This week was a good one. We met lots of fun people. Some were quite interested in what we had to say, however most were far from that. That being said, here are the weekly highlights:
Last Wednesday we went knocking doors for a couple of hours. Knocking doors is not something that is super effective, however it is something that needs to be done. There are many people who are ready to hear our message, and that's the only way they will ever be found. Tracting is also something that can be quite entertaining, and you often get a lot of funny stories from it. Case in point: we met an 80-year-old woman with a goatee. Now, I've seen old ladies with mustaches before, but this lady had a full goatee, and it was like an inch long. We talked to her on her driveway for like 5 minutes, and the whole time she kept saying, "I better go back inside. If my caretaker knew I was outside, she would be mad at me." Finally we finished talking and she headed back in.
Later we knocked the door of another old lady, and she went to grab her husband real quick. He came to the door, and immediately just started telling us how misled and how brainwashed we were because we believed in God. He's a very devoted atheist. You don't meet a whole lot of those in the South, so it was a little different. Another thing that was really weird was that his wife was a very devoted southern Baptist. How they ever got married or even get along is beyond me. The guy was not really rude about it, he was just absolutely adamant that what he believes is right and everyone else is wrong. I honestly just felt bad for him. I would hate to have those beliefs. They are so depressing. I asked him what he thought happened after we die, and he just said something like, "We get put under a tree, and cease to exist." I just said right to his face, "I'm sorry you believe that. That is one of the saddest things I've ever heard." After talking for a while, it was very obvious that he was really stubborn in his views, however incorrect they may be. I really felt bad for his wife. She seemed really happy that we stopped by, because I'm sure she feels really alone living with her husband who doesn't share her same beliefs.
A few doors later we met another older guy who was from the Church of Christ. He immediately started telling us how wrong we were, and how his church was the one and only true church. He said, "We teach straight from the Bible, not from any man-made material like y'all do." I said to him something along the lines of, "Since you're so familiar with the Bible, you obviously know that Jesus Christ established his Church when he was on the earth. We teach people about where that church is today." He just told us that his church was that church. He was obviously adamant about what he believed, so we just invited him to hear what we had to say, he rejected, we began to tell him a little bit about it anyway, he rejected it again, and we went on our way. That's about all we can do in a situation like that.
After our two hours of knocking doors, we had one house left to hit. A lady answered, and her name is Dawn. She told us that she had met with missionaries before, but didn't really remember what they talked about. She said that she and her husband didn't go to church right now because they hadn't found one where they liked the pastor. isn't that unfortunate? People don't go to church because they don't connect with the pastor? I remember Elder Bednar saying once that he was asked this question: "What would you do if the Prophet, Apostles, and/or other Church leaders completely apostatized?" He responded that while that would be unfortunate, it would never dim his testimony. While it is important to have a testimony of those leaders whom the Lord has chosen as prophets, seers, and revelators, our testimonies should be centered on Jesus Christ. While sometimes men will go astray, our Savior will always be the same. We should never stop going to church just because we may not like the bishop, the stake president, or even the Apostles. We should go because we love the Savior, and that is what he has asked us to do. Alright, back to the story. We taught Dawn the Restoration really quick on her porch, gave her a Book of Mormon, and set a return appointment for Friday. That was a great way to end our night of tracting.
On Thursday we finally got to use the gift card for B dubs (Buffalo Wildwings) that my brother sent for Christmas. We didn't have one anywhere near Scottsboro, so I just barely got to use it. Thanks for that. It was very good. After we went there for lunch we came home to weekly plan, and we decided to do it on the porch since it was kind of warm-ish. While we were planning, the mail lady came up and dropped off Grandma's package full of oreos, muddy buddies, chocolate oranges, and other snacks. I have already put many of them to good use haha. Thanks Grandma! As part of weekly planning, I made a goal to not eat any seconds at our dinner appointments. So far so good, but I guess it doesn't matter how much I eat at dinner as long as I'm still snacking. Losing weight is a tough situation haha. I'm not doing too bad, though. I weigh less than last week by about 5 pounds.
