5/10/06
It was kind of a slow week this week. Not too much happened. We did find a less active who wanted to start coming back to church. Her name is K and she is 18 years old. She seems pretty sincere. She used to go to church in Louisiana with her Grandpa.
The story of the week would have to be about how we talked to a guy on the street while he was smoking marijuana right in front of us. It was quite interesting. Needless to say, we just gave him a pass-along card and left.
5/24/06
Our investigators both had a down week. They were both scheduled to come to church but neither of them were able to make it. B. wasn't feeling good because she was bitten by a spider and T. just wasn't ready on sunday because she stayed up late the night before. We met with T. again yesterday and taught her that this isn't just some little thing, baptism isn't something to be taken lightly. This is entrance into the gate to the path to eternal life. This is the only church that can do that. She asked us, "if I get baptised into your church, does that mean that i become mormon?" She was concerned that she would no longer become baptist because her parents (or someone else) told her that it was a sin to go against your religion, or in other words, to leave the baptist church. We explained to her again that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only one with the fulness of truth and the only one with authority to baptise and that it would be a sin not to join now that she's been answered whether or not the book of Mormon is true. She said that she understood all of that but that she wants to pray about it. We told her that she's already been answered but she didn't seem to be satisfied. We commited her to decide if she's going to take this seriously or not. We hope things go well.
5/31/06
On saturday morning i got a call from president and he said that I would be leaving the ghetto. I am now in Jasper, Texas. Jasper is a uber small town in east texas. It´s also pretty much the most north that our mission goes. It´s a po dunk town, and it actually has hills too, so that kind of reminds me of mountains. They´re not as cool but they´ll do. So, i´ve also been called to be district leader out here. President told me that it was going to be a hard assignment because there hasn´t been much activity out here lately. My new companion is Elder Decker. He has been out about seven and a half months. Last transfer he killed off Elder Beauxis (Elder Beauxis went home after that).
So, last sunday in the ghetto B. came to church. She is still on line to get baptised on the 10th of June. Hopefully i can somehow go on exchanges and see her get baptised. Elder Ayoso is taking my place in the ghetto. I´m excited for him and Elder Sosa, they will do well together. They aren´t white either, so they shouldn´t have too many problems with the Black Panthers.
I love you all very much and thank you so much for the encouragement, there is nothing more important than this work that i could be doing. I can tell that there are people here that the Lord has prepared, now it´s up to us to find them.
sorry for the messed up typing, I´m using a spanish keyboard because the only one open is a spanish computer and it´s really weird because when i try to do a semi colon i get ¨. and when i try to do quotation marks I get Ç. It´s kind of messed up, and i can´t figure out how to do a number symbol, y´know, the tic tac toe grid. but i can do some pretty sweet things like: <¿donde están los pantelones?>
Our official address is:
407 W. Gibson #59
Jasper, TX 75951
So, there are four Elders, including us, in our district. It´s pretty small. I´ve already planned the first district mtg. The Zone leaders are going to be there too so that gives me more people to choose from for speakers.
I´m still in a branch except this branch could become a ward soon. There are about 100 people who are active but about 300 on the role, i think. We actually have a ward mission leader and a high priest group and an Elders quorum. There are a lot of my brothers, black folk, out here but i guess they are country style. But i hear that there aren´t any in the branch. That´s going to have to change. We got a new investigator yesterday named N. We´re going to see her again today. she´s a sister. She belongs to the church of Christ.
I´m not in kansas any more. I´ve moved from du rags to cowboy hats, from Jordans to boots, from grills to chaw, from pimped out rides with twenties and a sounds system to shake the world to pick up trucks and logging trucks. From police sirens to birds chirping. From "whazzup" to "howdy". From baptist churches to...wait...there are still baptist churches. From a good ole´bike (which i just got back, by the way) to a Mazda 3. It´s pretty sweet lookin but it´s just a little four banger. It´s no longer my dream car. I sure like it a lot better than the mercury sable, though. The good old days of talking to over forty people a day are over. With them go the days of your voice hurting because you have been teaching so much. Yesterday, my first full day, we didn´t talk to anyone on the street, because there wasn´t anyone, and tracting we got three contacts, meaning we tried to teach the gospel to three people. In sunnyside we would never usually get less than fifteen or twenty on a full day. It was pretty lame. Last transfer in sunnyside we contacted 715 people. It is by far the most that i´ve ever done in a transfer. It was awesome. Those days are now part of yesterday and i will always remember them. They were awesome. I love the ghetto and i feel like a brother. It was nice, yesterday, to talk to a few black people and hear what i used to hear. Oh well, we´ll find the elect with the help of the Lord.
