Despite it being a slower week, Elder Reese and I sure had some interesting experiences!
Tuesday was what we called "Monday". We planned to be out of the apartment from 10 in the morning until 9:30 at night. We had something planned for every minute of the day and backups for our backups' backups. At 10 o'clock we went over to a lady's house to do some service. She and her mom are moving and need a ton of help. They mostly need help because the house is so gross that whoever bought it is demolishing it. We spent a few hours taking moldy boxes out of a little sideroom so she could go through things she hadn't used in 5 years and decide if she needed them at their new place. Sister Barland was actually there to help inside the house! She's already an awesome member, we were happy to see her out serving some people who really needed it. After about two hours of that, we took a short lunch, changed, and went to see a less-active. While we were teaching her, a neighbor came by and said, "Hey, swing by C3 in half an hour if you want to talk!" When we finished up with our less-active, we swung by C3 to see how bashy they would be, because that's usually how people are when they invite you over like that.
We were very pleasantly surprised.
The guy who invited us over, Ben, turned out to be one of the kindest, most sincere guys I have ever met. Not a golden investigator, but truly a man who is humble and wants to follow the example of Christ. He lives in an apartment with his daughter and two other roommates. Pretty humble circumstances, but you could tell it was a good moral home. It was clean and their was a lot of love. Ben, Bear, and Dan were the three guys we talked to for about two hours. It was fascinating talking to these guys because for the first time in my mission, I met somebody who has the exact same perspective as we do, but sort of opposite, if that makes sense. They want to bring people to Christ with love, they're just missing a few things. They offered to take us in and help us "get away" from the Church. We talked for a loooong while about all sorts of things, and their conversation was extremely refreshing and helped me gain an insight to true disciples of Christ in another faith. I have never met anybody outside of our faith that was so sincerely humble. After talking with them and realizing that these guys were trying to convert me, not out of disdain, but out of love, I proposed this:
"Our message is simple. We believe that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ and goes hand in hand with the Bible. We believe it's another book of scripture. Just like the Bible, it's a record of God's dealings with His children. We don't ask people to rely on our words, but on the testimony of the Spirit. We ask only that you read it, ponder it's message, and ask God in sincere prayer, intending to act on an the answer you receive, whether this book is true. All we ask is to read and pray, and we know that God will do his part. Give me an invitation as simple as that, and I will take it as seriously as I expect every person we extend ours to."
So this past week I've been reading a lot in the bible. I read the epistle of James, and after prayer and pondering decided that the big difference between our beliefs was the Trinity. All of it really hinges on whether God is a sort of incomprehensible eternal force of truth and right, or whether Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate distinct personages. After that realization, I read John because John 1:1 is the classic trinity verse that people throw at us. After I read John, I've been reading Acts. Mostly because it's next. It's been an extremely interesting and enlightening read, and it has helped me to build my faith. After spending a week earnestly trying to test their doctrine, I'll be spending this week earnestly trying to test ours, after all, we are encouraged to ask questions and to seek Him in Spirit and in truth. I'll report on how that goes next week.
After our encounter with the Evangelicals, we had dinner, then got a call from another less-active requesting a blessing, so we went over. This particular family is very rough around the edges. They struggle with a lot of things and we've been working with them closely in order to help them get back to church. Well, after we got there, we found the woman we were asked to give a blessing to was unresponsive and barely breathing. We gave a quick blessing, and then had an ambulance called. Along with the ambulance came three cop cars. Maybe it was a slow night, or perhaps they came because they are on a first name basis with the family. As the woman was being carried to the ambulance on a stretcher, the police asked people for ID. Turns out the boyfriend of the Mother in the home had a warrant out for him. So he was booked and taken over to the courthouse from there. Meanwhile, one of the officers looked over at us, two clean-cut missionaries in suits and said, "Who are you guys?"
"We're missionaries," we responded, "These guys go to our church and asked us to give Brenda a blessing...We try to help them as best we can."
"Ah, gotcha."
And that was the end of that.
We had a good encounter with a lady we're teaching now, who is hilarious. I'm running out of time though, so I'll tell about that next week!
The pictures are me with Cotton Candy milk, way back when in Harrison, and then Elder Reese, Me, and The Most Interesting Man in the World, with a giant bag of popcorn we got from Primary a few weeks ago.
Elder Christopher Drake
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