I was kinda thinking about waiting til it was a quarter after one to start writing this, but that would be a waste of P day time just to make a Taylor Swift reference. All I wish is that I was knee deep in the water somewhere, with my toes in the sand, not a worry in the world and a cold drink in my hand. There ya go Zac Brown.
I guess I should just go ahead and start the email for real...
This week was really great. We went on exchanges for 3 days straight. It is so bizarre to pretty much only have a half of a companion for a transfer. It's a weird relationship.
I worked with and Elder named Elder Jensen, we worked his area one day and mine the next. We taught not a ton in his area but did get to play a game of Book of Mormon baseball where you flip to a random scripture and have to guess the Book chapter and Verse. I totally owned him. Completely satisfying.
Oh I have a guy in my Ward named Savon Moniz. He was the Quarterback for UNLV a year or two ago and is transferring somewhere else, He is so ripped. I am pushing really hard to get him to the promised land in Logan, but he already knows that Chuckie is there. I guess Chuckie is a senior or something? He is sweet though, he gave me a Lava lava. One of those skirts. The breeze never felt better.
We came into the apartment one night and saw a a little bug that was freaking out underneath the door jam. I "The Zone President" went to pull it out with my shoe and it was a snake. A snake. I cannot tell you how bad I freaked out. I jumped up on top of the table, screaming, and "The assistant to the Zone President" Elder Snow started screaming and ran upstairs. . Elder "West Zone Choir Coordinator" Steggell was there singing his Hallelujahs too.Luckily for us we live with the "Work out Coordinator" Elder Vega He's a body builder so he took care of it for us and put it outside. It really wasn't very big at all, but that's how satan works too. Starts small. He starts small...
Another encounter I had with God's animal kingdom this week. We were doing service for some Pakistanians (No relevance to the story just a cool fact) and moving all of their stuff to another house. Towards the end of the move the main guy coped out and went to Mcdonalds while we got the heavy stuff. He brought me a strawberry shake and so I drank half of it and moved a couple of more things while talking to another dude about overcoming Heroine. When I came back to the shake I drank it and felt something hard hit my tooth. "Wow! Mcdonalds put real stawberries in my shake!" Til I crunched down and I swear I heard tiny screaming. I spit it out and it was a fly. He had crawled down my straw and I had sucked him back up. Got to be kidding me.
Our investigator Meg seems to be taking kinda the same fate as the fly. She is kinda crazy. She keeps calling the people we fellowshipped to get free stuff and is just crazy. She came to church yesterday because we had "A really Cute guy" (Her words) come pick her up. She was high when I went over to tell her she couldn't get baptized the next day, because for some reason she thought she still was and I basically did everything short of call down hell fire. I was pretty ticked because she kept doing weird things. I can't explain missionary work. What a miracle it is. I really don't want to go back to her to badly.
Amy is our other Asian investigator, she is pretty golden except she has a boyfriend that is Catholic. Boyfriends seem to cause so many problems. I am 100% convinced now that I never want to get a boyfriend. They are really just a pain in the neck. He wants her to convert over to Catholicism so she and he can go to church on Christmas or Easter. So she doesn't know what to do. She does believe absolutely everything that we teach her, but that would be really, really tough. I love that girl to death. She is great. We just got to help her realize that Life moves on after Boyfriends. It really really does.
The other big one that we have is Mike. He just texted me a second ago and asked if his baptism was on friday or saturday. He is so great. He is going to get baptized this weekend! After only 3 weeks of investigating. He has a testimony that is growing more and more and is just so great. We teach him everything and he sucks it all in. It's beautiful. I often think to myself "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older in the kind of world where we belong?" I think everyone would be like Mike and ready to get baptized.
I was really pondering this week and read all of the conference addresses to the women of the church that they give in general conference. So great by the way, totally should read those every time. Back to the point. One of them was talking about how much women beat themselves up and tend to look at all the things that they do wrong and yeah. Elder's spend time trying to uncover the way women think, I guess when God says that we may know the truth of all things though he may be saving this one for a really far off in the distance. The whole scattered point is with this that I realize how much when people choose to not do things it isn't because they are lazy or disobedient, generally, it is because there is something deeper. There is one elder that we live with that has a ton of stuff going on in his life and sometimes he will not wear his tie when he studies or skip a few minutes of studies and walk over to the Dollar store with his companion and while we were on exchanges the companion I was with rebuked him. And sometimes, I have seen other missionaries see similar things and rebuke others. When really if they just got to know that person they would understand how much really someone is giving and not what they are lacking.
It's pretty much all perspective. I met a missionary this week that came home 6 months early from his mission, he went on to explain that he had to undergo chemo and felt so overwhelmed by it even though he had done it before. To me he was a great example of giving his all, even though he in some eyes didn't make it. He became a hero of mine.
That is a pretty obvious example of someone who did their best and didn't quite make it and it was ok. But I think of how everyone is just like that. It's so much easier to look on the things that they aren't doing and not see the things they are doing despite their shortcomings. It was a lesson I really learned this week. I just continue to learn so much I feel like. I really do love the mission. Am I counting down til the day that I get home? Why yes I am. Am I going to be excited when this is over? Yes I will be. Am I going to wear a suitcoat ever again? I certainly will do my best to make sure that never happens. I am really grateful that I have gotten to serve. I hope that everyone takes a tiny bit of time to do something nice for someone. That's all Jesus would want. Looking at other's perspectives is the quickest way to love!
Love yall lots.
Remember who you are and what He stands for!
Elder Funk
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