Good day.
Today is a historic day because I am changing my usual day by day approach of talking about my week to bullet points where I will just hit the most interesting parts! What a change! This whole time you've had to make your way through endless drivel, and now you can get the information you need in bite-sized pieces of deeper meaning!!
Just joking, ha! Leopards may change their spots occasionally but they don't change them to Pink rhombuses (rhombusi?) !
On Monday we got to spend the day with Logan again. We got pizza, tried out Jackbox 9 and 10, and then played some more games with Sarah too once she got home from work! It was such a fun day, and in the evening we had 3 awesome lessons. We talked to Vicki who's really interested and even sent us a text of a picture of a Book of Mormon she found! We also taught Jasmine who seems genuinely engaged in the lessons, and said she would try to make it to our Nativity event. We taught Damion who was awesome as usual, and talked about recieving revelation. Then we went back to (Logan and Sarah)'s to help Logan learn how to consecrate oil! We couldnt find his oil vial though so we unfortunately had to drive with him in his Mustang to the church to find a new one for him. What a hardship. We spent the next 20 minutes hunting allll over cause I swear I saw some but then we couldn't find them anyway haha--We finally made do with an inferior plastic model tsk tsk
Also Sarah made us Muffins
On Tuesday we did district council and had a great time! Elder Stroud gave a training on extending invitations which wad good, and then we ate with the Minden Elders and they came up to Magnolia with us to do exchanges. We started by going to our church building and setting up for the nativity and Branch Christmas dinner with the Millers. There are a lot of cool nativities! Way more than I thought would be there, and they are all super cool. I especially love the veggie tales one. It was a ton of work setting everything up, but by the end we were pretty proud of ourselves! In the evening I went with Elder Miller the Greenie and we had a great night. He said he hasn't gotten to teach a lesson yet in the 3 weeks on his mission and so I took him and gave him practice teaching 3 different lessons! He said it was the best night of his mission so far. We taught Lewis the first half of the Plan of Salvation, but unfortunately he was sooo wishy-washy on reading the Book of Mormon. "I will read if I feel the urge too." So bad! Someday I'm going to buy every country in the world and then put everyone who won't do what they say they will in one country and see how long it lasts.
We also felt prompted to knock a door and this guy told us he was drinking and we should come another day. Then when we walked back by his house later on our way back to our car he came out and said he wants to hear a scripture after all! Then Elder Miller said we should knock one that I had said at the beginning we shouldn't knock and so we knocked it and got yelled at to go away from within haha--poor Elder Miller I dont know why he keeps doing this to himself haha
Then we had a good visit with Mike Jones, and then taught a lesson to Liliana and her husband Diego! They are super strong in their church but are really nice and seem (fairly) open to the Gospel. We had a great lesson all on the purpose of life. I also took him to meet Logan and Sarah because we had to drop off a package for them. That evening our apartment became a nerf gun war zone and we are still finding foam bullet balls everywhere to this day.
Wednesday Elder Miller and I went to the Thrift store and did some testing of electronics, and then all 4 of us drove to Springhill and ate again at the amazing Sam's Southern Eatery. They always give us so much sauce there and it was amazing food. Elder Miller is very quiet, but he will talk to you if you ask him questions. I like him, hes like a fairly nice sheep right now. Quiet and follows along, but I'm sure as he goes farther on his mission he will find more confidence and become the wolf he always could be! Err-- maybe not wolf. We will see. Elder Stoud and I then drove back after visiting Tawanna and walked around campus. We talked to Fredrick who definitely looked like he needs friends so we talked to him. He was very cordial and expressed interest (like 90% of the students do but then they never respond when we reach out) but we will see. He seemed to genuinely be interested in why we are here. The rest of the afternoon was very boring because nobody wanted to talk with us and everybody canceled. Luckily our friend cat talked to us though and allowed us to pet it!
We did meet a nice pentecostal lady who said did a bunch of loud praising right there once we finished our scripture haha--the evening went very much the same way. Nobody wanted to talk and everyone who did talk wasn't interested. I think everyone must have been in a bad mood or something. We talked to Tori again who's that less active SAU girl we found who might be interested in coming back to church! Unfortunately she told us her friends aren't interested anymore though but at least she still is. We walked around a rich neighborhood and talked to a guy who kept asking his wife in the other room if she wanted us to come back and if she wanted to hear more. Her muffled replies were mostly "sure honey"s and "whatever you want dear"s but we will take what we can get!
