WEEK 41 - Nunchucks

Howdy everyone, I hope you had a great week! I love and miss you! So this week on Friday we were supposed to have a baptism for our friend Shanti. Shanti had been coming to church and progressing and she had been loving the lessons so much. She passed her baptismal interview on Tuesday, and we had the whole baptism planned, so the last thing we had to do was fill out her baptismal form with her on Thursday. We got there on Thursday and out of the blue she told us she didn't want to be baptized and that she didn't believe in this message and the only reason she ever wanted to be baptized was her ex boyfriend Keyjun. Judas, this took a literal chunk out of my soul. I felt like I had given everything I had to Shanti and she was just 24 hours away from making this great decision, it was just really really sad. Later that day Elder Yee had to go to the urgent care so I was left alone outside waiting for him to do his thing. I was going through this whole Shanti situation in my mind and pointing out every single little thing I could've done that would have helped Shanti really grow a testimony and make this covenant. After like 15 minutes of mentally assaulting myself I had a feeling that I needed to just "open my eyes." I stopped focusing on this super negative situation and opened my eyes and looked around and noticed an old man who had special needs trying to get a Dr. Pepper at the vending machine. He was trying to buy this $1.50 Dr. Pepper with $1 that the machine wasn't even accepting. I think everyone was watching him fail over and over but no one did anything about it so I got up and bought him that Dr. Pepper. He was super grateful and it was incredibly wholesome. We talked for a second and then I sat back down and all the sudden I just didn't really feel sad about my situation anymore. Whenever you are feeling down, nothing in this world will help you more than ignoring your own pain and serving someone else. That is honestly what a mission is haha. People have this idea that a mission is just going to be so awesome and fun and easy the entire time (my previous mindset) but that is false. It is hard and you have your own struggles and trials everyday. But what decides if you are a good missionary is whether you choose to focus on that pain or ignore it and go help others who are in more pain. So my advice to you if you're sad, or you feel lonely, or you want more friends, or whatever is wrong in your life, go out and serve someone else, it will help and that is an Elder Horsley guarantee. After paying for that guy's soda I sat back down and he went to the snack vending machine and whipped out his card and paid for like three things haha, but I do not regret my decision. When he left he gave me a very delightsome wave and waddled his way out. This guy was dope. I am worried that if I keep having spiritual experiences out here I am gonna come home and they are gonna make me like the ward clerk or something. nooooooooo. Other than Shanti being a bump on a log about baptism, this week was actually very good. My man Brother Bush wouldn't let me leave his home until I read his patriarchal blessing out loud to him and Elder Yee, not once but twice members told me about why and how they are considering getting vasectomies, and a child nearly assaulted another child with a baseball bat when we were teaching them and she said "my cousin don't believe in Jesus." Violence was avoided but it was a close call. Anyways here are some other neat parts of my week: - We had a meal with the Leavitt's this week and gosh darn it I LOVE having meals with the Leavitt's. It is chaos for literally one hour straight and I laugh so hard every time I go over there. They have 4 kids and 3 of them are very wild but one man stands above them all. They have a special needs son named Ezra and Ezra is like my favorite human being I have ever associated with. He is either 8 or 9 and is known for often heckling people while they are speaking in church and just saying incredibly out of pocket things. Like at church today when he asked Brother Ceaser "ummmm Brother Ceaser, why is your skin just so dark?" When we pulled up to their house all 4 of the children immediately started assaulting me and trying to tell me 10 million different things at a time. They asked me to find teenagemutantninjaturtles.org on my phone so we could indulge in some media and I was trying to show them that my phone didn't have that, but they just didn't believe me. I decided to let Elder Yee pitch in and try to help me with these children so I was like "I'm not 100% sure but I think Elder Yee's phone might have access to that" 3 of them immediately stormed over to Elder Yee and demanded that he take him to that website. Ezra stayed with me and requested that we play Duolingo and learn chinese. He kept asking me to play a funny or a sad level and I was like "Ezra pretty much every level is the exact same" and he did not like that so he started threatening to assault me with his teenage mutant ninja turtle nunchucks. Before any hostile behavior occurred the parents were like "dinner is starting!" and we all came to the table and Ezra said the prayer and this was his prayer: "Dear Heavenly Father. Please bless no one will ever make any mistakes ever again. Please bless that everything will be easy. And that our grades can be 500. In the name of Jesus Christ, Kaboom" And then we were all like "amen" and got going with the meal. I'm not sure but that sounded a lot like a certain plan suggested in the pre mortal existence, but idk, it was great prayer. I had children going on journeys under the table and popping up in between my legs at random. I had like 5 conversations going on at once for around 45 minutes and it was intense. Having dinner with them will wipe you but it is genuinely my favorite member meals because I always laugh so much. - Speaking of member meals I have a new training technique for when we go to member meals. I am a big talker and sometimes that makes life too easy for Elder Yee. If you are a missionary you understand that there really isn't an option to be quiet if you want to. I have tried to communicate this to my sweet Elder Yee, but he really does not like talking, especially at member meals. In order to counter this I decided that at member meals I will stop talking and hope that Elder Yee will pipe in with some of his thoughts or something, but it always just stays quiet and my goodness I hate when that happens. So now at every member meal I am like "can I use your bathroom perchance?" and then I go in there and pretend to defecate for like 10 minutes, but in all reality I am usually just sitting in there doing nothing. Elder Yee LOVES it when I do this (that is a joke he hates it so much). But it has actually been helping a ton and he is starting to participate a lot more in member meals so that is cool. That is honestly the strat when training, just giving them no choice other than talking makes them learn how to do it. I used to do this when he really hated talking to people when we knocked on their door. Oh I have such fond memories of this. I would be like "Elder Yee you got this door, you're gonna kill it" and he is like "no you do this one" so I would knock and then literally walk away and watch the fear enter him and he would be like "Elder Horsley come on you can't do that." And I would just walk away and watch as Elder Yee killed that contact even though he was peeved with me. The growth I have seen in Elder Yee is so dope and I know he is gonna do amazing things on my mission. I am gonna spend these last 3 weeks with him well because he is such a dawg. - So ya that is pretty much my week. I am gonna pass away when they move me from this area, I love it so much. Just like how I love all of you so much. I am so lucky to have friends and family like you! Have such an amazing week! P.S. shoutout to Elder Barker for his big win hehehehe Pictures: 1. Great read 2. Tyler Texas 3. Cool picture someone took when we went to the zoo