Hello everyone! I hope you've had a great week. Mine has been wonderful and busy!
Monday: After preparation day, we went to try to visit some people. We tried an older less active couple that the sisters used meet with on a fairly regular basis, but that I had never met. We knocked and after 2 or 3 minutes an old guy opened the door. His hair was matted into random spikes and sticking up in every direction. He looked like he had just woken up after sleeping for a hundred years, and he wasn't wearing pants. He had on a pretty long shirt, but there was still wayyy to much old man leg on display. He mumbled something like, "hang on, lemme get dressed," and disappeared. After five minutes he finally came back wearing pants that kept falling down, and let us in. He looked confused and asked us if we had an appointment. We told him no, but we just want to stop by and see how they were doing. He mumbled some more and said that his wife was asleep. I asked if it would be better if we came back next week. He said yes and showed us to the door. It was awkward.
Next we went to go check on Britt. Britt is our investigator who is very interested in learning more about the church but whose husband isn't very supportive. We don't really set appointments with her but we come back periodically and check on her and see how things are going. When she answered the door she very excited to see us and told us that she had talked to her husband and that he was OK with her meeting with us and with her going to church. She said she still wanted him to be more supportive than that and to be a part of it, but she thought that maybe just her starting out would have to be the first step. We still didn't set up a return appointment, and told her we would just come back and check on her again in a week. We also gave her a copy of The Family: A Proclamation to the World for her to read, and she was very grateful for it. She started asking some more questions about what makes our church different from other Christian churches and so we started teaching her the Restoration. She listened intently during the entire thing and sister Alcántara did a great job teaching the first vision. We're hoping to really start teaching her soon.
Tuesday: Tuesday was pretty uneventful. We had district meeting, which was fun, as always. We mostly just did some "get to know you" things, since half of the district was new. Everyone came up with a question and we all had to answer all the questions. The questions were things such as, "what animal would you be if you were an animal" and "what is your most awkward date story." Another question was, "what is your go-to meal as a missionary?" The question I had everyone answer was, "what was your first impression of your trainer?" This is especially great because everyone in the district is training. The responses were all pretty much the same. They all thought at first that their trainers were very serious. They had all quickly changed their minds. In missionary work you're supposed to work hard, but you need to have a little fun sometimes. (Like Sister Wright and I taking pictures in a cornfield when we had 10 extra minutes before our next lesson one day.)
Wednesday: Wednesday was awesome. We had a lesson with Angel Davis. Angel has fibromyalgia and can't get to church, but is hoping to get a wheelchair so that she can start coming to church. We meet with her every week and talk with her about the scriptures. This week she surprised us. She had been using an old institute manual to supplement her Bible and Book of Mormon study, and had come up with a lesson to teach us. It was on the story of the rich young ruler. We talked about the phrase, "what lack I yet," and discussed how the most important thing that we can give to God is our will. We talked about how hard that can be sometimes but how it ultimately brings the greatest blessings. The spirit was so strong while we were there.
In the evening we went by the house of an older gentleman named Paul. Sister Wright and I had gotten an online referral for Paul from his friend Mark. Mark had said that Paul would be a golden investigator, so Sister Alcántara and I went to visit him. When he answered the door he was not wearing pants. What is it with old men not wearing pants here!?! He was wearing a button up shirt and some long, bright blue shorts that may have been underwear. He said, "Oh! Its a couple of young ladies! Give me a moment. I had better put some pants on!" After a minute or two, he returned and told us he had been expecting us since his friend Mark had told him he was going to send some missionaries. We started talking to him and he told us that he was searching for the truth. He wanted to join the church that would be most like the one Christ had established when he was on the earth and that He would be a part of if He was still on the earth. Paul told us he had said the same thing to Mark, and that Mark had said it would be the Mormon church. Paul told us, "I was hoping he would say that."
We taught him about the Restoration and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. He had some questions about what we believed about people who never had the chance to hear this message while they were living, like his parents. We explained that everyone would have the opportunity to learn the gospel and have the chance to accept it or reject it, either in this life or the next. When we told him that, his eyes lit up and it looked like a weight had lifted from him. He asked us at the end, "what should I do now to learn more?" We invited him to read from the Book of Mormon and pray to know if the things we had taught are true, and to do like Joseph Smith had done, which was to ask God for the truth. Paul said to us, and half to himself, "you know, I haven't done that yet. I definitely should." It was really a neat experience. Midway through us teaching the Restoration, his son had pulled up on a four-wheeler for just a few minutes. Paul introduced us, and his son said, "Its great to meet you. Please help my dad. He really needs it." Clearly, Paul has been searching for a long time and his family knew about it.
