Week #41

Hey Mis!

This has been the most bizarre week of my mission. It started off awesome. I did an exchange with Elder Keller, one of the ZLs, and he's a super cool dude. We were teaching an investigator named Ronnie, and we were studying out of the Book of Mormon with him. Ronnie's little dog kept jumping on my lap during the lesson. So, while Ronnie was reading, I had a Book of Mormon in one hand, and the other hand I used to try to pick the little dog up and set her down on the floor. When I picked her up, she started to squirm, and she felt out of my lap onto the floor, and landed on her head. She yelped, and Keller and I, horror coming across our face, looked up at Ronnie. Luckily, Ronnie was still reading and didn't even notice it. Elder Keller and I tried SO hard not to laugh during the rest of the lesson. The dog gave us dirty looks the rest of the lesson, and has since ceased to jump up on my lap.

The rest of the week was very odd. We had 4 people with a baptismal date, and we had to drop three of them. It was super frustrating, but they just didn't have the desire any more. We're still trying to help one of them quit smoking, but the other ones are super flaky. Saturday was the weirdest day this week. First off, I woke up Saturday morning, and rolled out of bed to pray. As I was praying, I started to feel really itchy. I finished praying and looked at my arm. There were a bunch of red bumps on my left arm 😳. I look at my right arm, and it has some bumps too. I started to freak out, ran into the bathroom, and checked to see if I had any more. There were bumps all over my neck and arms 😳 I called the ZLs, who told me to call the mission office. Turns out, I had bed bugs. The mission office said that they would take care of it Monday (today) so I spent the last two nights sleeping on the couch.

But, that didn't stop the work. We went out to our lessons. We had an appointment with Ronnie at three o'clock. As we turned onto his street, we saw another car pull into his yard. We pulled up to his house and saw a larger woman leading Ronnie to her car. I was driving so I rolled down the window and said "Hi Ronnie!!" He smiled, but then his smile disappeared as the lady walked over to us. She asked who we were, so we told her the missionaries. She then went on a rant about how she is a pastor and how Ronnie goes to her church and that she doesn't agree with our doctrine. So, we asked what doctrine she disagreed with, and she said Joseph Smith. We asked what she knew about him, and she said that we worship him, that he wrote the Book of Mormon, and that he was a liar, and that whenever we have "Bible study" with Ronnie, she has to be there. We tried to explain who Joseph Smith really was, and she just kept yelling at us. Then, another car pulled into the yard behind the lady. An older man stepped out of the car, and under his breath we hear him say "It's stupid people like this that make me want to..." It was Bro. Tarone, the member that we had invited to Ronnie's lesson. Bro. Tarone is a 75 year old, ex-military member of the ward. He's a little rough around the edges, to say the least. All of a sudden, he comes up from behind the pastor and starts yelling at her. She then turns around and starts yelling at him. Meanwhile, Ronnie is just standing there, so Elder Peterson and I start to talk to him. We invited him to keep reading the Book of Mormon, and to ask God, because He is the only one that truly knows everything. He agreed that he would. Then his pastor turned away from Bro. Tarone, took Ronnie and left. Bro. Throne's face is bright red, and then he stares at us. Then, he quietly said: "Let's go get some ice cream cones. We need to talk about this." So we did. It was pretty interesting.

So the next day, Sunday, we visited Ronnie again anyways. We sat down and talked with him. He said that his pastor ripped up his copy of the Book of Mormon. So, we gave him a new one. Then, he sat there and was quiet. Then he said, "She was really rude to you guys, and she has no right to tell me what to do. I still want to get baptized in your church on July 23rd!!" It was super cool! We're wayyy excited for him. We also had a really good lesson with a guy named Larry as well. He had a lot of questions, and ultimately, he opened up about how he lost his sister when he was 14 in a car wreck, and asked how he gospel was supposed to help fix that. I shared with him about mom's passing, and how the gospel didn't necessarily fix the problem, but that it was more to prepare us for these trials and to provide a foundation for us to lean upon. For the rest of the lesson, Larry was very different. He was very quiet and receptive. The Spirit was SUPER strong. It was really cool.

Sorry this email is all over the place. Not only do we have bed bugs, but our water randomly stopped working today too. Life in a trailer. It's great. It was a weird week, but there were some bright spots too!

Love you Mis!

Trev :D

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