Good afternoon Brothers and Sisters,
We had a good week here, though we dealt with a few annoying things as well. Although sometimes those things are more interesting than the good things! I hope after writing this to enjoy a nice champagne, and I hope you (the reader) will too. Sometimes life just moves so quickly that we forget to stop and admire all the plastic and metal around us.
Okay thats enough random words to start the letter that I should be ready to go now
Monday was so fun! Logan had no class so went over at 9 am and made a big breakfast and ate it with him. Unfortunately Sarah had work and had to leave. Then we spent the whole day with them getting up to shenanigans and playing games. We skipped zone pday for a couple of reasons:
Reason 1: I'm annoyed with the attitude of pride and superiority that I see in many of the missionaries in the zone. There has been a lot of annoying ideas like "We've started knocking on people car windows when they are in their cars because gospel!" and related ideas. Sometimes missionaries seem to think that because of the Gospel they are entitled to do whatever they want in the name of boldly proclaiming the Gospel. They forget to respect peoples personal space, time, privacy. And they forget common sense and basic manners. Being respectful is crucial regardless of what your sharing. Okay enough on reason 1. More to come on this matter in a minute
Reason 2: I am tired of making time for unexpected things
Reason 3: I am tired of Zone pdays
So spending the day with Logan was a much better option! Also while we were there we got all of our Nativity cards and had hundreds of them all over their house in places for them to find later haha--on fans, in cabinets, under decorations, on mirrors, and on their tree! In the evening we stopped by a bunch of people but not a single person talked to us sadly.
Tuesday we drove to Bossier City for district council, and then visited Springhill on the way back. We walked around and talked to a few people who were out before driving back home. Then we had a zone call which was okay. They talked about not setting limits on ourselves, because God is on our side. So not to limit ourselves by saying things like "tracting isn't effective" or "after 8 nobody wants to talk to us" or other such things. They said we are limiting God when we say things like that. The whole call was ridiculous and I was rolling my eyes at every other comment haha--why do missionaries think they have it all figured out and everything they say is SO brilliant and SO spiritual???? It's ridiculous we are literally 18-20, so stop pretending like we are Peter, James, and John. The concept of God has no limits is very true and I'm not saying I disagree with that-- but imperfect human people do have limits. And sometimes cold knocking on someone's door after 8:30 in the dark in a sketchy neighborhoods means people come out with bats in hand ready to fight (I speak from experience, luckily he wasnt mad once he saw who we were). Also NOBODY answers their door when two dark figures come way after dark. Oops sorry I just tried to limit God I guess. But we will see how far your no-limits flight of superiority goes when youre lying dead in an alley! Anyway the point is, yes we need to have faith and be bold by thinking outside the box and trying new and uncomfortable things, but we CANNOT lose basic reasoning skills and basic manners! God works through us and even though he CAN make someone listen to us at 8:55 the second we knock on their door he lets people have their agency, and sometimes that means they are going to wait to be interested until people come at a decent time. I can't tell you how many people I've come accross who have left the church or been pushed away because some idiotic "super-bold faith warrior" missionary was just too bold and persistent to the point of rudeness. So there you go there's some ramblings of a madman for the day. And that's only one of the comments about no limits that was made, I woud tear them all apart if I had time. Faith-building happens when we trust in Christ, we don't need to try and build faith in all these fake ways.
Also on Tuesday we had a really successful time talking to people! Met two Joyces, one we have termed the "less-good version of Joyce" because she wasn't interested and the other one was. We also taught Damion who was outside waiting for us and put him on date for baptism January 13th! We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and when we invite him to be baptized he said, "of course!"
