Pday - April 25th
Hey famalama,
What an absolutely crazy week. Man since P-day everything seemed to just go up, down, and all around. Things were just totally out of control for us. I think I mentioned I was a bit ill on Sunday/Monday, but I really experienced the total domination of mind and body on Tuesday-Friday. Ate something that totally messed me up and I was feeling terrible all the time. Was getting no sleep, hitting the toilet like it was my job. On about Wednesday night I decided to stop being such a tough guy, and asked Elder E Silva, Till and Lavender to administer a blessing to me. I immediately felt much better, and calmer, knowing that I was now letting the Lord work through his power. I remember Dad giving me a blessing when I had hurt my arm in a baseball game and recovering incredibly quick, and ever since I always knew priesthood blessings do work when the Lord wants them to. Despite the blessing though, there was a continual residual remnant of the illness, but I'm pretty much 100 percent better now...which makes me happy to say, again reinforcing that "Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest."(D&C 84:20)
Despite getting sick and having to occasionally be inside, we still managed to work, both with our investigators and the zone. As I mentioned last week we had our Zone Pday playing squash. Needless to say I absolutely dominated the competition. Only the Austrian Elder, Till, was a bit of competition, but I still beat him on 3 games, usually 9-3 each one. The fourth I played in jeans as we were leaving since he didn't want to leave without getting to beat me...I whooped him again.
The pday was alright, despite our car completely crapping out and dying. Luckily the sisters kind of took over and chauffeured everyone around between the squash courts and bowling which we played after. Fun zone pday all around, and it was good to get to mingle and chat with everyone, despite having to occasionally spring from the squash court to the porcelain throne.
So, thus far I got sick...then on pday, the car started to die in the morning, stalling all over the place. We had to park it somewhere on the way to bowling and got it later, and nearly made it back to the flat...before it died at ASDA, where we called up AA and grabbed some food inside waiting for the guy to show up. A real nice asian guy showed up and checked the car, kind of rebuking us for not having put water in the water part, but overall helping us out and getting us to the dealership. Apparently there had been a tear in the main water line that feeds to the engine, so it was constantly overheating, which of course means...no driving. Dropped it off, and got picked up and dropped at the flat which was cool.
Luckily the next day we had Zone Conference, so we didn't really need the car other than to get to the Mission Home. Had to take a bit more of the dwindling MSF(Missionary Support Funds) from the bank to get there via train, but it was well worth it, despite not cruising there. President basically opened the conference talking about how it was his second to last one, getting a bit nostalgic and emotional, and I was totally feeling it too. He also mentioned how initially when he showed up, Missionaries were drinking on New Years, going to London with the cars, dating, just total anarchy from the sound of it.
He had to sort out something like 32 missionaries when he first came. It was a bit sad thinking he's actually leaving now. It's kind of like your dad leaving you, the guy that's been such a spiritual giant and motivator to you, has to take off. Emotions were running high for a little while, before he announced that he'd leave the entirety of the duration of time to us, to have a question/answer section. Whooo hooo. Every missionary in the room was immediately excited and pumpin, I was sitting there thinking "Please be smart questions, nothing stupid". Initially we had a few questions particularly about missionary work and President addressed some problem areas, some things to change which was great actually. The main problem as ALWAYS is not getting investigators to church. The number is still low, and I guess its either dropping or just not increasing. He's pretty worried about it and let us all know that definitively. It kept rolling and we had all sorts of different questions. Nobody was really asking any good questions, and occasionally you'd get some knuckle head asking where to write down his personal revelation("My study journal, journal, planner...where?"). Elder E Silva and I both asked questions eventually after waiting for awhile, E Silva's on the Atonement, mine on the Creation. President gave a great answer to Elder E Silva's question, and even mentioned a bit more than expected to which me and him we're kind of floored. To my question, which I planned out to be specific, and unavoidable, he totally dodged it. It was kind of weird actually, he like answered a question I didn't ask. He saw the kind of shock on my face I think, because afterwards he came up to me and said 'i know the question, we'll talk about it at interviews, it's a good one".
I kind of jokingly said 'i put that question together so you would have to answer it specifically and you dodged it"...he just laughed, and smiled and said "I know, I dodged it", as we walked off and kept talking. As well, as he approached me, Elder E Silva, and Elder Staal sitting in the back he said "I was a bit worried with the Three nephites sitting in the back row next to each other." He taught a good principle to me that day about how to answer questions. It was great as well, the whole time he was always asking us questions and teaching us. He's a great man. Plus we had Subway, muffins and soda...the guy knows the way to a missionaries heart.
After conference we were totally excited, ready to execute our plan of Zone dominance, getting the other missionaries up to speed, committing like crazy, teaching, finding and baptising.
Thursday morning we woke up and decided to go down to Daventry where Elder Moonsami and Elder Kremenchuk are. They've been trying to project this old lady for baptism forever and we decided to go sort it out and see if we could get them working...since they weren't really. Getting a bit lazy down there. We started our drive, having gotten our car back and fixed from the water valve problem and everything was great....thennnnn, on goes a warning light, it starts blinking, white smoke from the back, the car starts to shake and Elder E Silva has trouble steering. I quickly flip open the manual and read "Emission Control" malfunction. Whoo, another problem that says "Drive to Dealer Immediately". So we dropped off the car to get fixed, losing it yet again..this time for a week.
On the positive side though, our trip down to Daventry was very productive. Me and Elder Moonsami went to see Olsie Plum, the old lady, who's about 75, and taught her with a member girl. We watched a video about Christ called "To This End Was I Born". It was a very powerful video, and very spiritual. We started talking to her about the church and how she felt about baptism, and she started to get slightly defensive, telling us she'd say when she was ready. The girl Barbara, is preparing for a mission...so she decided to take it upon herself to never stop talking, making promises and testifying...got a bit awkward at times, but I had to laugh a bit. I gave Elder Moonsami a chance to take control but he was just lettin things get out of hand...ultimately I made a bit of an analogy about her husband and her getting married...and how it required preparation and time together to make it work before the actual marriage. I related that to having to read and pray every day, since she had stopped reading for a couple days. She started to cry, and said she really missed him as he was now dead. Elder Moonsami, as most Elders do, got feeling awkward now that someone was showing emotion and said "Well we gotta get going", to which I about slapped him, and just pushed on and projected her. She decided to get baptised this time, and accepted for this coming Saturday, and has already been interviewed. Whoooooo, pretty sweet. It felt great to testify of god's plan for families, and the necessity of baptism to begin the process of living forever together. She was a tough lady, but once she was feeling the spirit, her heart melted and opened.
Once we were done there, we had to make the long journey back by bus and train to Coventry. They told us the manifold had cracked on our car and that the Head Gasket was leaking water onto the pistons(somethin like that) and should get it back in like a week. Luckily we had just projected Olsie so our spirits were high.
The rest of the week has been pretty interesting. We've been walking all over the place, getting rides and teaching. As well since I've been sick and the kind that makes it impossible to not be within seconds of a toilet it's been kind of boring. I felt a lot like Job this week, trial after trial, affliction after affliction.
As the week continued, we kept working and trying to get out as much as we could. We taught two ladies on Friday named Verina and Louise, who we had taught last week. This time we brought a member named since Caughey, who worked great with us. At first when we got in there, we randomly got on the subject of talking about the two tortoise's in the other room. They lived in something called a vivarium. When Louise mentioned the word vivarium, I asked her what that word meant...and immediately Sister Caughey was like "Stupid Americans" in kind of a sarcastic way. Had to keep control of my hands from slappin er'. Irregardless of that, we asked them how their reading of 3 Nephi 11, and they started asking some questions. I guess they read about the Word of Wisdom and plural marriage in their somewhere....not sure which verse it was, but we talked about that briefly before we got back to the principles taught therein.
Had a bit of a chat for awhile, and they mentioned some of their beliefs in relation to Mary Eddie Baker, the Christian Scientist lady, and some of those ideas from her. As we were closing Louise said "Me and Verina both haven't been christened". I asked why she mentioned that, and she was like "Don't know". I just asked a few pretend naïve questions as to why they hadn't been, why they weren't following Christ's laws, and how Mary Eddy Baker could be a true disciple of Christ without teaching baptism. Left there with a bit of something for them to think about and scooted.
