Hey Family,
These past few weeks have been pretty frustrating. I wish I had some great news to share, but I don't, so I will just provide some excerpts from my journal.
Excerpt from journal:
23 September 2009
Wow, crazy biking day, we biked across Greenwood multiple times today, and we have to do the same thing tomorrow. I was really hungry, so I ate some toast and yogurt tonight after I got back home. It seems like the only things I can count on around here are being hungry and tired. People just don't keep appointments, we bike our hearts out to get to appointments on time and they just are not there. We even leave reminder notes with people.
Its still really muggy out side. My poor companion has a beat up old bike, its so bad he has to pedel down hill! Twice this week he got a nail in his tire. He pulled it out and nothing happened. That confirms our suspicions, he has a solid rubber tube in his tire, which also makes it hard for him to pedel. I am so grateful for my bike! Today Elder Bracken gave a training from President Brailsford on the Second Comforter, he encouraged us all to prepare and to start praying for that experience now on our mission.
24 September 2009
Ok day today, things are slowing down, we do not know why. Apparently it is happening all over the mission, because the assistants made a call out to all the other missionaries and said to start praying for miracles. I am getting the impression that things are not going to well else where as well. Today we accidentally went into the other Elders' area. We were knocking some apartments in that area when we met a man named Curtis. He had on a orange poncho with a matching orange patterned beenie. He told us that he was a Muslim looking to help people over come drug addictions. He had a NA book along with some Islamic texts. He told us that all one had to do to get into heaven was accept God the father as Jehova. Later in the conversation he mentioned that he attended a Methodist Church, then later said that Jesus Christ was Jehova. I think that he is one of the most confused people I have ever met. He is like a cross between a Methodist, Muslism and Jehova Witness. He told us he would come to church but he didn't show up.
25 September 2009
Wilda is being evicted this Monday. We are really bummed out. She still can not find a job. She said that she plans on going to a woman's shelter.
We later learned that Wilda is now planning on going down to Florida to live with her mom that she doesn't get along with.
27 September 2009
Ok day yesterday. We met Debra and Barbara who both gave strong church commitments, but didn't come to church. We were going to pick up Barbara this morning but she called and said she had to take some one to the hospital. It rained a lot yesterday. Not only did it rain, but it was cold, cold rain after 3 days of really hot and humid weather, mother nature
tricked us. I hope it stays cold, because a week from today is the start of "suit session".
The sad story of Anne Jackson, a media referal.Background: We contacted her about three weeks ago and gave her a pass along card because she said that she was too busy to talk.
We recieved a media referal for a Book of Mormon from her a few days later. We came back to visit and she wouldn't allow us to teach her. She didn't say, "No I don't want to hear it." BUT, she told us several times over the course of an hour, while crying, that she had no money, no food, she only had dissability income, she had to pay for a bunch of medications, she could barely afford to keep her electricity on for her TV, and that she had to pawn her breathing machine to pay for the electric bill. She said that she couldn't sleep at night with out the breathing machine, but she pawned it and she had to pay twice as much money to get it back. It was really sad. I don't think I had ever met any one who was so impoverished. Since we were limited on time, and she wouldn't let us butt into her sad story to try to share an uplifting message about the gospel, we had to leave after giving
her, Anne Jackson, the Book of Mormon and explained what it was and how she could benefit from reading it. We then promised her that we would pray for her.
Last Saturday we decided we would stop by to invite her to church, we had not stopped back by since our last visit a week before because we were busy with other appointments and leads in other areas of our area, Greenwood. We knocked on her door one rainy after noon right before we were going to head in for dinner. She told us to come in and said that she had been talking about us with her sister. We thought to our selves, "Oh sweet! She must have read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it as we asked her to, and she must want to learn more!"
She then informed us that she was completely out raged. She started crying and yelling at us at the same time. She said that after she spilled open her heart to us she expected us to help her out financially. We explained that we didn't have any money to help her out. She paused and then start bashing us and our "pastor" saying that we should have told him about her situation and provided at the very least a loaf of bread and provided the money for her machine that she pawned. She said that the "Jesus" we talk about is not the Jesus she wants, and the she wants no part of the religion we talked about. She said our paster was teaching us wrong, and that we were not Christian, and that we should convert to some other church. She told us she didn't bother to read the Book of Mormon and didn't pray about it after we asked her about it. She said she gave it away.
---She went on and on, not letting us try to explain, pulling out all kinds of false accusations, among which she claimed that we some how told her that we would help her out financially. It was really sad. Elder Wall tried to explain, but she cut him off and declared "Nothing that comes out of your mouth can change anything."- to which we walked out the door.
People are pretty poor here. One day two people straight up asked us for money. One of them said "Well, Jesus has money, here you are going around talking about Jesus and ......." Its pretty crazy.
This week has been a really tough week for our district. Neither of the companionships were able to get their investigators to church. Its really frustrating. We are going to change up our strategy this week.
Love,
Elder Calvin Smith
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