Week 95

(Read this in a slow, deep almost gravely voice)

April 26, 2012.  I awoke with a shiver, as the temperature had plummeted to below 60 degree's during the night.  We could almost see our breath, but not really.  I looked at the clock, and with dread realized that I had a mere 2 minutes left for sleep.  We would be arising at 6:00 to exercise longer.  We noted the dark clouds rolling in, and I didn't at that time realize that these clouds were a dismal prediction of the upcoming afternoon.  After our studies, and weekly planning, we had lunch.  More rice... good, I love rice. No, that's right, I don't, but I eat it every day for almost every meal anyway.  After Lunch we headed to Crestview to offer to bless peoples homes.  It started off pretty nice, a young boy named Hayden rode his bike to us and gave us each a juice pouch.  How I love my juice pouches! Went downhill from there. 

 

   "Hello sir! how are you today?" I ask

   "What's your first name!" came the quick and harsh response

   "Ryan" States my companion.

   "And you? Whats YOUR first name?" I had long ago decided that when people demand that information from me, that I would not give it to them.

   "I go by Elder Martin." I said as I pointed at my tag.

   "Oh, you have a tag that says it... sorry.  You Mormons?"

   "Yes Sir." He didn't much like that. 

   "Well I sincerely hope that you can come to know the lie that you are living, and embrace the truth! I will pray for you."

    "Actually, that's exactly why we are here, we wanted to know if we could pray with you and bless your home."

    "That would be as pointless as my wall praying." Wow, that was rude, and not even clever. "You don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God."

    "Well actually, that is all we preach! we know that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and the Son of God, it is the fundamental teaching of our church."

    "No, I once read some literature that said you don't beleive that he is the son of God."

    "Well, we are the official representatives of what we believe, and we are here to tell you that the literature was false, and that we do believe that Jesus Chris is the Son of God."

 

What I wish I would have said was "Yesterday I read an article that said every person in Arizona worships the Sun god, we are here to tell you to stop worshipping the sun god." and maybe he could see how ridiculous it is to believe literature.

   

 

Thus it began.  Every single home, every single person the rest of the day we talked to.  I love days like that! Honestly, I really do.  I prefer people to be interested, but if not, then I enjoy the angry ones.  I got a little frustrated at one home though, I don't like when people bad mouth Joseph Smith very much.  We were talking to this naked dude (he had a towel on) and he kept saying how horrible our church was, and the leaders.  Then he said

 

  "Now, its not you guys that are bad, you are just tricked.  It's Joseph Smith that's bad.  I wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now." I got a little bit sarcastic

  "Yeah, living in the presence of God, that must be a tough gig!"

 

He didn't like that, and promply closed the door.  Ah, I have yet to require the appropriate mouth filters that are needed as a missionary.

 

I couldn't believe how many people on that road were the same way! most just slammed the door... we dont' often get slams, just slow closes.  So that was fun.  I love being a missionary! (No sarcasm, I seriously love this stuff!)

 

So Eddie asked me to baptize him, I'm pretty excited about that.  When I first met Eddie, I thought he had no interest or desire whatsoever.  He has completely changed, I'm excited for him.  He's 14, and not many 14 year olds care... in fact that is where he started.  "Have you ever wondered about God, or why you are here on earth? or about anything like that?"  "No, I just play video games".  Awesome... this is going to be good.  Turns out, it WAS good!

 

Well, that's all for this week...

 

Elder Martin