Elder Parrot 4/23/2018

 Alright, last night I had a realization. I am a parrot. There has not been a time where I'll explain something, without having to repeat myself. It's quite the experience. The good news is, we saw some success that week, and that lifts one's spirit immensely. We had a service opportunity finally pop up. A lady called us and asked if we'd be able to come help at a community meal thing on Saturday. We were pumped for that, so Saturday morning we walked to this Church, and put on our hairnets and gloves, and started taking orders. Before it started, I explained to Elder Chan what we were going to do. There were 2 options to choose from, we just had to ask the people which one they wanted, then go get it from the kitchen. These choices were soup, or ziti. After reviewing this process 4 times, I just told Elder Chan to follow me and see what I do, then try it at another table. He eventually caught on. We successfully took orders for about 67 people, and got them fed and happy. Then we had to clean the place up. This Church uses all nice dishes, and metal utensils. So it's a LOT of dishes. We have to bring them in, scrape them off, and stack them so they can be grabbed and dropped into the sink. We fill big tupperware things with dishes, then bring the pile in to be scraped. I was standing next to the garbage can, scraping a stack of like 15 bowls, and I assumed Elder Chan would be out collecting more dishes, as there were plenty to be brought into the kitchen. After about 2 minutes of scraping, I turn to go out and grab more, and Elder Chan was standing there, with his arm out, holding a single bowl for me to scrape. He'd been there since I started.... Hadn't said a word or tried to get my attention. Soooooo that was another test of my ability to be patient and Christlike.... I hope I'm passing these tests, but considering the number I've had, maybe I'm missin something....

     Saturday was our most productive day I've seen since being with Elder Chan. Pretty much all we've had to do is tract. We have to LA's we work with, one RC, and one Eternagator (someone who will meet with you, but doesn't progress.) So our days have been very slow. But Saturday night was miraculous. We were tracting a block away from our house, on a street called Crocker. This is a great place, bc it's right behind our house, and it's been nearly 3 weeks since the last murder on the street. Mom don't read this next part. True story... A guy shot his girlfriend in the face on Easter Sunday. Within 100 yards of our house. Good thing we were at Justin's watching conference. But with that murder, and the other one that happened this week, that makes 4 murders within the last transfer, all within 2 miles of our lovely apartment... Someone also shot their friend in the leg about a week ago, but the dude's ok and they're probably still friends, so that's good. Anyways, we were tracting, and there was a group of people outside, so I asked Elder Chan if he wanted to OYM them, and he said nothing, so I started talking to them, and they were awfully nice, and then 2 girls, 8 years old and 12, ran up to us and said "Are you guys the new Elder Moklebust and Beers? I'm finally 8 and I can get baptized in your church! And Aleisha wants to too!" That was a shock, but they were super nice and it turns out it was their dad who we OYMed, they took a BoM, our phone number, and told us to come by this week. So that was awesome. Then, as we kept tracting, we knocked on a door and the lady said she wasn't interested, so I asked "who do you know that is interested in a message about Christ." She immediately directed us to her neighbor across the street, whose husband passed away 2 weeks before. We went over there and she was hesitant at first, as she opened the door she said "are you guys, uhhhhh...." and couldn't think of the word, so I said "Jehovah's?" and she said "oh yeah, goodbye." But I was like oh just you wait, we ain't those darn JDubs, we're Mormons lady. (not an exact quote) She said "ohh my Brother in Law is a Mormon, come in!" We went in and had a great lesson about the PoS, and the BoM. She set up a return appointment for this Wednesday, and wants to learn more. So that was great. First new real gator in about 5 weeks.

    I don't remember what day it was, but another night we were tracting, and the first door was a very nice guy named Augustine, who said he was busy, but any weeknight after 6 would be a good time to come talk. The next door turned out to be the Rectory for the Church we do service at, so it was kind of an awkward run in with the Pastor Lady, but she was nice. The next door.... Oh boy, the next door almost ended up being kicked in. You see, the last 6 weeks have been rough, and I've been practicing handling other missionary's struggles, but that has greatly reduced my ability to take crap from strangers. So this encounter stretched me to my limits. We knocked on the door, and a lady answered, she seemed nice, and said "just a second", then walked back into the house. We waited for a minute, then she walked back. She was holding her phone up like someone filming a fight in the hood, so I figured she was maybe filming it, for whatever reason. I started to introduce us, then she very obnoxiously started taking pictures, with the volume up so it was clear that was what was happening. She cut me off and said "I'm ppsting you guys on my Atheist page, fu@#$%s" then laughed and slammed the door. I don't know why, but that made me so mad. If I wasn't a missionary, I probably would have opened the door, walked in, and given her a piece of my mind. (probably not but I wish) I thought people yelling swear words at us was the worst, and I don't even mind that. I played 10 seasons of football, I'm more than used to colorful words being thrown my way, and I think it's hilarious. But when this Atheist cat lady with Guy Fieri's hair style decided to snap pics and post us up in the good 'ol Internets, I was peeved. But I tried to just laugh it off, and kept on knockin. The next house was a very nice lady, who was obviously busy, but invited us back on Tuesday. Her house was the last on the street, so we started walking down the main road, and there were about 5 houses, but for some reason (Jesus) I felt that we should walk past those and start tracting the next street. We walked past them, and headed up the street. which looked super empty, somewhat sketchy, and had only 4 houses. I thought it was gonna be a waste of time, after we realized the first house had a sign that said "Condemned" and the windows were shattered and it was all overgrown. The next house had Bernie Sanders signs, and a bunch random liberal political statements, so we knocked, and the punk didn't even turn down CNN, just looked over at us through the window, and kept on watching. So we walked down the porch, and saw a lady and guy in the street, they were walking away from us, but she turned around and yelled "Mormons?", I said yes, and she ran over and said "no way, we love you guys. Come talk to my Grandma." We went in and met Leela, an awesome lady from Guiana. She moved here from Brooklyn about three years ago, and hasn't seen missionaries since. Apparently they used to have the missionaries over twice a week, and they love lessons and church and feeding us. She invited us over on Wednesday for dinner and a lesson, and we will be joined by 3 other family members who all love the missionaries. So that's a wonderful thing to have happen. We were finally blessed. 

     Sunday was eventful, we got a new bishopric. Bro Leiter, who's awesome, is now bishop. Bro Schmidt, who drives us to basketball sometimes, has awesome kids give me high fives every time they see me (in exchange for a treat), and they had us over for a lesson and gave us cookies last week, is the first counselor. And Bro Magelby, the best Gospel Principles teacher in the mission, is third counselor. Luckily he said he was going to use his newfound influence in callings, to keep him as the teacher there. That's a blessing. I'm excited to see how that goes. The Leiter's are feeding us tonight, so Chan and I will be the first missionaries to ever eat with Bishop Leiter. That's history right there. 

     I can't think of anything else exciting from this week. It was great to finally see some success. If you get a chance, pray that that Atheist lady's post goes viral, because I was wearing my dope wooden tie, and was having a great hair day.

LOVE YOU ALL. PEACE OUT BRUHS