WEEK 27 - Menace

Alright let me tell you quite the tale from this week. So pretty much throughout my mission I have been carrying some sin and it wasn’t really taking that much of a toll on me at the beginning of my mission, but recently it became something that was super difficult for me. I was like dang this sucks and I tried to pray for forgiveness and finally become worthy again, but it just didn’t happen. Anyways it became too much to handle and I decided on Sunday night that I needed to repent. I genuinely thought I was gonna get sent home and it was super scary, but the guilt that I was living in was worse than that. So I thought I was gonna get sent home and instead then they were like “we’re making you a district leader. Also your repented.” And I was like “heavens what.” I was honestly terrified and I felt scared and completely unworthy of this, but I have learned two of the most important lessons of my entire life this week. Number one is that repentance is nothing to be scared about and it is actually a wonderful gift that God has given us. Second is that God uses sinners for his perfect work. Oh my goodness I actually do feel great now. You may be like “dang I wonder why he is saying this, this is like actually embarrassing” but ever since I made that choice to repent I don’t fear that at all. There is like nothing to be scared of anymore and it is so cool. I’ve noticed that everyone under 25 calls these emails and everyone over 25 calls these letters so I hope you thoroughly enjoy this email/letter. Anyways here is my week: - So at the beginning of this week I had the closest thing to a bash I have had on my mission. Me and Elder Cox went to go visit our friend who works in the leasing office of our apartment. We just started chatting and it was normal stuff for like 5 minutes until we brought up church topics. She started talking about how her fiance had never read the Bible and he just thought about it and believed. So the tone of her voice made it sound like it bothered her so much that he hasn’t read the bible. So my boy Elder Cox was like “ah I just don’t understand people who just believe without looking into things at all.” And she let out a sassy “mmph” and said “actually I haven’t read any of the Bible either.” Now her arguments were targeted solely at Elder Cox so I grabbed a water and changed to spectator mode. I forgot exactly what she was saying, but the next topic she had was something about feminism. I don’t think Elder Cox was 100% understanding what this woman was saying because he then said something about gender roles. But overall it wasn’t that good of a place to be and if you can I recommend avoiding conversations like that. - Another funny thing that happened this week was when me and my new companion Elder Brown went to this one dudes house to have a lesson. We got there and he immediately showed us his car and I had to do my normal thing where I pretended that I liked cars, and I was like “ah neat engine” but if I am being truthful I wasn’t that impressed by that engine. Anyways his 5 year old son Kaden comes walking out and this man is a menace. First words this man speaks to us is “why are you guys so white?” And then he jostled his way back inside. I love how in the scriptures it says to become like a child, if I can become like any child I want to be this one. We started giving a lesson on how like Jesus Christ can eliminate fear from our life, and then this menace waltzed his way back outside and told us a story of when he feared. He said that a little while ago he had a white girlfriend and he did not want to tell his parents because they would be super mad. His Dad started to defend himself and say why he wouldn’t have been mad, but before he could justify himself Kaden had fled. Kaden appeared one last time with his most malice intentions yet. He started talking to his Dad and was like “you should tell them about that time Mom tried to kill you with the knife in the kitchen.” And his Dad was like “yes we learned from that and now we love each other and it is better.” And Kaden looks over at us and was like “he had this new girlfriend and Mom did not like that.” And then Kaden retired back to his home. So ya that lesson was super fun and I love that family. - I’m sorry this email was mid I was really fighting the demons telling me to not write an email today. I would love to hear from you today like 3x more than normal, so if you have time I’d love to chat. Thanks to whoever read this, I love you guys so much! - Here is my google photos, I don’t think I’ll be able to attach pictures while I am in this new area, so if you want to see them I’d love to have you on the google photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qwGY1QhS99ne5wGy8