Elder
Slik and I want to find contributing families. That's our goal, someone like Vicky.
She's the greatest ever. So solid. She wants to join the church. She's great, but
her husband won’t let her. Ugh. Anyway. I could rant about that all week.
So. Life
is wonderful. We are so blessed. I know I talk about this all the time, but it’s
a pleasure to serve with Elder Slik. He's such a good example. He's a great
missionary.
MONDAY!
Instead of studies Monday morning we had a giant mission meeting about the Gladys
Knight presentation. It was so good. It got me so excited for this. It's an
incredible opportunity the Lord has given us to find new people, specifically
the contributors. I think ya’ll saw it while I was at BYU, no? We watched a
video with Elder Ballard and different missionaries, mission presidents and
ward leaders. It was very powerful. I hope that everyone can go to this and
really feel the Spirit. The only other time our mission has got together like
this was when Elder Andersen came. It's that big of a deal. I was impressed.
Elder Slik and I committed to inviting all the members of both wards to invite
a friend to this. It's what we spend the majority of our time doing, inviting
members to bring friends. Ever since the A family I have had a new desire
to just teach prepared families in member’s homes. Sounds like what every
missionary should want but it strengthened that desire and this seems like the
way for us to find those kinds of families. People get to come into a chapel
and feel the Spirit and learn about the church and then Sister Knight
specifically invites everyone there to have the missionaries over. I dunno.
I've never seen it but Elder Slik and I felt the Spirit really strong prompting
us to give all of our energy to this. It was P-day obviously after that and we
drove a ton. Like all over. We were giving rides and running errands. That
night Severina made us rice. She makes us a Filipino dish and then a heaping
plate of rice. We are always so stuffed. She's so sweet. I really love spending
time with her. After Severina we went to see Toni. We brought over Sister
Rosser. I don't know if I've talked about her in previous emails but she was
one of the members that I met coming on exchanges to this area a year ago. Such
a great woman. She is clever and so Christ-like. That's the best way to
describe her. And talented. The other day she played us a song on the saw. Like
she got a violin bow out and a saw and used the bow to play music (on the non-serrated
part of course!) But anyway. She shared her testimony on coming to know the
Book of Mormon was true through prayer. It was so powerful. Sister Rosser knows
and lives the gospel well and the Spirit was very strong. I thought Toni received
it pretty well... more on that for Wednesday. We stopped in to see Stephanie
because she didn't come to church. Dang. It was a mess. She was really
depressed because her son had beat up her daughter, like crushed her face. It
was a long and complicated story but basically the daughter dumper her bf and
he got mad so he framed the brother who acted out and beat his sister up.
Stephanie couldn’t go back to see them because she didn’t have enough money so
her one daughter was in the hospital and her son (not Andre) was in jail. We
went in and prayed with her and shared a quick scripture. You could see the Spirit
work on her in the lesson and she cheered up a little bit right then. We love
Stephanie, she's such a sweet person. She listens and keeps her commitments and
prays and then she feels the Spirit. I love how happy she gets when we go
by.
TUESDAY!
Another great day! It's been that way for a long time. We went to District
Meeting with Rigdon. It was a good time. He made a few comments and even during
the 'gatorade' portion of the meeting asked for some tips on how he could
invite a friend to investigate the gospel. Rigdon is a great kid and a good
example. He is loving and funny and a gentleman. And as much as I give him a
hard time, he's pretty good at rugby too (like way good). Our district leader Elder
Montgomery taught us about how we can better use the New Testament. EM is
really, really smart. He's knows the scriptures incredibly well as well. We
came up with a cool list/venn diagram of teachings in the BOM, New Testament
and both. They testify of each other. I won’t go off on another rant about
reading the BoM, but it's really important. We didn't have anything set up so
we knocked on a lot of doors. Rigdon has no fear which is cool. He was down to
just knock random doors or do anything we could to find new people to teach. That
kind of fire will serve him well soon enough in the mission field. We then went
over to the Z's. Jazmine told us that she was pregnant (she's 22 and not
married and living with her family and does’t have a job) and was like pretty
sad when she said it. Almost like in a defeated manner "Oh, and I’m pregnant."