Earlier on Thursday we had gotten a call from the Carter Hill Elders, who had a referral for us for a guy that needed a blessing. We had tried to call him earlier that day, but nobody answered, so we stopped by after weekly planning. His name was Troy, and he was sitting on his porch with his wife when we showed up. We asked if he was Troy, and he said yes. So then we kind of got the gist of his situation, and asked if we could go inside to give him a blessing. He told us that their house was a mess and that they had a couple of dogs who weren't that friendly, so he asked us to do it right there on the porch. It was far from an ideal situation. There were dogs barking next door and inside their house, cars driving by, and other people out and about up the street. However, we gave Troy, and also ended up giving his wife, a blessing. It was nice to meet them and help them out in any way that we could, despite the somewhat awkwardness of it all. Thursday night we tried to go see some of the referrals that we had received. (These were the ones that said "they probably won't be interested, but try them anyway"). Well, yeah, they weren't interested. It wasn't all that effective.
On Friday we had zone conference. Since they had it at our building, we had to show up at 7, (ZC starts at 9) so that we could disarm the alarm system, let them in, and help set up chairs. Well, we got done setting up chairs at like 7:20, so we basically hung out and read our scriptures for like an hour and a half. Zone Conference was really good, though. We spent like 4 hours watching these videos about how to use our phones when we get them. We also had a great training from the Zone Leaders and the STLs about Chapter 10 from PMG, specifically on "how to begin teaching." That section is super important, however I feel like it doesn't get used as much as it should. Basically what it is is before we start a first lesson with people, we tell them what we are about to teach, we tell them our purpose as missionaries, we tell them what is expected of them as we teach, and we tell them where we eventually see it all going - towards baptism. Anyway, it's pretty important because it really just sets the stage for our relationship with investigators. Too many people think we are just there to give a cool message about Jesus and then be on our way. That's not a bad thing to do, but it isn't our most important job. We are out to preach repentance and baptize converts. So that's what we have to tell people. They aren't going to ever know what our intentions are if we don't tell them. Anyway, it was a good training, and something that needs to be worked on.
Well, Friday night we had a perfect opportunity to work on it. We had an appointment with Dawn, and her husband David. They were actually home when we went over there, and they invited us in for a lesson. We perfectly executed our how to begin teaching, set the stage for the lesson, and then we started. We taught them the Restoration, and invited them to be baptized. They accepted. It was such a good lesson, the best we've had since I arrived in Montgomery. I love teaching and testifying. It's one of my favorite things, to just tell people what I know to be true, and invite them to discover it for themselves. It's a wonderful thing. We invited them to church, but they told us that the didn't want to come until they had read a little bit from the Book of Mormon and learned a little bit more. They didn't come on Sunday, but we have an appointment with them on Thursday, and I'm hopeful for them. They are two of the best investigators we have right now.
On Saturday we went out to Tuskegee, like usual. There is a lady who lives out there named Sister Bentley She is not a member, but her husband is. Sister Bentley comes all the way to Montgomery to the church each week, yet she doesn't actually "come to church." She usually shows up right after Sacrament Meeting is over, and then just hangs out in the halls until church is over, and then talks to the bishop for a little while and then goes home. Well, recently, she has really been looking into becoming a member of the Church and being baptized. On Saturday we had a lesson with Brother and Sister Bentley, and taught the Restoration to them as well. It went pretty well, and Sister Bentley is getting more and more excited to become a member. There is a little issue however. She and her "husband" are not actually married. Brother Bentley is trying to get his divorce to his previous wife finalized, so that he and Sister Bentley can officially get married, so that she can get baptized. It sounds like a complicated process, and one that could take some time, but at least they are taking steps to get it done.
