So. Wednesday was District Meeting, and we had a
good lesson on how to promise blessings to those who follow through on
their commitments, and if necessary, promise a lack of blessings, just
as the Lord did in the Book of Mormon. After all, it does say, "As long
as ye keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land." and then "If
ye keep not my commandments, ye shall be accursed, and ye shall be swept
off the face of the earth as chaff before the wind." Y'know? So that
was what we talked about in District meeting, and I thought that it went
pretty well. Thursday, we had some good service in the morning, and
were able to get all of our lessons done. We met with D, and he said
he would come to church with his sister and her boyfriend. Didn't
happen, so we're getting pretty tired of it. We've been having some
lessons on the war chapters in the Book of Mormon, and applying the
things that these men and prophets did to our lives. We're hoping to
catch his interest on that. We also then had dinner with a member that
used to take us to eat all the time, but stopped for a few weeks. We
were able to catch up with him and see how he was doing. We then went to
coordination, and believe me, it was NOT in order. I swear. Every two
minutes, one of the sisters or the zone leaders would say something, and
the topic would be lost. Elder M and I said our bit in less than
a minute, and then someone took the conversation elsewhere, so we
really didn't get the help that we needed from our Branch Mission
leader. He got back from his mission about 3 months ago, and he's been
doing really well so far as our mission leader. Then some achievement
day girls had some left-over ice cream, and asked us if we wanted it. We
graciously accepted.
Friday, we practiced a skit for the branch camp out
that night. My idea was to talk about some skits that we'd seen other
people do, and then act them out. But the sisters and elders had a
different idea, and decided to create their own unique skit out of
nowhere. It involved some pretty awkward moments, and so Elder M
and I felt that it wasn't appropriate. But, we ended up doing it anyway
because nobody wanted to change it. I got a bit frustrated with that,
since I really didn't like the skit idea in the first place, and said
so. We then helped this lady move a bunch of boxes of books from her
apartment into a storage shed a few blocks away. That night, Elder
M and I showed up to the camp out in shorts and t-shirts,
expecting that we would be helping the members to set up their tents. Lo
and behold, we ended up setting up 5 tents and a camper trailer. While
Elder M and I went about doing that, the rest of the district sat
at the picnic tables and chatted. (That peeved me a bit.) After
finishing up with that, we spotted a few members playing a small game of
soccer. Elder M and I joined the game, since we were wearing
street clothes. After a few minutes of playing, the zone leaders walked
over to the field, and hovered on the edge. Just standing there. They
stood there for 5 minutes just whispering to each other and looking at
us. The ball rolled towards them, I went after it, and when I got close
to them, they said,"You can't be playing soccer. It's not appropriate,
and we're pretty sure it's against the rules." So, I grabbed Elder
M and we left the game, the members wondering why we were leaving
the game so abruptly. I sat there and fumed for a bit, but got over it
pretty quick. Elder M and I then started playing some tether ball
to make up for it. We then ate, and right after, we did the skits. The
young men recruited me and Elder M for their skit, so we did 2.
We performed ours, watched some others do theirs, and had a great time.
We had breakfast with them the next day.
Saturday, we helped some members move to a new house
that they bought right next to the chapel. We then got a call from
another sister member in our area that needed help with her TV. We ran
over, and I found out that she was having a new TV installed in her
house, and she had no idea how to do it. She also had a fan and a desk
that needed to be put together. So I installed the TV for her, Elder
M put the fan together, and we both managed to get the desk
arranged. We then went to some appointments, and had planned on doing
some computer time that night for Mormon.org. We tried everything to get
to the computers, but we couldn't. So we sat in our apartment thinking
of things to do, and I got the impression to leave the apartment. I
didn't know what we would do, but I knew that we needed to be out. So we
walked around, trying to find investigators at home, but had no luck at
all. Then Elder M suggested that we visit some members just out
of our area to see if they needed any service. (They just had their baby
last week.) We got there and knocked, only to find C, our branch
mission leader, watching TV by himself. The members we wanted to visit
weren't there, so we chatted with C for a bit. (He's the brother of
the wife member that we wanted to visit. That's why he was there.) We
asked if there was anything that we could do to help him out, and he
asked us for a blessing. I had the impression to dig a bit, so I asked
if anything was wrong. He slumped in his seat and said that he'd been
having the hardest time with the zone leaders. They live at his parents'
house, and he said that he couldn't stand them. He told us about
several things that they did that he was extremely frustrated about. He
wanted to punch them a couple of times, so he was pretty mad. We
explained to him the things that had been going on with us, told him
that we understood what he felt completely, and could see the load that
it took off his shoulders. We gave him a blessing, and he thanked us
quite a bit. It was a pretty great miracle to see happen. But it's
pretty sad that the zone leaders have been causing problems for other
people/members than just me and Elder M.
Yesterday, we had service at the zebra farm, and our
job was to fill a huge hole left by an old tree. As we filled, the lady
who owned the ranch came and told us that there would be a castration
if we wanted to watch. So, we went and found that they were going to
castrate a tiny pony. I think a Shetland pony, if I'm not mistaken on
the name. We sat there and watched as the vet did his work,
tranquilizing and the like. Then the cutting and snipping and stuff
happened, so we Elders started squirming a bit. We went back and
finished up on the digging, and headed home. We had a lunch appointment
with a member, a dinner appointment with another, and had some lessons
in between as well as after. We were hoping to see K again, but
she's been out of town for the last week, which is why I didn't mention
her last week. She wasn't home, so we walked around trying to find
people to contact. After a bit, we gave up and went to go get some
Slurpee's with some English Elders.
So. This week was pretty eventful, I must say. And
we've got some great service projects planned for the next few days, so
we'll be having more stories for next Tuesday.
I love you, Mom! I love you, Dad. Thank you for the letters and talks
and words of encouragement. They've really been helping with the zone
leader problem. Thanks to the siblings for their letters and emails.
They've been a big strength booster. Love you all!
-Love, Elder Crook
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