(NOTE FROM NORM: THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH WAS ADDRESSED TO AUSTIN BECAUSE HE WAS WITH OUR FAMILY ON A TRIP IN ENGLAND. IRONICALLY, AUSTIN GOT HIS MISSION CALL A FEW DAYS LATER TO THE TEXAS, HOUSTON MISSION.)
Austin, I love you and i hope you come to the TEXAS HOUSTON EAST MISSION with me so that we can harvest together. that would be wonderful. ¿¿¿¿Are you excited to get your call???? I actually think you are going to go somewhere over on your side of the world. Call those apostate europeans (or asians) to repentance in a different tongue. Let me know!
Yesterday we went and painted one of the members´ houses. Elder Decker and i want to gain the confidence of the members. Then we visited another member family that just moved in from georgia. The father used to be a bishop so he should be a good asset to the ward. They had a boy named aaron that reminded me of spencer, he was going into 9th grade, too. They also had a little girl that was going into seventh grade, but she still reminded me of Mallory, especially when she and aaron would fight. hehe They also had two older chilluns, one that just graduated from high school and the other one was about to be a junior or something. The other six are off and married in the world. They are originally from Ephraim, Utah. They knew Jon Ammons´s family. I can´t remember what their last name was. They haven´t lived there since about 5 years, though. They let us have dinner over there, spaghetti and biscuits and salad. Brownies and ice cream for desert. It was good. They are going to be a strenghth to the ward.
6/7/06
So, not much happening here in the country. I've just been reminded more and more of how it's different from the city. Back in sunnyside it seemed like there was always something to do, sometimes there were so many things to do that we had to put the less important ones of the back burner. Out here we've done a lot of tracting and contacting but satan hath greater hold on the hearts of the people here than back in the city. They don't even listen to us here but they just tell us they're not interested and close the door.
But that's okay, it's a test of faith and that's what we're having our next district meeting on, faith, and increasing our faith, to find people, more especially. Speaking of district meetings, the first one went quite well. The Zone leaders were there and they gave talks too.
B. is still on line to get baptised, in sunnyside. I'm going to try to see if there's a way that i can get a over there and see it. I might even participate if i can get over there. Elder Sosa says she's doing really well and that she said she is getting a lot of blessings. He said that she will be moving soon and that she is getting a car and that she bore her testimony on sunday. She is on FIRE!
So, our branch is pretty much made up of three families, the carters, the packards, and the ratcliffs. There is more than one family unit but those are the three most prominent last names. There were about 100 people at sacrament meeting. It was fast and testimony meeting and so i missed being in sunnyside and hearing sister Helton's testimony. I called over there and E. sosa told me all about it. She used a jar of honey and said that it doesn't matter what's on the outside, it's what's on the inside that counts. Anyway, there are tons of little'uns in the branch and so they have a pretty large primary and nursery, for a branch. The ward council and the ward mission leader are all gung ho and excited about missionary work so we are excited to get things going.
You wanted me to describe Jasper a little bit. Well, it's only a town. Most of the houses we go to are sitting on land that looks like somewhere i've camped before. It's kind of like eternally camping. The town is only about 5 miles in each direction. Not too big. The people are really friendly when they want to listen. But usually we get, "well that's great but i'm already a (protestant breakoff)." One change is that there is more of a variety of religions around here. In sunnyside there were just different versions of baptist. Here there are baptist, pentecostal, church of christ, catholic, presbyterian.
My new companion is from new mexico and he's the spittin image of lance. Same sense of humor, same love for snowboarding, same personality, same metabolism (he's really skinny), same hair style (except shorter).
Posts