On Sunday, Sister Bentley almost came to church. She showed up like right as Sacrament Meeting was ending, supposedly due to the fact that she got "stuck behind a train for like 3 hours" on the way there. Anyway, she came to Gospel Principles class and actually participated. She also went to Relief Society, which she usually doesn't. It was a good day for her, despite the fact that she missed Sacrament Meeting. The best part, though, was right after church. There is a family in the ward named the Troudeaus. They were baptized last spring, and they have a daughter, Tori, who recently turned eight. Right after church on Sunday, Tori was baptized, and Sister Bentley stayed for it to watch. Before it started, the font was still filling, and we were just watching with Sister Bentley. Elder Furgeson says to her, "You're going to be in there soon," and she just said, "Yeah I am!" Haha, I'm excited for her. I'm not sure how long the whole marriage situation is going to take, or what exactly has to happen, but I hope that I still get to be here for her baptism. That would be awesome.
On Sunday afternoon I had one of the more strange experiences I've had so far on my mission. We were downtown near the river walk, just talking to people, and we saw some group of like 10 people all in denim who looked like they were making a music video. We walked up and asked them who they were. We were informed that they were the Baja Angels, and that they were on their way to being famous. (Apparently they "performed" at the "funeral" of the burned down Taco Bell a few weeks ago, so that's where their fame comes from). Well, we started talking to a couple of them who were somewhat interested in what we do as missionaries, while the others just kept doing all these weird, creepy, sort of raunchy photo shoots. We did our best to ignore the ones taking pictures, while we talked to these two. Their names were Franchezaka and Amir. Franchezaka told us that she used to be pretty religious and used to go to church, and we talked to her about the Bible and about other things that we teach a little bit, and we got her number so that we could teach her again sometime. Amir was sort of listening while we were talking to Franchezaka, and then all of a sudden he just blurts out, "What does 'missionary' mean?" I told him that we were missionaries, and as missionaries it's our job to teach people about Jesus Christ. His response was: "Who?" I was pretty surprised. Most people, whether religious or not, had at least heard of Jesus. Amir hadn't. He informed us that he knew absolutely nothing about any religions at all, but was really interested in learning. We got his number as well, and will try to meet with him again. It's going to be tough starting from rock bottom with him, but it should be fun, too. I look forward to meeting with a couple of the Baja Angels again. Before we left, we took a couple of pictures with them, because it was one of the weirdest things I had ever seen, and we had to have documentation of it.
That night we went to have dinner with the Nozakis, a Japanese family in the ward. They have 4 kids who are 9, 7, and 5-year-old twins. They are too funny. It was so fun to spend time in their home, because their kids just laugh all the time. It's hilarious. One kind of weird thing that I learned at their house was this: everyone in Japan drinks tea. Everyone. So being a Mormon is really different because we don't. Well, on the dinner table was a pitcher of what looked like tea. In front of my plate and Elder Furgeson's was a bottle of water, but everyone else just had a cup for this pitcher of tea. Well, turns out, it's not actually tea. It's water that has had barley soaked in it. That's what the Mormon Japanese people drink instead of tea. Brother Nozaki said to us, "The missionaries over in Japan told us, 'this tastes like dirt.'" I tried some of the barley water, and that's exactly what it tastes like. It tastes like dirty water. Nasty stuff. It wasn't too hard to stick to my goal of not having seconds of dirt water haha.
Overall this week has been pretty good. We are working hard and doing our best to find new people to teach. I'm excited to keep moving forward with Dawn and David, as well as Sister Bentley, and hopefully a couple others who have some potential. I love being a missionary and doing what we do. I love to testify of the things I know to be true, especially about the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the Savior Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for all of you, my family and friends. I'm thankful for your thoughts and prayers. You are in mine every day. Love y'all.
Elder Beach
#RollTide
#BajaAngels
We came upon the Baja Angels.
Just had to get a photo shoot with them - hey, they may be famous!!
Not sure what to think about them...
The Primary kids loved pushing each other around on the rolling chalkboard...until someone got their leg stuck underneath. :)
Everyone should be able to have a free pregnancy test and ultrasound in a bus!
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