First off, William has still been working overtime this week and we haven't had much time to meet with him. It seems like we schedule a lesson, and then call him an hour or so before to confirm and he has to reschedule. That has happened several times this week. It's rather unfortunate. Our next scheduled lesson with him is on Wednesday, so hopefully it goes through.
Hunter has been kind of the same story. We were really excited to see him again on Thursday, and he had told us before that he had school early and work late in the day, so we could see him between 2 and 5 PM. We texted him at about 2 and asked if we could come by at 4, but he just responded, "Have work. Next week for sure." We rescheduled for Tuesday so hopefully we can catch him at home then.
One odd experience we had yesterday that I thought I'd share: we were knocking doors for a while, and nothing was really going anywhere. Most people were kinda rude as they tend to be, telling us they already have a church or they have already "accepted Christ" and therefore have no need for our message. Then at one door we knock we get an answer from a guy who told us he was an atheist. He was kind, down to earth, and just nicely told us that he wasn't interested. We actually told him that he was the nicest person we had talked to that night. He seemed surprised by that (and rightly so). Here's one lesson I learned from that: merely professing belief in, or "accepting" Christ doesn't really mean anything unless we choose to follow His teachings. And what are His teachings? 1) Love God, and 2) love your neighbor. Some people, (from every religion, social class, ethnicity, and walk of life) tend to forget that sometimes - even those who claim to follow the Savior and love His gospel. Let's do our best to not be in that group. No matter what our circumstance, or the circumstance of those around us, let's just love each other. Life is better that way.
Alrighty, highlight of the week coming right up!.... I told y'all about Nick a couple weeks ago. He's a 19ish-year-old kid that the Sisters have been teaching for a while, and his parents who live in Texas are pretty against him getting baptized. Some awesome stuff happened this week and I want y'all to hear about it. It's full of tons of miracles.
First off, Nick's story starts about a year ago when he was really struggling with life. He was depressed, and one day he went to the library to visit with his friend, Megan, to see how she could help him out and lift his spirits. Megan wasn't planning on this, but when they got to the library she happened to pass by a copy of the Book of Mormon on the shelf. She grabbed it, shared some verses with him, shared her testimony, and after a two-hour conversation about the gospel, Megan said, "Nick, this is the only thing that will help you." Later she got him his own copy. Fast forward a few months, Megan has basically taught Nick all of the lessons in Preach My Gospel, he understands the gospel, and is loving it. Best of all, when he reads the Book of Mormon, he's happy. They eventually part ways to go to college (Nick here in Alabama and Megan in Utah, I believe). Megan referred the Tuscaloosa Sisters to Nick, and from the day they met each other, Nick was pretty much ready to get baptized. However, he had his parents in the background which put a stop to that. Anyway, he does everything he can to come to church, read the scriptures, and live the gospel without being baptized because of his parents.
Lots of prayers by lots of people went up in behalf of Nick in the last couple months. About 3 weeks ago Nick and the Sisters actually drove up to the temple in Gardendale just so Nick could walk around on the grounds and sit in the waiting room so he could feel the spirit of the temple. That was kind of a turning point for him, and so shortly after that while in a lesson, Nick half-jokingly said to the Sisters that if they could fly his friend Megan out from Utah, then he would get baptized even if his parents still said no. They all just kind of laughed it off because it seemed like an impossibility. Then when we had interviews with President last week, the Sisters brought that comment up to Sister Sainsbury, who said, "Well, why don't we make it happen!" Wow, didn't really think of that before! Well it just so happened that Sister Waite (who was here in Tuscaloosa a couple months ago when they first started teaching Nick) has a dad who is a pilot for Southwest, and is able to get buddy passes for people. The current Sisters here made a few calls, and within the day a flight had been booked for Megan to get down here so Nick could get baptized! The flight plans were made on Tuesday, the flight itself was Thursday, and the baptism was Friday morning! How crazy is that! Like just put it in the Ensign already! We almost had a hiccup because the baptism was originally scheduled on Thursday night, but due to some crazy bad weather and some bad communication between us, the Sisters, and our Branch President, things finally got worked out and Nick was baptized on Friday morning. It was awesome. We had invited William to the service, and he said he'd be there, but unfortunately he didn't show. That's okay though, because it was Nick's day and it went great. As far as I know, he has yet to tell his parents, whom I ask that y'all send a few more prayers his way because that's going to be a tough thing that will inevitably come up when he goes home to Texas for the summer. He's such a stud though, he'll be okay.
Anyway, that's about the coolest story that I've been a part of (even though I'm not really a part of it haha). Still cool. I know that everything happens in the Lord's timing, and Nick got baptized because it was his time. He was so ready. And everything worked out perfectly for it!
Okay, well I love y'all! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers in my behalf and those around me. Prayer works! Don't ever forget that.
Love,
Elder Beach
#RollTide
PS - 2nd coolest thing of the week besides Nick's story, was that we got to tour the football stadium today for Pday. There's a member who works there and he showed us all around in the press boxes and locker room and everything. He also told us that we are the first missionaries that he's ever let on the field. 'Twas pretty sweet. Can't wait to come back here in a couple years and watch the Aggies spank Alabama. Haha, one can hope. Remember, prayer works. But for football? We'll see....
Tour of the stadium.
Exchanges.
Biking with Elder Erickson.
Nasty stove we saw in someone's house.
Cool truck we saw.
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