Missionary Monday - Fourth Epistle
Hey peeps,
This week was awesome. I definitely gained a testimony of Jehovah jireh. After P-Day ended last Monday we were just knocking doors, doing our thing, and this guy across the street yells at us, "How's the ministry going fellas?" and waves us over to talk to him. You could just tell he wanted to start something. We already had some cancellations that day and weren't in the mood to be taking this guy's crap. So we walked over totally ready to throw it down. He starts in with the whole "Elder" thing. He's like, you guys pretty young to be married and have kids to be called Elder. And we basically said, no idiot, its just a bishop that has to be married. And we talked about the Book of Mormon a little and he wanted archeological evidence of it. His kids were being crazy so he said, tell you what, I'd like to discuss some things with you guys, let me take you out to breakfast tomorrow. And we aren't about to turn down a free breakfast so we agree and he says let me give you my card. "Head Minister St. Louis Church of Christ". Crap. So we were up late that night making preparations for war. For defensive purposes only, of course. So we go the next morning and he's still a little chippy, but eventually we settle in and he was super curious about being a missionary. He told us how he got to be where he is at in his church (which totally sounds like a business). He interned and then started as the youth minister. So things actually went really well. The French toast was freaking delicious too. The restaurant was run by Mennonites and they must have been putting crack in their syrup. I've never had anything like it. I did ask him about the Trinity though. Mostly because I was curious how anyone can believe it, but partly just to try and mix things up too. He described it by drawing a ven diagram and said the scripture where Jesus gets baptized describes is perfectly. What?! It took a lot of restraint. Anyways, he said we could talk with him again some other time, so that will be cool.
I have super bad allergies here. The first three days of the week I sneezed more than I have in my entire life. I bought some allergy medicine though so I'm good as long as I take one of those every four hours.
Bad news: Cecilia did not get baptized yesterday. She smoked a cigarette last week and you have to be clean at least a week before you can be baptized, but we forgot to tell her that so we rescheduled it for this week. Good news: when we were at her house Thursday her 15 year old cousin JoJo was there too and she has been trying to talk him into sitting in the lessons with her and we gave him the first discussion and he's on board.
Then this newly married older couple moved in last week and they are awesome. The husband isn't a member, but he will be and the wife is super proactive about finding people for us to teach. They bought this super old school and are turning it into a house. It'll be so sweet. They had us over Thursday and we gave the husband (Dean) the restoration and he loved it.
Then Friday at the post office this Catholic guy stopped us. "Are you guys representatives for the LDS religion?" We sure are. He started with the "Elder thing too". But he was really curious because he saw the similarities between Catholicism and Mormonism so we set up an appointment with him.
Final instance of Jehovah jireh: We had a return appointment with this lady, but there was a mix up in the time and her daughter was the only one home. She was super interested! So we meet with both of them this week. The thing is, the daughter is going to school to be a minister and only has one semester left. Down side is that she will have to pick a new career, upside is that it will make her an awesome sister missionary.
So Jehovah jireh is what Abraham told Isaac when he was taking him to be sacrificed and Isaac asked where the ram was. It means "the Lord will provide". Ha. And he did! All these people came out of no where. We had our struggles last week, but just kept plugging along and we have been provided for.
I think that's about it for this week. I did go fishing this morning though! We had dinner with a part member family Wednesday and me and the husband (not a member) talked about fishing and hunting the whole time and when he showed me a picture of a 7 lb bass he caught in a little pond near his house I made up my mind I wasn't leaving Michigan without fishing. So I've been going on about it all week and then yesterday one of the members said he wanted me to have one of his poles because he had a stroke a while ago and can't fish anymore. So I bought a license and some lures this morning and fished the Pine River down the street from our house while the other two studied at a park bench. I couldn't be happier.
Pic #1 - Old school soon to be party house.
Pic #2 - Alma has a college named "Alma College" so we dropped by the book store this week and there wasn't any way I was leaving without this shirt. So sick.
#3 & 4 FISH
#5 - Almost forgot this one. They are on to us.
