Hey y'all!
This week has been a spectacular one! Filled with many exciting moments, adventures, and miracles!
First off, our Bishop owns a lot of property filled with ponds perfect for fishing. Last P-day we had a good time doing that again, which made it officially the 4th time ever going fishing in my life. And ya, I suck..... But still fun! Today were planning on going it again but with the sisters and a group of 4 or so of our investigators. That will be a blast!
It has literally rained here everyday this week which meant that we had to cancel our service projects a few times, but others we pushed through and just embraced being soaked and muddy. We started teaching one of the non-members that comes with us, his name is Jonathan. He's graduated from high school and expecting to go into the military in a month or so. He's in a rock and hard place right now. He reminds me a lot of myself back in the day, constantly sitting on the fence, leaning each way wondering if I should obey God's will or do what everyone else is doing (getting caught up in the world). He says he feels guilty and hypocritical because he hangs out with us, or in his words, " the church people" and then the same night he goes and parties with his friends. His family all has a history of drinking, and everyone he talks to about the military says that the way they deal with stress and anxiety is by smokin', drinkin', and chewin'. Even the Christian guys fall into it all. Soooo we're helping him build his faith and convince him that that isn't the road to true happiness and that God will support him in all his trials if he is faithful and obedient. The other day when we invited him to hear the discussions, he accepted and said he was really interested, and that because of us he's going back to the Catholic church haha. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but it is a progressing step. He hasn't been to any church in years. But then he did say that he might convert to "Mormonism" later down he road. No doubt in my mind that he will. He's a great guy, real country, and into the big supped up trucks haha. He's been going around asking all his friends what they would think of him becoming a Mormon haha so he'll come around eventually! We even got him to come out and teach with us and he testified of how he came to know how God lived! It was awesome!
Next is Saulius, a gay Atheist from Lithuania. We've gotten him to commit to read the Book of Mormon everyday and even keep the commandments for 1 week to see if he notices a difference. We were teaching one of his friends, Erica, who has a baptismal date for August 29th and he came and participated in the lesson. We started to teach her the commandments, and committed him right then and there as well! Haha. We haven't gotten him to pray yet... so we will see how it goes.
We have another investigator named David, who just had his second stroke a few days ago and is in the hospital. He wants to get baptized, but his wife is fully against it. She claims to be a prophetess, and even though she hates the church she attends, she won't even consider leaving or changing her own beliefs. She said she would divorce him if he got baptized, but last week he said he's going to anyway hahaha... Big set back there though... This Saturday were having all the Elders Quorum come to help us build an A frame roof over their two side by side sheds. Hopefully service will help soften her heart..
Tomorrow we're teaching a brother for the first time that has showed up to church and our weekly scripture study class twice! He was in the newspaper for assault the day before we first met him at the church. We will see how that goes tomorrow! Haha. We invited him and his less active wife over to a members home for the first discussion and he seems to be very interested at church and wanting to change his life around.
We set baptismal dates with three other people and at first we didn't think they were very solid. We thought they would flake on our appointments and not read the Book of Mormon, but last night we did a surprise visit and we had a great discussion. I asked her "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?" She broke down with her son and started crying and said she would ask why He would take her 6 year old daughter away from them. This response lead perfectly into the Plan of Salvation. :)
Every Thursday evening we play basketball at the church. This week it was Elder Dean and I along with 10 or so other non- members! We play for awhile and then share a spiritual thought and prayer before we leave. Every week we have new people because they invite all their friends. Saturday nights we get even more people to come and play volleyball! We get members, recent converts and non-members! Perfect way to break the ice and fellowship these people!
I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday about how to become a better husband and Father haha. Interesting topic for a missionary don't ya think? It went really well though. Love ya and talk to ya next week!
Cupcake Wars!! We were asked to be the judges for the Relief Society activity! We tasted about 20 different cupcakes haha. The winner for the best tasting cupcake was the maple syrup and bacon cupcake! They also gave us du-rags but we didn't get a picture of those.
Check out our new weight set!
We fit the entire weight set in our car! We did a little off-roading before hand too, hence the mud :)
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