Meeting Paul was awesome. We're going back to teach the Plan of Salvation next week and bringing the bishop's first counselor. I'm super excited!
Thursday: We went to visit Connie, who had just gotten baptized a week and a half ago. We are starting new member lessons with her, so we taught the Restoration. Connie loves the gospel and knows it's true, but clearly had some holes in her memory. I wasn't there when she was taught the Restoration the first time, but she hardly remembered any of it. It's a good thing we teach it again! I tried to let Sister Alcántara teach as much as possible, but she had a hard time. She is doing a wonderful job learning English, but she still struggles a lot. I can understand her almost all the time, but not everyone else can. She does pretty well in regular conversation, but struggles with teaching. Part of it is the language, but part of it is also the newness of learning how to teach the missionary lessons. Connie is a little hard of hearing, so that didn't help much either. Poor Sister Alcántara was so discouraged when we left that appointment.
Friday: In the morning, Sister Alcántara started to study the Restoration in English in earnest. She read to herself and wrote some things down, and then tried to teach it to me. She did fairly well, but it was still a lot like when she had taught Connie, and I pointed out some things she could improve on. She went back to reading and writing, and then taught me again. This time it was completely different. She taught so clearly and her grammar made much more sense. I'm not sure what she changed, but it was easily 10 times better that the first time. When she finished, she asked, "Can you understand me? Are you sure you can understand me?" and then burst into tears. She improves at such an amazing rate, but she still feels so frustrated. I scooted over to her and gave her a huge hug and told her she was doing an incredible job. We pray for her to have the gift of tongues all the time, and I definitely see it happening, but I don't blame her for being frustrated. I'm not sure I could do with what she is doing. She is so strong to be here! I have learned so much from being her trainer already. I pretty sure she's the one training me!
That night we went to check on a referral from the elders. She wasn't home, but we started talking to a woman on the sidewalk who was pumping up the tires on her daughter's bike. At first when we started talking to her she had the, "who are you and why are you talking to me" look on her face, but she gradually started to warm up to us. We asked her about her faith in Christ, and she told us that it had always been on and off, but that it had just increased a lot. She told us that the week before she had passed out while driving (and later found out it was because of a potassium deficiency). Instead of veering left into oncoming traffic, the car had drifted right into a fence, and which had totaled the car. She and her 5 year old daughter miraculously walked away without a scratch. She told us that experience had really made her think that someone had been watching out for them. We told her about who we were and what we did, and taught her the majority of the Restoration. We gave her our card and she gave us her number and told us she had been thinking it was time to start going to church again. Hopefully we can meet with her again!
Saturday: We went to see Sister Norris again. She had an old friend named Angie visiting her. We chatted for a few minutes and then Sister Norris suddenly said, "You know, I don't think I really know the whole Joseph Smith story!" She is a convert, and must have been taught it before, but she hasn't been able to come to church in so long that it's little wonder she doesn't remember it all. So we taught the Restoration. (We taught it a lot this week.) She and her friend were both really into it, and it was a great lesson. Sister Alcántara taught more than half of it, and she did a great job. Sister Norris even complimented her at the end for teaching it so clearly. I think that really made her feel better. Angie had a couple of questions, and said she wasn't sure about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appearing to Joseph Smith, because she had always been taught that God was a spirit. We told her we believed Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ had bodies of flesh and bone, and that our Heavenly Father had created us in His image. She shrugged and told us that all that mattered to her was that we were all Christians. She was super sweet and told us she thought what we were doing as missionaries was amazing.
Sunday: We went to church and it was great, as always. During Relief Society we had an awesome lesson about how marriage and families are part of God's plan. Sister Calderwood, who was teaching, talked about how the world today had made marriage into something that was more focused on the interest of the individual, and into something temporary and only good as long as it was still "fun." She took a lot of her lesson from an article in the August Ensign by Elder Bruce C. Hafen called, 'The Proclamation on the Family: Transcending the Cultural Confusion.' It was super good, and I highly recommend you all read it.
Sunday night we met a woman named Joanne, who used to be Catholic, and told us she wanted to start coming to church and building her faith again, but that she hadn't found the right church to join yet. She was very interested in having us come back, but told us she had a busy upcoming schedule, so it would have to wait a week. She seems super nice, and even gave us a hug before we left. We're excited to see her again.
So! It's been a crazy week with lots of miracles. I love LOVE to be a missionary. It's the best thing I've ever done. The Church is true, the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, and Jesus Christ is our Savior. I'm so happy to be serving Him.
Have a great week!
Sister Taylor
P.S. Sorry! No pictures this week! I forgot to bring my chord to the library, so I can't send them!