Wednesday we went and helped Erik Russell clean out his apartment. It was a mess (being a guy who lives alone and only games all the time will do that haha). We helped organize stuff and I threw out everything I could that he didn't immediately know where it should go. This firmed my resolve to not live on my own too long, you have to have other people around to tell you that you should really clean up haha
We walked around an apartment complex near by after lunch and met a girl named Mon (short for Money) who's really interested, and then also had some EXTREMELY high dudes (stumbling all over the place and smoke coming out of their noses) come up and ask for some burger money haha-- we of course did not oblidge them. We also met a guy who we couldn't really understand and we think he's interested but we aren't really sure cause we can't really understand him! In the evening we met a guy named Blake who we felt inspired to knock, and then we "felt inspired to knock" (meaning it had a super nice BMW and a nice Camero and we wanted to talk about them) another house as well and found another interested lady. Then we went and taught Becky, and we read finally with them! We got Fatima and Farod to download the app and we read 1 Nephi 1! Fatima who is in 6th grade is better at reading than 80% of the people we meet! Also I showed my Rubik's cubes to Farod cause he likes cubes. Hes trying to learn how to solve one. We also got reprimanded by this middle-aged lady for knocking on people's doors way "too late" as she put it. Want to guess what time it was when she said this? 7 pm :))
On Thursday we walked the dogs and since a dog I sometimes walk is soooo scared of everything we tried to see how it would react when a train came! But when we heard the horn it was too late to get there in time haha--so next time. We did help move a giant pallet of blasted dog food as well. In the afternoon we drove with the Millers and visited some members to drop off Christmas ornament gifts and cookies! We also shared some Christmas messages. We did a full hour long Christmas story program with a less active member named Timothy which was cool, we even sang a bunch of Hymns with him! Then we had a fantastic evening as well. Found a lady named Jennifer who's really interested and is normal and has a stable family! We are really excited to teach her, she's active in her church but very open to the Book of Mormon. We also talked to her neighbor accross the street and her daughter Miracle asked if we could come teach them about the Book of Mormon every day!! They looked at their schedule and finally we got it settled that we can come every Wednesday and Friday. We met some other cool people as well.
Then Friday we went up to McNeil and Waldo. We visited a bunch of people to no avail, but we were able to have another excellent lesson with Damion! The Millers came as well and we read Moroni 6 with him and talked about church. He said he would for sure come and he even told his boss to let him go in late so he can come to church or otherwise he would quit haha
We also met this really nice girl our age who's been looking around for a church, she goes to SAU but seems to genuinely be interested which is rare. Usually the college students are so flighty and even though they are nice you can't really pin them down. Also had a good long meeting with Royce and got 2 referrals from him and a lot of ideas for missionary work in the area.
On Saturday walked the dogs and mine and Elder Stroud's kept trying to fight each other they had so much energy. They took every opportunity they could get to grab each other. And they kept taking sips from mud puddles tsk tsk
We did our hour of inviting people to church also, which is my least favorite part of the day (especially on Saturday because its an hour instead of 30 minutes) because its tedious and rushed because we have so many people to get through. Usually we have to call and/or text 30-50 people in that time frame. We go to all the work to invite and usually about 5% of our contacts are fruitful. Which makes it worth it luckily! We also drove and visited some members and dropped off some more ornaments and Christmas cookies. We walked around some richer neighborhoods and found a frat/sorority house with some interested guys and girls! We also talked to a lady named Joyce who wasn't that interested but let us in and gave us candy and apples as a merry Christmas! Also met a lady who wanted a Book of Mormon. And as we were bringing her one we met a neighbor of hers that she was telling about it who also wants one! Everyone is drunk Saturday nights so we did as much talking to people as possible during the day, and then did my tasks in the evening and had a late dinner. We got 2 large pizzas and a Cheesy bread because we were so hungry, and had a little movie night where we watched church videos!
Sunday was long but really good! We had our Christmas Program which was my project lovingly crafted (with the help of some key players--thank you!) so I was really hoping the program would go well. And it did! I got to narrate and lead it, and we had some really cool personal experiences that people shared and musical numbers as well! We also had a new couple that is moving into the branch come! My after-church meetings were especially long today so we didn't get home until 5, but I got to write some reimbursement checks which I always find fun haha
We also went and visited some less-active members in the evening, and some far-out referrals. Met an elephant too! I don't know why I wrote that. We did not meet an elephant.
-Abe
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