Come Saturday we spent most of the day walking around to appointments, miles and miles all around the city, which to a couple of them we were flogged which was too bad...as we had a guy from Zimbabwe named Kennedy with us to teach. Later in the evening we had mission correlation at about 9 at the other 4 Elder's flat in town centre, so we had to stay around town all day. We decided to go in and have some Chinese buffet for dinner. It was actually really good. It was fun seeing loads and loads of Chinese students dominating everything in sight, eating lots, tipping there bowls to there mouths Japanese style and scooping the rice and noodles in.
After the food, we headed back to the other guys flat for correlation. For some reason my face had started to swell up a little bit, my lips were getting fat and so we're my cheeks. Halfway through the meeting, my eyelids under my ears were getting big and fat. I figured I'd had a slight reaction but nothing to worry about. As we concluded the meeting I was getting all itchy, and was scratching my back at one point, and showed it to Elder E Silva who said I had a rash.
Still thinking nothing of it, we got dropped off at home by Brother Mills, the WMLeader. I went into the bathroom to check myself out and just saw a rash all over my arms, middle upper body, and all over my legs. Instantly called Bro Mills and took him up on his offer to drive to the Emergency Room to get it sorted. Went in, gave them my name and sat down. At this point it was about 10:30 Saturday night, loads of drunks, fight victims, and young girls with their sick kids coming in. We told Bro Mills we'd just get a taxi and he drove off. Around 11 I saw a preliminary nurse who when she looked at my arms was like "That's making me itchy". She told me I'd be admitted to triage as soon as they could. Around 12:30 me and Elder E Silva we're in a little room being given steroids and antihistamines while under observation. The young doctor I was with was worried we wouldn't be able to leave, but the head resident dude was sure we'd leave in a couple hours so that was comforting. Come 2:30, I had some extra medicine with me, rash mostly gone and we were in a taxi on the way home. Called up President Munday having done so initially to tell him I was on the way there and now gave him a quick report to tell him I was alive and safe. We were exhausted so I hit the sack and lights out. Pretty exciting night, my first late night hospital trip and hopefully my last. Nothing to worry about now either.
Sunday morning came and I wanted to die...I was just dead. But, having slightly procrastinated till Saturday to prepare my talk for Sunday, I had to get up and finish it. For the first time in my life, I just wrote a few scriptures with a couple word outline, and decided to let the spirit guide me.
When the time came to give my talk, the subject being "How the Book of Mormon is the Keystone of Our Religion", I spoke on how it is by teaching the "Doctrine of Christ" as found in 2 Nephi 31, which is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Endure to the End. I was really proud of myself for doing something a bit more uncomfortable, by note having a word for word talk, but ultimately it worked out well. I used a few little stories that just came to mind, and was able to see peoples reactions or lack of awareness to what was going on and I changed things accordingly. Dad mentioned that's how he talks, and I had just read a book on public speaking so I decided to use my new skills. Heavenly Father definitely helped me out and I will never go back to having a word for word talk. Except when I speak at General Conference after my ordination to Prophet.
The rest of Sunday was pretty good, did some tracting and just got told to F' off a lot, and then had a great DA with a family called the Tops. I gave the spiritual thought on Nephi and how he followed the spirit, and how the parents and kids need to both do it to have a successful life and family...but that begins with the parents teaching by example.
The last day of the week, Monday, we tracted for about 3 hours, and had little success. One guy opened the door and told us to "F" OFF" straight away. I just said Thanks in kind of a sarcastic way, and he said "I'm a communist why would I want to hear about your religion, you wouldn't want to hear about mine." I did a quick "Sure we would", and immediately he changed, and we chatted.
It was definitely one of the weirdest talks ever. He at times was crying, telling us how communism and religion both have failed, but how we all need to be kind to others. I said "Kind of like telling people that knock on your door to f' off?" with a grin, to which he apologised. Kind of a cool guy actually named Duncan, who told us to come back as we were the nicest Mormons he'd met. We also during that tracting session met a Mary, who had all sorts of rough things happen to her lately, lots of people dying as we'll as her favourite dogs. We gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and told her we'd come back.
