Week 4

YO!

 

Hello everybody. This week flew by, because there was a lot to do. We did a lot more service. We went and shoveled out goat poop out of a pen for a less active person in our ward. It was great, but I found out I'm also allergic to goats. Add that to the list of animals I'm allergic to, which is like, all animals. Anyway, as usual I don't have a ton of time, so I'm just going to tell you about a couple of the people we've been interacting with.

 

I don't know if I mentioned this, but a couple weeks ago we went to the Springville auction, which is  right across the street from our apartment. It's like a giant yard sale and people come and set up their spots. Oh and by "we" I mean all four of us that live in our apartment, Elder Allen (my companion), Elder Knudson, and Elder Klumker. We've had to do some 4 person visits this month because we are low on driving miles. Anyway, we walked around and I asked this one random guy how he was doing, and he was like "not good".  All four of us were taken aback because no one actually says "not good" to that question, so we talked to him and he had recently fallen off a two and a half story roof, while he was roofing, and he broke a wide variety of bones in his body. He also has had a bad past with ALOT of drug and alcohol use, so he is currently trying to get off of those. Also he told us that through his recovery he's been trying to "find God" and he went to a random church that he didn't really feel right about. What a coincidence huh? So he was very open to missionaries coming over to talk to him. Since we had to split the area though, the other two missionaries took him as the investigator, but Elder Allen and I have gone over with the other two a couple times. Long story short, he has a baptismal date for November 2nd, if he can get himself off of alcohol by that point, which will be hard because he's a functioning alcoholic, but he really wants to be ready by that date and I think he will. 

 

So as I said we had to split the area because there were only 2 missionaries here but now there are 4. So basically, it was easiest for the other two missionaries to take all of the existing investigators in the area, which means Elder Allen and I have started from scratch pretty much. I actually really like that because now its not like Elder Allen knows everybody and I don't. We're both on the same level. So we have been going out and proselyting and talking to people on the street, and last week we talked to this guy sitting on a bench outside of his barber shop. His name is JP, and he has had major drug problems too, but went to a religiously based rehab for two years, and now he is extremely spiritual and even has an addiction recovery program that he runs. He was really open to us, so we taught him a brief version of the restoration, and we went inside his barber shop for like an hour and half. He just reopened his barber shop because he's been gone for 3 years recovering from drugs and he doesn't have his customers back so he had time to talk to us. He's pretty young, and super cool. We left him with a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read and we're coming back next week. The cool thing is, is that while he was talking to us, he was telling us about this friend that he has, and he was like "yah my friend he's had a tough time, he fell off a roof a couple months ago". He was talking about Christian, and apparently Christian had talked to him about the Mormon missionaries meeting with him, and that got JP curious so he had googled Mormonism and that's why he was pretty open to talk to us. Its just kind of funny (and really cool) how the Lord has people prepared. Like how we talked to Christian right as he is trying to be more open to religion. There was no way he would have listened to us before his accident. That's what I've realized more this week, is that missionary work is about having the faith to find the people that are already prepared to hear the gospel, instead of trying to just convince people. Anyway, I will try to send pictures next week. I forgot my camera. Alright, till next week!

 

Love, Elder Holt