This week was awesome. I definitely gained a testimony of Jehovah jireh. After P-Day ended last Monday we were just knocking doors, doing our thing, and this guy across the street yells at us, "How's the ministry going fellas?" and waves us over to talk to him. You could just tell he wanted to start something. We already had some cancellations that day and weren't in the mood to be taking this guy's crap. So we walked over totally ready to throw it down. He starts in with the whole "Elder" thing. He's like, you guys pretty young to be married and have kids to be called Elder. And we basically said, no idiot, its just a bishop that has to be married. And we talked about the Book of Mormon a little and he wanted archeological evidence of it. His kids were being crazy so he said, tell you what, I'd like to discuss some things with you guys, let me take you out to breakfast tomorrow. And we aren't about to turn down a free breakfast so we agree and he says let me give you my card. "Head Minister St. Louis Church of Christ". Crap. So we were up late that night making preparations for war. For defensive purposes only, of course. So we go the next morning and he's still a little chippy, but eventually we settle in and he was super curious about being a missionary. He told us how he got to be where he is at in his church (which totally sounds like a business). He interned and then started as the youth minister. So things actually went really well. The French toast was freaking delicious too. The restaurant was run by Mennonites and they must have been putting crack in their syrup. I've never had anything like it. I did ask him about the Trinity though. Mostly because I was curious how anyone can believe it, but partly just to try and mix things up too. He described it by drawing a ven diagram and said the scripture where Jesus gets baptized describes is perfectly. What?! It took a lot of restraint. Anyways, he said we could talk with him again some other time, so that will be cool.
I have super bad allergies here. The first three days of the week I sneezed more than I have in my entire life. I bought some allergy medicine though so I'm good as long as I take one of those every four hours.
Bad news: Cecilia did not get baptized yesterday. She smoked a cigarette last week and you have to be clean at least a week before you can be baptized, but we forgot to tell her that so we rescheduled it for this week. Good news: when we were at her house Thursday her 15 year old cousin JoJo was there too and she has been trying to talk him into sitting in the lessons with her and we gave him the first discussion and he's on board.
Then this newly married older couple moved in last week and they are awesome. The husband isn't a member, but he will be and the wife is super proactive about finding people for us to teach. They bought this super old school and are turning it into a house. It'll be so sweet. They had us over Thursday and we gave the husband (Dean) the restoration and he loved it.
Then Friday at the post office this Catholic guy stopped us. "Are you guys representatives for the LDS religion?" We sure are. He started with the "Elder thing too". But he was really curious because he saw the similarities between Catholicism and Mormonism so we set up an appointment with him.
Final instance of Jehovah jireh: We had a return appointment with this lady, but there was a mix up in the time and her daughter was the only one home. She was super interested! So we meet with both of them this week. The thing is, the daughter is going to school to be a minister and only has one semester left. Down side is that she will have to pick a new career, upside is that it will make her an awesome sister missionary.
So Jehovah jireh is what Abraham told Isaac when he was taking him to be sacrificed and Isaac asked where the ram was. It means "the Lord will provide". Ha. And he did! All these people came out of no where. We had our struggles last week, but just kept plugging along and we have been provided for.
I think that's about it for this week. I did go fishing this morning though! We had dinner with a part member family Wednesday and me and the husband (not a member) talked about fishing and hunting the whole time and when he showed me a picture of a 7 lb bass he caught in a little pond near his house I made up my mind I wasn't leaving Michigan without fishing. So I've been going on about it all week and then yesterday one of the members said he wanted me to have one of his poles because he had a stroke a while ago and can't fish anymore. So I bought a license and some lures this morning and fished the Pine River down the street from our house while the other two studied at a park bench. I couldn't be happier.
Pic #1 - Old school soon to be party house.
Pic #2 - Alma has a college named "Alma College" so we dropped by the book store this week and there wasn't any way I was leaving without this shirt. So sick.
#3 & 4 FISH
#5 - Almost forgot this one. They are on to us.
Can I just say that it made me SO happy that Jax was able to fish! He is a true fisherman who loves his outdoors and I'm so grateful he's been able to enjoy a little of what he loves. What he didn't show you is he totally kissed that fish before he threw it back :). I also love that he is recognizing the Lord's help in his missionary work and he is grateful for it.
Everyone asks us about his visa...Over the last several months the missionaries going to Brazil have had to serve in a stateside mission for about 6 weeks before their visa comes through. However, right when Jackson went into the MTC Brazil changed their visa requirements. The lady at the church mission offices said because of the changes there will probably be additional delays. We can check the status of his visa online and so far there's been no progress. I guess you could say he'll get there when he gets there :).
