Missionary Monday - Moville Week 8

What's up? 

Last Monday we ate with the Morenco Family. They always have good food. They went to Elder Castillos branch in Frederick on Sunday for a missionaries homecoming and Elder Castillos parents sent them back with a bunch of stuff he needed. So at dinner they were pretty much like "Merry Christmas" haha. 

Tuesday was a bit of a bummer. I was super excited for district meeting because I had been finding members all week who could come so that we could role play with members instead of missionaries and it was going to be awesome. And then the morning of district meeting everyone canceled except for one. So when one member came walking in everyone in the district was like, "uhhhh, what's this?" Even though I was hoping for more I was glad that he came. He's the main Fellowshipper for our investigator and he has a similar background so he helped us understand some concerns. At the end of the day we decided to stop by a former investigator, we knocked and he was trying to get rid of us then we said we only wanted to talk for 5 minutes and he was like "...Alright come in" And then he just vented for like 30 minutes and we applied some principles and it was awesome. Basically his life has fallen apart since he stopped meeting with the missionaries and he's ready to listen again. 

Wednesday was good, we met this guy street contacting last week and we talked about the Book of Mormon and it blew his mind and we scheduled to come over and bring him one for Wednesday. We showed up and he was about to leave cause he "forgot" but then he put everything on hold and had us teach him more about the Book of Mormon and everything. He was non committal to meeting again but he was dead set on reading to find out for himself "Then we will talk" Is what he said. But he was a genuinely interested to I think we'll follow up soon. We had splits scheduled tonight but all our lessons fell through at the last second so "Boris" And I stopped by some people trying to get in and teach and it wasn't going super great. I was trying to get to know him a little bit better since I've only seen him like twice at church. Turns out because he was less active until two weeks ago. He said he wanted to get back on track so he decided to come back. He also told me how he used to be a ups driver and he hated it and one day walking out of the store he saw a Mazurati parked so he wrote on a piece of paper "You seem to know what you are doing in life, I'd be happy to learn from you." And left his name and number and the guy called him 2 days later and taught him everything he knew about financial advising and now he's on his own and he's super successful. The last person we decided to try and get in the door with was an investigator that I've never met. That's how dodgy she's been. Elder west claimed that she was "Super solid" at one time but she always dodged us. Boris and I knocked her door and she let us in and apparently they live in the same neighborhood and they started talking and talking and she was so pleased to have us in. I asked some questions about why she thinks the missionaries keep trying to meet with her and I think we resolved some concerns because she told us a time to come back without us even asking haha. 

Thursday we had specialized training for Elder Castillo, that was from 10-5. Brutal. It was good, but it was long. Definitely killed the day. We had to go straight from there to a lesson. Then after that we talked to as many people as we could till the night was over. 

Friday was awesome. I've been tired of the lack of success in finding investigators through our own efforts. So I decided if we were going to be spending the majority of our time finding we were going to get good at it and switch it up. All week we had tried different door approaches and what not but Friday we stepped it up. We decided to get a referral from the Lord. We prayed, chose 15 streets at random, prayed again, separately chose 5 of those 15 streets each then saw which streets we "Happened" to both pick. 2 streets matched but we had already knocked one so we went with the other. We got 5 numbers (3 Hispanic) And 2 really solid follow up appointments with Hispanics. AND we knocked on an English members door and they told us to come in before we could even say who we were. They seemed to be borderline less active. The main lady we were talking to was being kind of pissy with us. We asked if we could share something with her and she said sure. Mosiah 24:14 was the first thing that came to mind so I went with that. Elder Castillo and I bore testimony of it and then asked her if she had any thoughts on it, and she said "Well, it applies to me right now" Then she totally opened up and told us about everything she's been going through with cancer and chemo and family problems and she thanked us and said she needs to start coming to church every week. Her being pissy made a lot more sense afterward, I can't blame her. But she seemed a lot more relaxed after we read that verse. Then we went and taught Melvin and Katterin. That went well, they've been canceling for like 2 weeks straight so it was a relief to meet. It went really well. However they are dragging their feet with the wedding because she's scared of her catholic dad.

Saturday we knocked a bunch, met a Hispanic lady that is married to a member but he hasn't been active since he left el Salvador and she basically knew nothing so he was super curious and we talked for a few minutes and scheduled a follow up appointment for this next week. We had dinner with a family and dedicated their home, then had another dinner with Jose and Alondra. They're pretty cool. He used to be pentecostal so I Bible bashed with him, that was fun. Then we went out and knocked some more. We texted Bryan about church the next day and he said he wanted to bring a friend! The friend ended up bailing but I thought it was pretty cool that he is recruiting for us.

Sunday was good, since it was fast Sunday they didn't have correlation so we had the morning to do missionary stuff for the first time ever. It was snowing for the first 30 minutes then started raining and that sucked. Everyone was pretty onrie (Or however you spell it). Church was good, Bryan Melvin and Katterin were there and stayed for all 3 hours. All the testimonies were pretty awesome for them to hear. Then we ate with the Monroys, I still haven't had something I haven't loved there yet ♥ We dedicated their home as well. Then we went knocking and interrupted a bunch of super bowl parties, it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Oh yeah! We knocked on one door and this 50 year old guy walks out onto the porch and we say who we are and ask if he's heard of the Mormon church and he says "Have you ever heard of the marines? I killed 37 people." And we were like uuuuuuuuuh. He was crazy and talked to us for like 30 minutes, hes been to Utah and loves Mormons, and has 2 foxes that he feeds every night. I'm pretty sure he was drunk so we couldn't really get anywhere but it was a good "Experience" for Elder Castillo, that was the first crazy he's ran into haha. 

Today we don't have much going on yet... Just the usual. I only have one picture this week, sorry bout it.

I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Elder Beck