Last Tuesday we met with Ariela. If anyone remembers, I told y'all about her like my first week here. She was a pretty solid investigator several months ago, but got busy with school and work and soccer tryouts, so she kind of just got dropped. Anyway, I finally met her on Tuesday and we had our first lesson with her in a long while. We just kind of talked about where they had left off, and we read the intro to the Book of Mormon with her because she hadn't been reading very much. We invited her to get back into reading, and to pray about it as she does.
Tuesday we also had a lesson scheduled with Barbara, and we were going to have Sister Ladner (the Relief Society president) come with us. Well, Sister Ladner cancelled because she wasn't feeling well. We told Barbara that Sister Ladner wasn't going to be there, but we could still come for our lesson. Barbara told us that she wasn't feeling well either, and so we should just try again next week. That was a bummer, so hopefully we'll be able to have an actual lesson with her this week.
I don't really remember which days most of this stuff happened, so I'll just tell it...
We met an 8-year-old kid named Mark. We were just walking up the street to knock the doors of some old potentials and we saw him playing football with himself in his yard. He just yells out to us, and throws us the football. We ended up playing football with him for a while, and he also brought out some golf clubs that he wanted us to try. He was a funny kid. The best part was when he takes one of the golf clubs and just starts smacking this plant in his yard and he's like, "Man, I'm wrecking these things!" Haha he was really funny. We talked to his Mom also and told her about what we do as missionaries and she was a tiny bit interested so maybe we'll stop by again. Mark definitely wanted us to. He was SO excited when we told him that we only lived like 3 blocks away.
On that same day we passed by some people just having a smoke in their yard and they called us over to talk to them. They were both a little tipsy, but they're like, "Y'all got a book?" We gave them each a Restoration pamphlet and told them that if they read through it before we came back they would get a better book than that (the Book of Mormon). They asked, "So what's the good word today?" I just said, "That the Church of Jesus Christ is back on the earth," to which they responded, "Oh, yeah, mmhmm, yeah, that's good. Well, it never left." I just thought about that for a bit while we were talking. Drunk or not, that's what some (or many) people believe. It's so strange to me. I think that when people believe that "Jesus Christ's Church" is on the earth, they just think of Christianity in general. Still, that is so weird to me. I often ask people something similar to the following: "If all these churches teach different things, how can they all be Jesus Christ's Church?" I don't know what to think about some of the things that people believe. The things I do know for sure are that 1) Jesus Christ established His Church, 2) The Apostasy was very real, and 3) The Restoration was also very real. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the one and only true Church. I just have yet to find the best way to tell that to others in a way that they understand. President Monson said, "Teach and testify. There is no better combination." I'm doing my best.
A day or two later we just had the thought to go to the Riverwalk and chalk up the Plan of Salvation, so that's what we did. After we finished drawing, we were walking around at the Riverwalk and there was this guy who came zooming by us on some roller blades. He then went up to the top of some stairs, rode down them on his roller blades and then did a 360 at the bottom and then just rolled on over to a bench and sat down. It was pretty cool. Well, we started talking to him, and his name is Mark. We kind of spent like the next 20 minutes or so of just us talking for a little bit, and then he would go do some crazy trick on his blades, and then we would talk some more. We shared with him like a 1 minute version of the Restoration, and then we ended up getting his number and he said we could come by and teach him more this upcoming weekend. Awesome!
On Thursday we had Zone Conference, and Elder Klebingat of the Seventy came and spoke to us. Man, he is so smart. We had an opening song and prayer, and then just turned the time over to him. He didn't have a single bit of notes, but he just talked and talked and talked. He also quoted scriptures unlike anyone I've seen. It seriously seemed like he has the whole quad memorized haha it was crazy. But Zone Conference was really good, and Elder Klebingat talked a lot about being a consecrated missionary and being exactly obedient. He was also really funny and we had lots of laughs that day.
I think on Friday (not sure exactly) we were trying some potentials in the area book and we met a bunch of kids playing street ball. They actually called us over to play with them while we were still like 100 yards away. Once we got up to them, one of the kids was like, "Do you play for the Boston Celtics?" and Elder Furgenson was like, "Yeah." So then the kids started freaking out and were like, "Whoa, he plays for the Celtics!" They asked me who I played for and I said I played for the Sacramento Kings haha. The whole time we were playing with them they called Elder Furgeson "Boston" and they called me "King" haha. Little kids are so dang funny. They were always like, "Hey Boston, have you ever played against Steph Curry? I bet he crossed you up good. What about Lebron? Kyrie? Did you play with them?" Haha we totally went along with everything they were making up so they thought we were pretty cool. Afterwards they wanted our autographs, but we didn't have anything to sign so we just signed their arms with a pen and Elder Furgeson signed this one kid's forehead haha. Then we got a picture with all of them, and when we were looking at the pictures later that night we saw that one of the kids was flipping off the camera. He's like 6... Haha these kids are crazy.
Yesterday, Sunday, we went to go try some more of the old potentials in the area book. One of them was in an apartment complex so we knocked a few doors around the complex when she wasn't home. We met a guy who seemed pretty interested in what we had to say, though we didn't share a whole lot because we just talked on his porch. However, we have an appointment to come share more with him on Thursday, so that's good. We also met this one lady who was in the area book. She and her husband had pretty big teaching records, and they had actually been to church a couple of times last year before they got dropped. She immediately recognized us as missionaries and told us she remembered them coming by before, and she told us that she had been to church with other missionaries a few times. Anyway, we have another appointment to teach her this week as well.
Sister Bentley came to church on Sunday. Brother Bentley didn't. Like a month ago, we called them just for a daily contact or something like that, and Brother Bentley asked us to call them every day. Since then, we haven't called them every day, but we have called them probably 5 times per week. They have answered a total of like 4 times in the past month. We can't really set anything up with them unless they answer the phone, because we can't just stop by since they live in Tuskegee. It's tough, but Sister Bentley did come to church, she has been reading the Book of Mormon, and we made an appointment with her for this Saturday.
Well, that was pretty much our week. We didn't have a whole lot of teaching, but we do have a good bit of appointments this week, so hopefully they don't all fall through. I love y'all, and I'm thankful for your thoughts and prayers in my behalf and in behalf of those around me. I love being a missionary. It's so much fun to just meet people and talk with people and help people and serve people. I'm looking forward to meeting again with the many new people we met this week, and I'm looking forward to helping them to begin their progress in this wonderful gospel. I know that Jesus Christ is the Living Son of the Living God, and that we must come unto Him if we want to have any hope of being truly happy. I'm thankful that I have this chance to represent Him and to help others to come closer to Him. He really is "the way, the truth, and the life." Like it says at the end of The Living Christ, "God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son." I love y'all. Have a good week!
Love,
Elder Beach
#King
#Boston
#RollTide
Our Plan of Salvation chalk drawing.
Some funny little kids we met. The kids here are a hoot!
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