Monday night we had an appointment with Atilla the Hun, and we decided to project him going into the meeting. When we got in, he had read to 3 Nephi 19 and had lots of questions which we answered. He's Hungarian, and his English is good but not great. Elder E Silva kind of indicated to me that I ought to make the move, so I started teaching him through his Hungarian book. We first read from Moroni 8 as he had asked about Christening, then Mosiah 18, and 2 Nephi 31. We briefly talked about Authority and Immersion and how through baptism he could be clean. We asked him to be baptised in 2 weeks, and he agreed. He said "Do I need a bathing suit?" and we just laughed and said no. He's been to church twice already and is a very good, humble guy. Whoo pretty excited.
The teaching was down a bit this week, but we'll bump it up a bit more. Being sick, at the hospital, dead tired and busy sorting out our car situation made things a bit difficult.
I was reminded of the scripture that talks about the "shafts in the whirlwind" and thinking how the Lord only gives us what we can handle, and I suppose after projecting Atilla, we just needed to bear the afflictions until the blessing was received. I wouldn't say I was happy to do it, but I'll take a good solid beating for another guy if we can get him baptised. Our Zone is now at 2 baptisms instead of 0. Dad mentioned to me that righteous leadership can change a lot of things, and we're doing our best.
I've been really worried about a lot of the people in our zone for a number of reasons, inability to commit, not working hard enough, wasting out, breaking rules, or just being stupid generally. Not having the car has made it difficult to get in and go 1 on 1 with people, but we've been able to use our District Leaders effectively. It's almost forced us to use the guidelines of delegation more effectively as the church has created. It's hindered us a little bit, but our District Leaders are doing a great job. Despite having some goofballs, we at least have some great leadership in the zone to help sort things out. Keep us in your prayers, as well as the Coventry Zone. I feel like a Dad now having to worry about my kids.
The weeks been good because of the projections for sure and despite the sicknesses, I've had the opportunity to feel very close to the spirit lately. I've felt like I've had to fast for awhile and that's kept me focused. Keep us in your prayers, hope everyone's had a great week.
I love you all,
Elder Smith
What an absolutely crazy week. Man since P-day everything seemed to just go up, down, and all around. Things were just totally out of control for us. I think I mentioned I was a bit ill on Sunday/Monday, but I really experienced the total domination of mind and body on Tuesday-Friday. Ate something that totally messed me up and I was feeling terrible all the time. Was getting no sleep, hitting the toilet like it was my job. On about Wednesday night I decided to stop being such a tough guy, and asked Elder E Silva, Till and Lavender to administer a blessing to me. I immediately felt much better, and calmer, knowing that I was now letting the Lord work through his power. I remember Dad giving me a blessing when I had hurt my arm in a baseball game and recovering incredibly quick, and ever since I always knew priesthood blessings do work when the Lord wants them to. Despite the blessing though, there was a continual residual remnant of the illness, but I'm pretty much 100 percent better now...which makes me happy to say, again reinforcing that "Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest."(D&C 84:20)
Despite getting sick and having to occasionally be inside, we still managed to work, both with our investigators and the zone. As I mentioned last week we had our Zone Pday playing squash. Needless to say I absolutely dominated the competition. Only the Austrian Elder, Till, was a bit of competition, but I still beat him on 3 games, usually 9-3 each one. The fourth I played in jeans as we were leaving since he didn't want to leave without getting to beat me...I whooped him again.
The pday was alright, despite our car completely crapping out and dying. Luckily the sisters kind of took over and chauffeured everyone around between the squash courts and bowling which we played after. Fun zone pday all around, and it was good to get to mingle and chat with everyone, despite having to occasionally spring from the squash court to the porcelain throne.
So, thus far I got sick...then on pday, the car started to die in the morning, stalling all over the place. We had to park it somewhere on the way to bowling and got it later, and nearly made it back to the flat...before it died at ASDA, where we called up AA and grabbed some food inside waiting for the guy to show up. A real nice asian guy showed up and checked the car, kind of rebuking us for not having put water in the water part, but overall helping us out and getting us to the dealership. Apparently there had been a tear in the main water line that feeds to the engine, so it was constantly overheating, which of course means...no driving. Dropped it off, and got picked up and dropped at the flat which was cool.
Luckily the next day we had Zone Conference, so we didn't really need the car other than to get to the Mission Home. Had to take a bit more of the dwindling MSF(Missionary Support Funds) from the bank to get there via train, but it was well worth it, despite not cruising there. President basically opened the conference talking about how it was his second to last one, getting a bit nostalgic and emotional, and I was totally feeling it too. He also mentioned how initially when he showed up, Missionaries were drinking on New Years, going to London with the cars, dating, just total anarchy from the sound of it.
He had to sort out something like 32 missionaries when he first came. It was a bit sad thinking he's actually leaving now. It's kind of like your dad leaving you, the guy that's been such a spiritual giant and motivator to you, has to take off. Emotions were running high for a little while, before he announced that he'd leave the entirety of the duration of time to us, to have a question/answer section. Whooo hooo. Every missionary in the room was immediately excited and pumpin, I was sitting there thinking "Please be smart questions, nothing stupid". Initially we had a few questions particularly about missionary work and President addressed some problem areas, some things to change which was great actually. The main problem as ALWAYS is not getting investigators to church. The number is still low, and I guess its either dropping or just not increasing. He's pretty worried about it and let us all know that definitively. It kept rolling and we had all sorts of different questions. Nobody was really asking any good questions, and occasionally you'd get some knuckle head asking where to write down his personal revelation("My study journal, journal, planner...where?"). Elder E Silva and I both asked questions eventually after waiting for awhile, E Silva's on the Atonement, mine on the Creation. President gave a great answer to Elder E Silva's question, and even mentioned a bit more than expected to which me and him we're kind of floored. To my question, which I planned out to be specific, and unavoidable, he totally dodged it. It was kind of weird actually, he like answered a question I didn't ask. He saw the kind of shock on my face I think, because afterwards he came up to me and said 'i know the question, we'll talk about it at interviews, it's a good one".
I kind of jokingly said 'i put that question together so you would have to answer it specifically and you dodged it"...he just laughed, and smiled and said "I know, I dodged it", as we walked off and kept talking. As well, as he approached me, Elder E Silva, and Elder Staal sitting in the back he said "I was a bit worried with the Three nephites sitting in the back row next to each other." He taught a good principle to me that day about how to answer questions. It was great as well, the whole time he was always asking us questions and teaching us. He's a great man. Plus we had Subway, muffins and soda...the guy knows the way to a missionaries heart.
After conference we were totally excited, ready to execute our plan of Zone dominance, getting the other missionaries up to speed, committing like crazy, teaching, finding and baptising.
Thursday morning we woke up and decided to go down to Daventry where Elder Moonsami and Elder Kremenchuk are. They've been trying to project this old lady for baptism forever and we decided to go sort it out and see if we could get them working...since they weren't really. Getting a bit lazy down there. We started our drive, having gotten our car back and fixed from the water valve problem and everything was great....thennnnn, on goes a warning light, it starts blinking, white smoke from the back, the car starts to shake and Elder E Silva has trouble steering. I quickly flip open the manual and read "Emission Control" malfunction. Whoo, another problem that says "Drive to Dealer Immediately". So we dropped off the car to get fixed, losing it yet again..this time for a week.
On the positive side though, our trip down to Daventry was very productive. Me and Elder Moonsami went to see Olsie Plum, the old lady, who's about 75, and taught her with a member girl. We watched a video about Christ called "To This End Was I Born". It was a very powerful video, and very spiritual. We started talking to her about the church and how she felt about baptism, and she started to get slightly defensive, telling us she'd say when she was ready. The girl Barbara, is preparing for a mission...so she decided to take it upon herself to never stop talking, making promises and testifying...got a bit awkward at times, but I had to laugh a bit. I gave Elder Moonsami a chance to take control but he was just lettin things get out of hand...ultimately I made a bit of an analogy about her husband and her getting married...and how it required preparation and time together to make it work before the actual marriage. I related that to having to read and pray every day, since she had stopped reading for a couple days. She started to cry, and said she really missed him as he was now dead. Elder Moonsami, as most Elders do, got feeling awkward now that someone was showing emotion and said "Well we gotta get going", to which I about slapped him, and just pushed on and projected her. She decided to get baptised this time, and accepted for this coming Saturday, and has already been interviewed. Whoooooo, pretty sweet. It felt great to testify of god's plan for families, and the necessity of baptism to begin the process of living forever together. She was a tough lady, but once she was feeling the spirit, her heart melted and opened.