It was pretty hard to hear. Elder Slik and I at the same time said, 'dang.' It
was like a blow to the face. Jazmine has been trying to get her life in order
and this kind just threw things off for her. She mentioned even more defeatedly
that she's considering an abortion. We probed a little bit and she backed down
from that idea. I think she just said that in desperation. It was a sad
situation. Then we went up to Frenchmen Hills and started visiting members and
exhorting them to GK [Gladys Knight]. Ohhh I hope they go. And I hope they
bring friends bc apparently that is the only regret that people didn’t bring their
friends. Then we went and did a baptismal interview. ES did one and I did one
at the same time. I got to interview the mother and ES the daughter. The mom
was so prepared. I was talking to her about her conversion and how she found
the church. She said that the elders knocked on her door looking for someone
else and they found her. They shared their purpose and asked if they could set
a time to come back and she said that she invited them but wasn’t really that
interested. But they came back and she felt the Spirit and she kept feeling it
and as she learned more and more she felt herself growing spiritually. It was
cool to see the light in her eyes and the fire she had for the gospel. She bore
her testimony of the commandments to me like a ton of times. It's cool to hear
that from people especially in a city like ours where they are so universally
discarded. She was gold. Some people like her do exist and can be found by the
missionaries by themselves, but they are most easily found through members
cough, cough! On our way to dinner we talked to a woman sitting outside her
garage. We struck up a pretty natural conversation about church and the like
and it was interesting. She told us her story of how she got offended and
stopped going to church and then fell into bad habits. She told us straight up
that she has lost some of her gifts because of disobedience. We went to dinner
which was crazy. This brother talked for like 90 minutes straight. The sister
there just shared with us how she has been sharing the gospel with everyone. I
love hearing that. We brought a priest out to see Brother D. He was more
intoxicated that usual and was on this like "I'm going to kill him"
train. I think it was a good thing we went by so that we could convince him not
to do all the bad things he was planning to. He's a really good guy, but with
vices. The priest liked it. The language was a little too colorful for my
tastes but whatever. Brother D's friend who was there with him was 100%
sober and super interested in the gospel. He was asking questions and wanting
to know more. He lives kinda far but I still hope he calls us to set things up.
Man. If only 1/100 of the people who told us they would call us did, that'd be
awesome. But sadly people lie, forget, procrastinate or 'the dog ate the car'.
We met up with Sister Justice to see Shenika but she wasn’t home so we went to
see Stephanie and it went soooo well. The two of them hit it off really well.
Stephanie loved her and it was really cool. They made plans right then to go to
church together. We read the BoM together and it was a special experience.
WEDNESDAY!
ES and I made jambalaya for lunch. It was dece. We didn't have any meat so we
used some venison jerky. Dece. We saw grama and talked to her about sharing the
gospel and she gave us snickers. I think she's made an active attempt to make
us fat. She loves to feed us. We had a lesson with Parole. Idk if I’ve talked
about him before. It went well. Most all the other times we’ve talked to him
he's been drunk but we met with him in the morning so he was sober and it was a
really good lesson I thought. He has a lot of questions and a lot of misinformation
about a lot of things. But it was good he wanted to learn more. Near the end of
the lesson he said to us that a devil must have been the one to teach him all
those things because they aren’t true, a perfect example of the "father of
all lies." We talked about prophets and it was again made clear to me the
importance of them. I like testifying of the prophet. It’s a big deal to have
one. People don’t realize that. It's like crucial. Idk it’s clear to me the
more I learn that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the
flawless example of New Testament Christianity because it’s the same thing. The
NT really is a testament to the divinity of the Restoration in all its parts,
authority and doctrine. Later we talked to a guy who was washing his car. He
was interesting. We had a good talk, but he did lecture us on why our church is
not true. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion it is true but he was just
telling us straight up what we believe. I dunno. It bugs me when people do
that, especially when it’s like some grapevine rumors. Annyyyyway. We taught
Toni. Dang. It sucked. We love her and we don’t want to drop her but she
refuses to progress. She doesn’t keep any commitments and she won’t pray. Today
she even told us that she might start going to another church later. She
expects us to just give her money and things and to come over every day and
listen to her problems. We really do care for her a lot but most of her
problems could be solved by doing the things we invite her to do. One of the
hardest parts is that she just doesn’t listen to us. Like simply as that. When
we speak she does other things and then brushes off our questions and things. I
dunno what happened. She was a lot more solid before. Her niece moved out but we
are pretty sure that she was feeding her anti-doctrine. She doesn’t get it.
