All is well

The weather here is perfect during the day, but during the night, becomes a bone-chilling cold. Not like 20 degrees below zero bone-chilling, but the fact that there's so much humidity makes the cold seep into your bones.

 

Thanksgiving went well. We had one dinner appointment with a member that lives at the far north-west corner of our area, and then we had to get from there to the H street mall which is all the way in the southern edge of our area, and the Elders were late, so we had to walk all the way there. Once we got there, we handed out a couple of cards, and sang a few carols before they opened the doors to Sears at 8:00. We had hoped that they would be camping out for a bit longer so we could talk to more people, but it didn't turn out that way. We then migrated to Walmart to try and catch more people to give cards to. We stood outside the doors and sang carols for about 10 minutes, and then decided to call it quits. Right as we dispersed, a security vehicle showed up, and an older man in his 60's came walking out with his walkie-talkie, and we heard him say something about "people singing". We quickly dispersed and disappeared. So overall, it wasn't all that much of a success.

 

S, the guy that I felt was golden, didn't meet us for our return appointment. And every other appointment that we set up has fallen through, except for a select few. It's rough being in "The Promised Land" of the mission and having a lot of trouble in finding investigators.

 

And then at a dinner appointment on Sunday, the members gave us iced tea. We asked if it was from a tea leaf, and they said it was lemon tea. I drank some, and I have a strong feeling that it was real tea, (the kind we shouldn't drink).

 

And other than those few things, this last week has been pretty rough and slow. The majority of our appointments have fallen through (and we didn't have many to begin with), and street contacting hasn't really boosted yet because of the Christmas spirit. However, there was one great miracle this week. We noticed an investigator of ours out working in her yard, and we offered to help. For some reason, she's the only person in my entire mission that has agreed to our help. We swept her sidewalk and driveway as she mowed the lawn, because she didn't want our clothes to get stained by the grass. After we'd helped her, and she'd given us some tamales, we walked back out, and met her neighbor, J. He's in his early 30's, and HE walked up to US and asked what made us different from every other church. He invited us into his house, and commenced to explain that he's been searching for the truth. He's gone through several churches, but hasn't found the truth. He quoted several verses from the Bible, and usually when someone does that, they're trying to bash with us. But he quoted verses that characterized the true church. He then asked us if we had the truth, and that if we did, how he could know it. I've been praying since the beginning of my mission to find someone like this, that has been searching for the truth, but hasn't been able to find it. We taught the restoration to him, with emphasis on how Joseph Smith restored the same gospel that Jesus Christ had established when He was on the earth. We then left him with a Book of Mormon, (after explaining it), and showed him where to watch the Joseph Smith movie, because he wanted to know more about Joseph Smith. He's committed to coming to church this Sunday, and we're earnestly hoping that he reads and prays.

Believe me, this man and the miracle that he is has made this whole week worth it.

J and C were able to attend church again, and it was all because of a member that knows C. That, and the fact that this member, Sister Q, is a fantastic member missionary. Sister Q went and picked them up to bring them to church, so they were quite enthused to come again. They still have a baptismal date, but I worry about Juan's health. He's 85 and has a lot of trouble walking, and so we've had to move him around church in a wheel-chair. Oh well. The Lord will work it out.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Crook