Brandon
Flowers once sang about how sometimes, the expectations or dreams of
what we had 'when (we) were young' sometimes don't come in the packages
we expect. He sings about how we just wait for that which we want to
come, almost believing it will come without work, and when it finally
happens, it's not necessarily in the same way we always dreamed of it. I
guess what I try to say by this, is sometimes, we want things to work
out perfectly, or for us to get exactly what we want, without
necessarily having to do the work for it; that, or we are so darn keen
on a certain unfolding of events, that we will not except anything else
as the answer or solution.
This week, we
encountered this problem with our investigator, Djone, who is sooooooooo
close to baptism. We'd previously had the goal of this past Saturday,
but due to a smoking problem, it's been pushed back, and we're aiming
hard for this week. Funny enough, in progressing him to baptism, the
main problem hasn't been his smoking, but his strong desire to have a
child and a wife (well, more a woman than a wife, but we're
working on that...). It seems that, no matter what direction we take
lessons with him, they always end up back at his worries that, if he
gets baptized and keeps the Law of Chastity , he'll never find a wife,
or that if he marries a woman, she might not be able to have kids, and
basically, if there's a worry about it, he has it. It feels like every
time we sit down with him, we just repeat to him the same answers, that
Heavenly Father will help him out, if he's willing to keep the
commandments, but in constantly teaching that, I guess it's something
I'm really beginning to learn for myself. When Heavenly Father gives us a
commandments, like living the Law of Chastity, he doesn't do so so that
we won't get to have kids or a wife or things like that, but he does so
that when we follow him and keep his commandments, he can bless us! For
me, it's been both a frustrating and cool experience, in teaching from
such a stand point, because it's really taught me that Heavenly Father
will never let us down, and I know he's not gunna let Djone down. We
just gotta help him get it!
Elder Pettingill
and I did have a good week this week though, and we worked freaking hard
for it! For the first time ever on my mission, we taught 20 lessons
with a member present (because of Danny, our boss member) and it was
pretty darn rad. Something that's getting to be tough about our area
however is the frequency of soccer games, and how many people go to
them. They hold soccer games on Wednesday, Saturday AND Sunday, and
EVERYBODY goes, meaning on those days, our work is a little thin. Elder
Pettingill and I altered up our usual schedule a bit so that we could be
out a little bit more in the morning when people should, in theory, be
home, and take our lunch in the afternoon, when everyone is at the
'jogos'. On Saturday, however, we made the mistake of heading down to
one of the lower zones that is part of our area in the morning, only to
find basically everyone was in the field working, or down at the beach.
That was a rather quiet morning.
As for funny stories this week, leeeeeet me think... hmmmm.
One
thing Elder Pettingill and I have been having fun with is a laser
pointer that was left behind by his last companion. Whether 'having fun'
means messing with kids, cats, the occasional dog, and sometimes a
small spider, it's been rather interesting. We've been able to get a
group of 5 kids SOLID going hard trying to get the dang light. It's been
a good amount of fun for us.
Anyways, that's been my week! Hope y'all had a rad one!
Elder Massey
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