Once we were done there, we had to make the long journey back by bus and train to Coventry. They told us the manifold had cracked on our car and that the Head Gasket was leaking water onto the pistons(somethin like that) and should get it back in like a week. Luckily we had just projected Olsie so our spirits were high.
The rest of the week has been pretty interesting. We've been walking all over the place, getting rides and teaching. As well since I've been sick and the kind that makes it impossible to not be within seconds of a toilet it's been kind of boring. I felt a lot like Job this week, trial after trial, affliction after affliction.
As the week continued, we kept working and trying to get out as much as we could. We taught two ladies on Friday named Verina and Louise, who we had taught last week. This time we brought a member named since Caughey, who worked great with us. At first when we got in there, we randomly got on the subject of talking about the two tortoise's in the other room. They lived in something called a vivarium. When Louise mentioned the word vivarium, I asked her what that word meant...and immediately Sister Caughey was like "Stupid Americans" in kind of a sarcastic way. Had to keep control of my hands from slappin er'. Irregardless of that, we asked them how their reading of 3 Nephi 11, and they started asking some questions. I guess they read about the Word of Wisdom and plural marriage in their somewhere....not sure which verse it was, but we talked about that briefly before we got back to the principles taught therein.
Had a bit of a chat for awhile, and they mentioned some of their beliefs in relation to Mary Eddie Baker, the Christian Scientist lady, and some of those ideas from her. As we were closing Louise said "Me and Verina both haven't been christened". I asked why she mentioned that, and she was like "Don't know". I just asked a few pretend naïve questions as to why they hadn't been, why they weren't following Christ's laws, and how Mary Eddy Baker could be a true disciple of Christ without teaching baptism. Left there with a bit of something for them to think about and scooted.
Come Saturday we spent most of the day walking around to appointments, miles and miles all around the city, which to a couple of them we were flogged which was too bad...as we had a guy from Zimbabwe named Kennedy with us to teach. Later in the evening we had mission correlation at about 9 at the other 4 Elder's flat in town centre, so we had to stay around town all day. We decided to go in and have some Chinese buffet for dinner. It was actually really good. It was fun seeing loads and loads of Chinese students dominating everything in sight, eating lots, tipping there bowls to there mouths Japanese style and scooping the rice and noodles in.
After the food, we headed back to the other guys flat for correlation. For some reason my face had started to swell up a little bit, my lips were getting fat and so we're my cheeks. Halfway through the meeting, my eyelids under my ears were getting big and fat. I figured I'd had a slight reaction but nothing to worry about. As we concluded the meeting I was getting all itchy, and was scratching my back at one point, and showed it to Elder E Silva who said I had a rash.
Still thinking nothing of it, we got dropped off at home by Brother Mills, the WMLeader. I went into the bathroom to check myself out and just saw a rash all over my arms, middle upper body, and all over my legs. Instantly called Bro Mills and took him up on his offer to drive to the Emergency Room to get it sorted. Went in, gave them my name and sat down. At this point it was about 10:30 Saturday night, loads of drunks, fight victims, and young girls with their sick kids coming in. We told Bro Mills we'd just get a taxi and he drove off. Around 11 I saw a preliminary nurse who when she looked at my arms was like "That's making me itchy". She told me I'd be admitted to triage as soon as they could. Around 12:30 me and Elder E Silva we're in a little room being given steroids and antihistamines while under observation. The young doctor I was with was worried we wouldn't be able to leave, but the head resident dude was sure we'd leave in a couple hours so that was comforting. Come 2:30, I had some extra medicine with me, rash mostly gone and we were in a taxi on the way home. Called up President Munday having done so initially to tell him I was on the way there and now gave him a quick report to tell him I was alive and safe. We were exhausted so I hit the sack and lights out. Pretty exciting night, my first late night hospital trip and hopefully my last. Nothing to worry about now either.