Also why do so many people leave their door open so that their screen door is the only one between us and them and as we walk up we try to pretend we can't see their lazy selves just slumped on their couch watching TV and they try to pretend they can't see us walking up and then as we knock we try to look everywhere but straight forward so we don't creppily peer straight into their house and then when they come to the door they try to pretend they are surprised to see us. The whole process is horrible, just close your door!! It isn't that hard! Also it's cold outside anyway, why would you even want it open?? I'm almost to the point where I will just start pressing Mt face up against the glass of each offending door and look straight in until people stop doing it.
Sonya suddenly moved on us haha--so we are trying to find her new address and had to take her off date. But shes still responding which is good.
Thursday we had our Branch Christmas Dinner! We had a lot of good food and a little Christmas program too. We also got to go and look at all the Nativities as a Branch and talk with everyone which was great! We also had a mission-wide Zoom meeting where all of the departing missionaries gave their testimonies. It was good enough, but once you've heard one missionaries departing testimony you've heard them all. "I never thought this day would come" "I've changed so much" "Don't give up!" Blah blah blah. President Taylor kept having to remind everyone to keep their testimonies to 2 minutes because everyone kept thinking that what they had to say was SO important that their audience must be hanging on every word. In my departing testimony I will fall into none of these blunders have no fear. Quick, to the point, maybe a story, and simple. 100 seconds or less. We also had an amazing lesson with Damion again! With out us even asking he brought up the tree of life and how much he loves that chapter in the Book of Mormon! He also taught US about how repentance is no good if you just ask for forgiveness and don't change haha--We taught him the second half of the Plan of Salvation.
Friday morning I took care of some agendas and then we had a nursing home come through and see the Nativity. We sang O Holy Night for them as well and all of the Elderly people seemed to really like our displays and cookies. After they left Elder Stroud and I drove up to Waldo and talked with Derrick. We also taught Shimeka the Restoration and she wants to come to the nativity as well! Then we drove to McNeil and taught Neka. She invited us in and then proceeded to clean her entire apartment while we waited haha--after 20 minutes we finally had a lesson and read 1 Nephi 1 with her. She kept just reading the first letter of a word and then assuming it was a different word and saying that instead which was confusing but it was stills good. (E.g. "and it came to poof" and "kind Zelda") We also met some softball players who stopped and talked to us about Christ and want to check church out! We also went to Felechia's apartment complex and met 7 new people and got their numbers! There were a couple more that came for the nativity but most were planning on coming Saturday.
On Saturday we spent 5 hours at the church because we were helping man the nativity. Hardly anyone came unfortunately, but I was still pleased with it. I think Sister Miller was a bit disappointed but that's how things go. It was good for me because I caught up on everything I've been needing to do (almost!) I haven't been this caught up in weeks haha
Also there were so many leftover cookies that Elder Stroud and I took dozens and dozens and dozens home! Cream cheese frosting too, which is better that all other terrible frostings that people usually use for some reason even though they are awful. For example butter cream is terrible (if you like it don't worry it's okay, it just means I may hunt you down and give you all my frosting anytime I have any). We helped box up all the Nativities which was a big task, and then we went and talked to people. Taught Moe the chef on his porch about 1 Nephi 1 as he was falling asleep haha--and then went to stop by Tydrick. As we were walking up we noticed his house was surrounding by cars and LOUD music was thumping. He was holding some cash and yelling at a couple for not paying the proper amount. We've been teaching him for a little while now and this confirmed our suspicions that he's a drug dealer haha--he always has shady types coming and going. We just kept walking cause we didn't want to get involved. We met a guy named Serbia who's interested and a girl named Andrea who is quite interested as well! She wants to learn about our faith and the Book of Mormon. We also talked to Rocky who Elder Stroud visited on exchanges and he had told them he was thinking about killing himself and how his family left and he had no job and life was terrible. So Elder Stroud prayed with him and then when we came by today apparently a guy had come up to him and said he had felt God tell him to check on Rocky, and he gave him a job! Then Rockys family moved back in and he's happy again! So that was a huge miracle!
Sunday our sacrament meeting was fantastic! We had some really good talks on the Gift of Christ's Atonement and how we give the gift of Christ to others! And a really good musical number also. Everyone in the branch got to take a nativity home including us! I will attach a picture of mine. Also had some good meetings with some individuals to help ease tensions between Sister Miller and a couple of people who are mad she cleaned out their storage cabinets haha
We also had Branch council and walked around the campus lights
-Abe
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