Family :)
So I guess to
start off I should start with Monday, the only problem is that this week has
been so weird I don’t even remember what happened Monday Tuesday or Wednesday. On Thursday I was able to go out with other elder for the day, it was
super good and we were able to get in with a few people. One of the people that
we were able to get in with is a Methodist, youth minister. He was super open
to listen to us but I don’t think that he really is interested but he was just
being nice. I think that he’s going to make a good friend but were going to go
try and see him later this week. It was nice to be able to work a different
way. We tried to knock doors a new way and have tried to implement it in the
way that we knock doors.
For the most part
this week has been super hard also. This Friday was alright, we were able
to help this lady move some of her furniture up stairs and she said that we
would be able to come back some day and be able to teach her whenever we had
time to fit her in. Saturday was one of the weirdest days of my life. It
started out with us going to teach this non active fellow. It was not bad but
he was just coming back from Iraq, and was getting a divorce, and had some
fairly bad PTSD. We came over and it was more of him just telling us his whole
life and kind of venting to us. It was just a scary/weird place to be. At the
end he gave us some book called Mere Christianity. I don’t think we're supposed
to have other books so that’s coming home sometime this week haha. You’re going
to have to tell me if it’s a good book or not.
After we had that in the morning we were thinking that it
would be best for us to try and do some store contacting because it was around
8ish and we have had the cops called on us a few times for tracking too late. We
ended up at a place similar to Wal-Mart, but as were going around talking to
the only people we could find. We were thinking that it was probably not the
best time to be trying to start up conversations with everyone. Because it was
around 8 on Valentine’s Day at the store, and we didn’t think that people would get the
best idea of 2 guys talking to girls that late by the candy so we decided to
try something else.
We ended up going
over to these people named Jama and Lance. I don’t know if I have said anything
about them before but there like the biggest red necks of the south. THERE
SOOOOO FUNNY. We found there house one day while tracking and just became super
good friends. Most of the time they feed us. I don’t know also if I said last
time but they blessed us, by letting us eat the chicken gizzard last time we
were over there :). There just so good. The non-Mormon people in this area are
so good to us.
We have had a hard
time with the ward here as well. No one really cares about the missionaries,
they all say that they are willing to help but when we need them to come around
team ups. It starts out with trying to get ahold of them but all the numbers
that we have for them are way outdated and don’t work anymore. Plus anytime
that people do say they can come when we try and call them the day that supposed
to come out with us, something comes up. The problem is that we are just not
getting a lot of help from the members around here. In the mission program
called 12 weeks that we start when we get out here, it talks so much about
working with your bishop and the members.
We were lucky
enough to get a brand new bishop the week that I came to Columbiana. He doesn’t
really talk to us all that much and it’s hard to catch him and tell him about
all of the investigators that we have, and we’re not really invited to go to
the meetings with them every week. So the only time that we get to talk to
anyone is a church. It’s just a big mess. Today I was thinking a lot about
coming home because of the lack of effort from everyone around here. The 2
elders and 2 sisters here are busting our butts every day all day and it kind of sucks to see nothing
happening. We are trying our best to plan church activities to get the members
to come out and get to know us better and get to know the investigators better.
(The 2 investigators...) the only thing that keeps me going down here is all
the kids that we are able to see. Also all of the non-Mormons that take care of
us. We are super blessed to have such nice people down here.
I would dare to say
that anyone in the south over here is probably in one of the hardest missions. Between
the members that don’t really want to help, and everyone being some other
religion its super hard to get anything done. But when you are able to get in
and talk with someone, anyone, member or nonmember it’s so nice just to be able
to get to know people. I’ve been able to see that when we do get into a house and
are able to talk to someone. They let us in almost every time that we come back
to their house.
We pray every day, probably
10 times a day, just asking that the work that were doing will bless us latter
on or the next people that comes after us. There’s a talk given by I think one
of the 12? It’s called the vision of the south. it talks a little bit about one
day when the south start to see that the church that they are going to starts
doing things that they don’t agree with, they will come searching for the
truth. It goes on to say that he believes that one day the south with have some
of the most members in the church, and also be one of the biggest growing area.
Sorry that there’s
not a lot of good news haha but its super hard down here. I’m just praying that
it’s going to get better but, the people here that you do get to know are some
of the best people that I’ve have been able to meet.
Elder Dana
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