Last week I told y'all about Andre, and how we met him and taught him and it was awesome. We have kept in touch with him over the phone, but he recently started a new job and hasn't quite figured out his new busy schedule. We haven't met with him in person, but we have hopes that we will be able to this week. He is still very enthusiastic to learn more.
Here's an interesting story: We received a Bible referral out in Union Springs (which is almost an hour away) maybe 5 weeks ago. Her name is Vernell. If you remember my email from back then, she's the one who said "it's like Vietnam out here!" haha. Anyway, we gave her a Bible, as well as taught her the Restoration briefly and gave her a Book of Mormon. We haven't seen her since, though we have tried calling her about once a week since then. We weren't ever able to set anything up with her. Well, this week a missionary from Mormon.org (the one who sent us the referral) calls us and is like, "Elders, I've been teaching Vernell over the phone for like the past 5 days, you guys need to go see her. She is such a sweet lady, and she loves the gospel, and she loves Jesus, and she said she wants to come to church. She's also up in Montgomery taking care of her aunt so she should be closer to you than Union Springs." Well, we just looked at each other and started laughing. Those things about Vernell are true, but she's also just kind of clueless haha - more on that in a bit. So we call up Vernell on Friday night and set up a lesson for Saturday morning.
We taught her the Restoration again, and basically just said, "This is the only true church. The only one. There are only 2 churches - The Church of Jesus Christ and not the Church of Jesus Christ. This is the Church of Jesus Christ." We knew from our lesson before when we first met her that things didn't really click with her, so we were just really blunt. I'm not sure if she still gets it or not. However, she still enjoys having the Sister from Mormon.org call her and read the "Book of Moron" to her. Vernell told us that she would come to church with us on Sunday as long as it wasn't raining. It ended up raining Sunday morning, but she still showed up, telling us, "I ain't gonna let that devil hold me back!" We discovered that Vernell's interest in our church mainly stems from the fact that, while she is taking care of her aunt, she lives like 2 blocks from the church. She sort of accepted the invitation to be baptized, but that seems to be her only motivation behind doing so - because it's the closest church to her. It's kind of a weird situation, but we are teaching her and helping her to "get it" and continue to learn. She even came to church on Sunday and went and talked to "the pastor" afterward and thanked him for his "sermon." haha. We're working on her... :)
On Saturday after our lesson with Vernell, we went out to Tuskegee to visit some people. The whole time we were planning on seeing the Bentleys and teaching them, but Sister Bentley had to work all day, and she told us that Brother Bentley was busy, too. That was a bummer. So we didn't get to see them this week (except Wednesday night at the church - more on that later) and they didn't come to church either. We also went to see a less-active named Alphonso that we usually see when we go to Tuskegee. On Saturday he was really drunk and we had a really interesting experience with him. He kind of just talked and talked and talked and wouldn't let us leave, but eventually we got out of there haha. It was weird.
Alright, here's another weird story for ya. Sister Bentley is usually at the church on Wednesdays to meet with Bishop (it's part of their deal they made for some welfare needs or something, not exactly sure). Anyway, we always have coordination with Brother Chiu, the ward mission leader, on Wednesdays, so a couple weeks ago we were like, "We need to just meet with Sister Bentley on Wednesdays." So we did. We had like a 10 minute lesson with her, and then Brother Chiu walks in (as well as Caleb, a 19 year old, very slightly handicapped, ward missionary). Well, those two are both known for having not-very-doctrinal thoughts about things, and our lesson kind of just went all over the place haha. It wasn't very good. We tried to save it by answering her questions by an appeal to the Book of Mormon, but things were still just all over. As missionaries, we are told to have a member present in all of our lessons with investigators. This seems good on paper because of fellowshipping and other good reasons. However, Wednesday night (as well as a few other similar experiences) have made me a little hesitant to invite members to be present with us in lessons. The best way to do it is to get with the member beforehand, share with them the lesson plan, invite them to have a very specific part in it (like bearing a testimony about a certain principle) and then maybe even role play with them beforehand. If these things aren't done, you have no idea where the lesson might go. Anyway, I'm just glad we got to meet with Sister Bentley and have a half-lesson with her on Wednesday since we didn't get to on Saturday. While it wasn't great, it was better than nothing at all.
On Friday, we had a team-up with Caleb, one of the ward missionaries. We were a little nervous to have him help us teach an investigator, due to the Wednesday night thing which I just explained, but we also wanted him to have a chance to teach and to have a good experience. A couple in the ward, the Slaters, had signed up to have us for dinner that night, so were just thought, "We'll just take Caleb with us to dinner, and then have a pretend, practice lesson with them afterwards." So that's what we did. We asked him on Thursday to read through the Restoration lesson in PMG, and then on our way to the Slaters we asked Caleb which part of the lesson he would be the most comfortable sharing. Our lesson went pretty well, and we just took it point by point. Caleb taught about the Apostasy, and also about the Book of Mormon, and Elder Furgeson and I took the other points of the lesson. It was good practice for Caleb. I'm sure I was probably about as good at teaching as he is before my mission, so I commend him for coming out with us and doing his best. I'm sure it was a good experience for him, and helped him to be more excited about his own upcoming mission.
The Rachids didn't come to church this week. Not sure why, but that was a bummer. Neither the Bentleys nor the Rachids were there. But hey, Vernell was, so that was cool.
This week was a pretty good week. We had some interesting experiences (one involving a guy who was very anti that we met downtown - I won't expand on that in this email). We had some lessons that went well also. I've learned this week just how much I love to share my testimony. I love to tell people what I know to be true, even if they reject it. I have a very strong testimony of the Savior, of the Book of Mormon, of the Prophet Joseph, and of this marvelous latter-day work. It's a privilege to be a part of.
I love y'all! You're always in my prayers. Thanks for keeping me in yours. The power of prayer is real! I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Beach
#RollTide
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