WEEK 31 - Firearms

Ahhh ni hao all of my loved ones, I miss you all so much and I hope you are doing splendid wherever you are. My mission has been pretty neat and I am so thankful for it. My spiritual thought this week comes from literally my favorite activity ever, which is doing baptismal interviews. This week I got to interview a fella named Dominick. Dominick is a big theater guy and does a lot of plays and stuff like that. I don’t think he was super sure about me at first and then one time I told him that I saw the play Wicked and now me and him are as tight as two people can be. So me and him met this Wednesday to do his baptismal interview. We started by talking about plays for a considerable portion of time, and then we did the baptismal interview. He passed with flying colors and then asked if I could be the first person he bore his full testimony to. I obviously said yes and then 45 minutes later he finished and I was beyond inspired. Dominick has had some super hard stuff in his life (very common trend around these parts) and he told me how at one point he felt completely abandoned by God and lost all belief in Him. He told me how he started to distance himself from God and Jesus Christ because he wanted nothing to do with these people he felt he was betrayed by. He decided to move from Tyler and go somewhere else. He went to a more northern part of Texas and he loved it up there, and one day he was like “hm I need to go back to Tyler for a second, I have some unfinished business.” And can you guess what happened? The night he came back to a place he didn’t want to be anymore, he ran into the missionaries. At first he wanted to kinda just troll them and not really take in their message. Plot twist, the message is too powerful and now he is getting baptized. I loved Dominick’s testimony so much because he had been knocked down over and over and he still was able to get back up because of Jesus Christ and now his life and eternity is gonna forever be different. God gives us hard things to grow and that is now abundantly clear to me out here, I invite you all to consider why you have been given the hard things in your life because it will honestly help. For those who skipped that let me give it to you in Hogwarts terms. Sometimes the dang whomping willows of life will just knock you down and make you feel like a pathetic little mudblood, but the headmaster knows exactly what he is doing. That is why they planted the dang whomping willow, so you could learn to get back up when it knocks you down. That may or may not be accurate to what happens in the books I am not sure, but the message is flawless at its core. Idk here is my week: - So the city I am serving in right now (Tyler) is pretty dope but if I get shot I wouldn’t be like insanely surprised. This place isn’t that shady honestly, just like most houses have doormats that say something like “knock on this door and I’ll open with the second amendment” or “ warning this home is protected by God and gun. Trespass and you might meet both.” I just know one of these times I am just gonna waltz my way up to a door and knock without looking at the doormat and be like “Hi we are the missionari…” and just *BANG* be shot and killed right then and there. But it’s ok I have the Spirit with me so do not worry Mother I will likely survive. To give you an idea of the people I am dealing with, let me tell you about Micheal. About 2 weeks ago we ended up in this guy Micheal’s house who we are teaching and he took about 30 minutes explaining to us his pure hatred towards the fish and game cops. And literally in the middle of the 3rd story about the fish and game cops he was like “ooh want to hear something interesting” and I was like “well of course” and he was like “there are multiple legal and illegal firearms underneath those cushions your sitting on” and I was like “ah neat” and then he said “if anyone is ever giving you trouble lure them over here and knock on my door and I will take them to the next life” So Micheal is a pretty average citizen where I am located. I haven’t met anyone yet who doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ, so lots of people don’t really like us because they don’t like what our church teaches (truth). But ya if they don’t like us they are welcome to have a word with Micheal. I am learning how to pierce the hearts of these people, because it hasn’t been super easy getting people interested in the gospel. They are pretty interested though and want to be my friend the moment I say something negative about California or talk about BBQ and I am literally not even kidding. If you ever find yourself in Tyler Texas that is the way to the peoples hearts. - I met some wonderful people this week. I think my favorite person that I met was Richard. We were walking around at this super suspect apartment complex at night where drug activity is customary. I saw this one dude walking over to the dumpster, so naturally I went up to this fella to get to know him a little. He said his name is Richard and he just finished a 20 year prison sentence. He then enlightened us about how dealing crack isn’t the move if you want to maintain good relationships with your friends. Noted. And then he started talking about how the devil is working super hard on him since he got out of prison. Richard was quite drunk so I think he said a little more than he was hoping to. I truly wish I could write what he said, but I just can’t. He was explaining how the devil has been working on him through intense lust and alcohol desires. He was absolutely downing a beer this whole conversation and I guess that is proof that the devil is working on him. But with the lust side? I don’t think I can elaborate to much, but let me tell ya, the devil is not quite winning with Richard. He is throwing Richard all he has but Richard gave me some shady advice and I was appreciative of the effort Richard put into this conversation. I love Richard so much, I think we are getting close to the level of friendship where I can call him Dick, but not quite yet. That is one of the best parts of the mission is just meeting these cool people that just don’t exist in Draper Utah. We are going back to Richard again this week and I am sure it’s gonna be wild, so prayers up for Richard. - Welp I do love you all so much. Word on the street is that the youth are getting their mission calls and that is great. If you did I would love to hear where you're going and good luck! I miss you all a lot and I’d love to hear from you! Have a great week! - Join the google photos for a tight knit community: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qwGY1QhS99ne5wGy8