We've taught very simply and very boldy the message of the Restoration many
times and invited her to pray about it and ask God if the Book of Mormon is the
word of God. She just won’t do it. I know that if she does God will answer her
prayer. It’s so simple but the effects are eternal. Later in the evening we
taught Tyrone. That was cool because it was so easy to see a countenance change
with him. There is so much more light in his life now and he is progressing.
Going from that lesson with Toni to the one with Tyrone was such a juxtaposition.
Toni with little growth and still plagued by the same problems and Tyrone
already feeling the Atonement begin to work in his life. He almost looks physically
different. We were having a good lesson and then his member wife came in and
flipped out. It was weird. He told us that he had already cancelled two lessons
that week and didn't want to wait any longer. That like warmed my soul to hear
that. That we weren’t just pressuring him but that he really felt it was an
important part of his life to have us there with him. :) Then we visited like
all out favorite families up the hill. We have some great people to work with. That
night we went to spc. It was crazy weird to be a part of that,
all the leaders of the stake and then Elder Slik and me. I felt a little out of
place. I'm still coming to terms with all the things that are part of this
assignment.
Dang, I
gotta pick up the pace.
THURSDAY!
Good day. District meeting with Elder Puga about the Doctrine of Christ and
setting out investigators for baptism. ES broke a member's skateboard. We
taught Stephanie another lesson about the Plan of Salvation. She had read the
pamphlet before and before we could even ask she was telling us how great it was
and how strong she felt the Spirit. She's good. It makes me feel good when people
are happy and excited to see us. ES then had to do a follow-up intereview for
the girl he intervied on Tuesday. That went well. It was nice to get to sit
down again with that sister and talk more about things. A sister made us a
giant platter of Mexican food. So, so, so good. We saw one of our potentials
named Brian. His gf just had a baby and he really wants to get his life in
order. I'm really hoping that we can start meeting with him because the gospel
would be such a blessing in his life. A member in FH told us a story about a
time that he beat up a car full of gangbangers in front of his kids. His wife
left him for a week. It was a crazy story.
FRIDAY!
Such good days. We talked to Monique who is a member of the Z family and
she told us how all the world came crashing down around their shoulders. No
time to elaborate, but their life is hard. Keeping the commandments is really
important. It keeps us safe from the crazy trials of life. We had a great visit
with Stephanie and Sister Justice. She brought her cupcakes. That made me so happy.
Andre was really interested in taking part which made me happy. He had a lot of
good questions. Tryone wants to be baptized. We had dinner with Bro Deleon who
I had dinner with a year ago with Elder Nonu and Tae and Bennett. We dropped
Toni but invited her to keep reading. We will follow up next week but that’ll
be the last time for a while. She just doesn’t understand and won’t try to. She
also told us that it’s okay if we don’t come by anymore. She mentioned other churches
and stuff. Idk what’s going to happen with her. She's pretty confident she
knows everything too. She told us she knew the Bible better than anyone.
SATURDAY!
Good day. Gave blessing to Sister Despain. We went to two baptisms.
President came to one. Saw an investigator from a year ago. Went to a
farewell.
SUNDAY!
Slik went to BV again to watch the farewell talk. Had six at church.
That's
all I have time for.
I love
you all so much.
Sam
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