to get to our area. They are trying to find a place, and I hope they can soon. From what we hear, we might not be able to get to our area easily in a couple of weeks because the Pope will be in Philadelphia and they are going to be closing the subways.

Elder Bjerregaard
#BecauseHeLives