May 28, 2013

 

This week has been going pretty good. We didn't get to write until today because of Memorial Day and all the library being closed. I did get the cookies and they were still good, they got here last Tuesday so not quite as long as my package took to get to Minnesota.

The weather has been really nice here, but only me and my companion think so, haha. We are more used to the cold, I guess, but the temp has been in the 60's so it's weird seeing people in sweaters walking around like it's cold when we think it's great. I saw the picture of all my clothes burning so I guess you got that problem figured out, haha. I hope you saved some of my jeans and if you did, could you send some to me please? If not, that's fine.

This last week went by pretty good. On Thursday we had an Area 70, Elder Eduardo Gavarret visit on a mission tour. That was pretty cool, he gave a talk on how we should trust our mission president and teach people not lessons. which was pretty interesting.

O is doing well. We plan on having him set with a date today. So far, he has been doing good on keeping his commitments and we are still excited for him.

B is moving to Oklahoma with E's ex-boyfriend P, another guy we have talked to a little but hasn't really progressed much. B is still interested in talking to the missionaries, though, so we plan on keeping contact with him so we can refer him to the missionaries there. We finally got a hold of E, who has left the house and is living with B's ex-girlfriend R, the girl that his emotional break down was about, which is a pretty funny story. My companion and I are walking down the street to a recent convert family's house when we hear some people call out to us. It was her and a couple friends who were "dressed" to go to a club, I will let you imagine what such a dress would entail. They decide to walk with us to the members house and we got her information so that we could set an appointment for a lesson this week, but the members we are visiting were standing outside their house and see us walking down the street with our entourage. The Brother shook his head and the Sister started to laugh and walked into the house. As we walked away, E calls out "Call me!" and the Sister just loses it with laughter then proceeds to give us a hard time. She said, " So that's why you guys became missionaries!" while we just sat there red faced and laughing, trying to explain what the situation was.

We also got kicked out of a guys house this week. Missionaries have been visiting him since he joined the church because he still has a few hurdles to overcome.He is convinced that Brigham Young was an adulterous slave holding thug, does not believe Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon, and did not like what we had to say when we asked him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and Joseph Smith as well as to read more about Brigham Young. He got so mad and said he knew all he needed to about Brigham Young and wanted nothing to do with the Book of Mormon then told us to get out and never come back because we were trying to brainwash him. We aren't to worried about this, though, he has apparently thrown out several sets of missionaries over the years and he was at church on Sunday so we are still hopeful for him.

We had a ward talent show on Saturday which was pretty fun. On the way, my companion and the other set of missionaries that work with us decide to do a skit about the day in the life of a missionary. We put it together in about 10 minutes before it started. My companion and I pretended to tract into 4 different people. The first was a drunk guy who passed out when we tried to teach him. The second was a woman that flirted with us then slapped us and slammed the door when we told her about chastity. The third was a guy who pulled a gun out and started shooting as we ran away in slow motion. The last house was a guy who was super excited about the gospel. As we went through the skit, we progressively got more disheveled-looking and downhearted so by the end we I was crawling on the ground and my companion was limping. When we got to the last house and knocked, we apprehensively showed the last guy a book of Mormon and he jumped around the stage and hugged us then we bowed. We had the whole ward laughing and everyone came up to us and said it was super funny.

We have started to work with S, the daughter of one of our investigators who has, up until now, not been very open to us. She says she an atheist, but not strongly. She had recently started sitting in on the lessons we were having with her dad, and had mentioned that she felt a little uncomfortable around us because our suits made us look to formal and uptight. So we went over in our normal clothes one night just to talk to her and ended up playing the board game LIFE. She opened up to us a lot and agreed to start taking the lessons with her dad and also said that she feels differently when we are around and believes the gospel more and more every time we teach her dad. We are very excited for her.

We are also working with a guy named J, who has been talking lessons for 14 years. He is a really nice guy, but for some reason he just refuses to be baptized. We fasted and prayed and spent 2 hours on Sunday preparing for his lesson that night. We decided to take a different tactic with him, something other missionaries hadn't. We were very blunt but not in a condescending or hurtful way. It went very well, he said he would consider it more this week and we plan on doing the same thing again this Sunday. We are very hopeful for him and feel very strongly he is ready for it even though he claims otherwise.

I love you and miss you all.