Sunday morning came and I wanted to die...I was just dead. But, having slightly procrastinated till Saturday to prepare my talk for Sunday, I had to get up and finish it. For the first time in my life, I just wrote a few scriptures with a couple word outline, and decided to let the spirit guide me.
When the time came to give my talk, the subject being "How the Book of Mormon is the Keystone of Our Religion", I spoke on how it is by teaching the "Doctrine of Christ" as found in 2 Nephi 31, which is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Endure to the End. I was really proud of myself for doing something a bit more uncomfortable, by note having a word for word talk, but ultimately it worked out well. I used a few little stories that just came to mind, and was able to see peoples reactions or lack of awareness to what was going on and I changed things accordingly. Dad mentioned that's how he talks, and I had just read a book on public speaking so I decided to use my new skills. Heavenly Father definitely helped me out and I will never go back to having a word for word talk. Except when I speak at General Conference after my ordination to Prophet.
The rest of Sunday was pretty good, did some tracting and just got told to F' off a lot, and then had a great DA with a family called the Tops. I gave the spiritual thought on Nephi and how he followed the spirit, and how the parents and kids need to both do it to have a successful life and family...but that begins with the parents teaching by example.
The last day of the week, Monday, we tracted for about 3 hours, and had little success. One guy opened the door and told us to "F" OFF" straight away. I just said Thanks in kind of a sarcastic way, and he said "I'm a communist why would I want to hear about your religion, you wouldn't want to hear about mine." I did a quick "Sure we would", and immediately he changed, and we chatted.
It was definitely one of the weirdest talks ever. He at times was crying, telling us how communism and religion both have failed, but how we all need to be kind to others. I said "Kind of like telling people that knock on your door to f' off?" with a grin, to which he apologised. Kind of a cool guy actually named Duncan, who told us to come back as we were the nicest Mormons he'd met. We also during that tracting session met a Mary, who had all sorts of rough things happen to her lately, lots of people dying as we'll as her favourite dogs. We gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and told her we'd come back.
Monday night we had an appointment with Atilla the Hun, and we decided to project him going into the meeting. When we got in, he had read to 3 Nephi 19 and had lots of questions which we answered. He's Hungarian, and his English is good but not great. Elder E Silva kind of indicated to me that I ought to make the move, so I started teaching him through his Hungarian book. We first read from Moroni 8 as he had asked about Christening, then Mosiah 18, and 2 Nephi 31. We briefly talked about Authority and Immersion and how through baptism he could be clean. We asked him to be baptised in 2 weeks, and he agreed. He said "Do I need a bathing suit?" and we just laughed and said no. He's been to church twice already and is a very good, humble guy. Whoo pretty excited.
The teaching was down a bit this week, but we'll bump it up a bit more. Being sick, at the hospital, dead tired and busy sorting out our car situation made things a bit difficult.
I was reminded of the scripture that talks about the "shafts in the whirlwind" and thinking how the Lord only gives us what we can handle, and I suppose after projecting Atilla, we just needed to bear the afflictions until the blessing was received. I wouldn't say I was happy to do it, but I'll take a good solid beating for another guy if we can get him baptised. Our Zone is now at 2 baptisms instead of 0. Dad mentioned to me that righteous leadership can change a lot of things, and we're doing our best.
I've been really worried about a lot of the people in our zone for a number of reasons, inability to commit, not working hard enough, wasting out, breaking rules, or just being stupid generally. Not having the car has made it difficult to get in and go 1 on 1 with people, but we've been able to use our District Leaders effectively. It's almost forced us to use the guidelines of delegation more effectively as the church has created. It's hindered us a little bit, but our District Leaders are doing a great job. Despite having some goofballs, we at least have some great leadership in the zone to help sort things out. Keep us in your prayers, as well as the Coventry Zone. I feel like a Dad now having to worry about my kids.
The weeks been good because of the projections for sure and despite the sicknesses, I've had the opportunity to feel very close to the spirit lately. I've felt like I've had to fast for awhile and that's kept me focused. Keep us in your prayers, hope everyone's had a great week.
I love you all,
Elder Smith
posted by JerzyGrl | 6:40 AM
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