Dear Family,
I am serving in a new area. Charleston! Its so awesome! We have a lot of great investigators and a lot of potential baptisms. My mind is spinning, trying to get to know everyone. This Sunday I came to church and found out that one of the recent converts was getting the priesthood. My companion was in another sacrament meeting (we cover the Charleston ward and the stake singles branch) and I went with Ralph to priest quorum. The bishop asked him who he would like to give him the priesthood and Ralph selected me. I was honored, though I had never done it before. The bishop walked me through it, it was a really cool experience. My new companion is Elder Williams. He has been out for 3 months. He has been out the same amount of time as my last companion Elder Cooper. He is really cool. Before I was assigned to Elder Cooper I got to go on an hour exchange with Elder Williams, in the ghetto of Columbia. He told me this week that he thought that he knew from that point that I was going to be his trainer, but another missionary was assigned to train him. He is so excited to be serving we me now, I was flattered. Elder Williams is a really great teacher, and he is really mature. He is 23, so he already knows a lot about working with people. Everyone LOVES Elder Williams. He is a fantastic piano player. I am really excited to have an awesome transfer with him.
Thank you mom and dad for the care package! That was a lot of soap! Thanks for the cookies, but for some reason they took on the flavor of the soap in the package. Imagine that, soap flavored cookies! I was so torn when I bit into the cookie. I was like "Awe sweet, oatmeal chocolate chip, my favorite!" Then I tried it and I was like "Eww it tastes like soap and smells like soap, but my mom made it with love." I didn't want to throw it away, so I finished one cookie, mom in mind, but I couldn't eat the rest. Sorry.
Right now we are working with a partmember family called the Gaddy family. They are really cool. Sister Gaddy has been taught everything in the book. Her only hold up is tea. She is from Japan, so you can imagine that tea has been a huge part of her life and culture. She was shocked when she was told that she couldn't drink tea any more as a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She said that she cried all night long. She is having a really hard time giving it up and understanding why she can't have it any more. In Japanese culture tea is considered to be really good for you. (green tea I think) In rest homes tea is considered a type of therapy and an important part of the day. We talked with a member who served in Japan and got some advice from him. We also took him over to her home and they really connected! It was awesome. He brought her a Japanese Book of Mormon so that she could read it in her native language. Our plan right now is to help Sister Gaddy strengthen her faith in Jesus Christ and strengthen her testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith so that she can feel the spirit testify to her of the things she needs to do.
This week we met a less active who has discovered the cure for cancer online on Youtube. She explained that there is a lot of money in cancer research so the government is engaged in a campaign to "run from the cure for cancer." This cure apparently cures all forms of cancer, aids, treats depression and has many other uses. The cure, she declared is a chemical found in marijuana called THC (I think). It just sounds a little too good to be true. But I don't know. It was an interesting discussion. I have met a lot of people lately who are open to the idea of marijuana use, and few I met are trying to legalize it. Its interesting to see how views and perceptions change with time.
Yesterday we came home from church for lunch. We walked up the stairs to our apartment and my companion started to unlock the door.(it takes a minute because it is a stiff lock) While my companion was laboring to get the door open, the door next to us opened up. Out of the dark doorway emerged the biggest dog I have ever seen in my entire life. This dog was HUGE! He let out a deep bark that sounded like the roar of a young lion. Elder Williams and I nearly wet ourselves in fear. Just when the dog was about to clear the thresh hold of the door way a huge hand the size of a cantaloupe reached out the door and grabbed the dog from underneath. In one smooth motion he picked up the dog, stuffed it back in the room, emerged from the dark apartment and closed the door. He reminded me of Hagrid (sp?) from Harry Potter. He came out and politely introduced himself. He asked if we had a wire hanger he could have to fix a cross wire under his couch. We retrieved one for him, he thanked us, and returned to his home. Elder Williams and I got back into our apartment and laughed in relief. Elder Williams told me "Welcome to Charleston."
On Friday Elder Williams introduced me to one of our investigators named Tom. Tom is from Northern Europe. He grew up being taught that there is no God. He has been coming to church for a year. He has read all of the standard works and is starting on Jesus the Christ. He doesn't believe in God. He expects that God will reveal himself to him just as God has revealed himself to prophets in the Bible and Book of Mormon. When I heard about Tom's situation I was reminded of my first general conference on my mission. October 2009 general conference. Elder Hales gave a great talk on how we can know Jesus Christ is the Christ and know that God is there. As we read the talk with Tom I felt like Elder Hales was speaking directly to Tom. I left Tom with the Ensign, conference edition, and assigned him to review the talk and read the talk by Tadd R Callister about Joseph Smith. Both are REALLY good talks. I hope he reads them, we will follow up with him later this week. Before we left Elder Williams asked if he could use the toilet. Tom agreed. While Elder Williams was in the bathroom I continued to talk with Tom. We kept talking, and I noticed that a puddle of water was starting to appear under the door way of the bathroom. I asked Tom if I could mop it up for him, he refused, so I asked him where the mop was. He pointed me to the mop and I started mopping up the water while Tom watched. Then Elder Williams opened up the door of the bathroom to a horrible scene. The toilet had flooded and was overflowing onto the floor! He apologized profusely to Tom and we worked for a half hour trying to unplug the toilet and clean up the mess. Tom lives in an apartment that has been foreclosed on, so he doesn't have a landlord to fix his problems. We never got the toilet unplugged, but we offered to pay for a plumber to fix it. He said that it had been a problem for a long time and that he would take care of it. We left having learned a lesson. There is a reason why we have the mission rule, "Don't use member or nonmember's bathrooms." hahaha. I never thought that the devil would try to halt the work of the Lord through a toliet
Well, thats about it for the week, or all I have time to write about. As you can see, it was an exciting week. I love you guys! Take care!
Love,
Elder Smith
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment