The Contrast of Rejection and Service

Week #9

I don't know what there is to say this week. Things were sort of slow, we had a lot of rain and a tornado warning, almost all of our appointments fell through and we've had a lot of difficulty working with the ward. Yesterday when the bishop asked who knew our names, the only person who raised her hand was one of the women who was just baptized a month ago. Bishop Poulson did encourage the ward to get to know us and start inviting people, so hopefully finding and teaching will be much more effective in the next transfer. 

I don't really have any special stories this week. We were going to a house when a guy came out and told us that his son-in-law whom we were going to visit wasn't interested and that we should just leave. He told us that they were Evangelical Christians and don't care about Mormonism. (His son-in-law, J---, has expressed interest, so of course we'll try again sometime.) After rather rudely telling us never to come back,  he told us he hopes that we get to heaven. It takes two to contend, so we left and hope that someday he finds a reason to be a bit more polite. I had never thought about it before, but I guess the easiest way to tell how badly somebody needs the Gospel is by how rudely they respond to you. It's a shame those people never let us say anything. 

I guess I lied. I just thought of another story. One night all of our appointments had been canceled and we still had to finish up some studying/update our area book, so we headed back toward home and on the way saw two women who were struggling to move mattresses and other large objects onto a truck. Of course, we offered to help. We worked with them until about 10:00 (with permission from the mission president of course) and during that time learned a lot about their own religious backgrounds. One was born and raised Catholic and had an impressive knowledge of Christian history and Catholic teachings and the other was a convert from Christianity to Islam. About the only way we could get any talking about our beliefs was to ask them about theirs and then talk about similarities and differences. Many of their beliefs were depressing. Especially the Muslim view of God not being the father of anybody because "He's not human." I wish she had been more willing to listen to us, but I'm sure she'll have other chances. 

When we finished moving everything, the Catholic woman, Penny, told us that she feels if more people knew that missionaries serve so much, they wouldn't be so afraid of us. I took that as a testimony of the story of Ammon and his approach to missionary work from the mouth of someone who had probably never heard of him. Everybody knows the Gospel, they just don't know that they know it. 

We have a busy day ahead of us today. Our phone decided to stop working yesterday. It's the only phone we have and all of our investigator, member, and other missionary contacts are in there. We are just a little bit crippled without it. Maybe President Brown will get us an iPhone. 

I am doing well. I've almost finished my first transfer and still feel like I just got here. Everything moves so quickly! I know I've said that before, but it's true and bears repeating. 

For now, I have food to buy and recreation to do. More next week. 

Elder Dickson