Stuck Inside, Miracles, and Forgetful Companion: received November 5, 2012

Hello Family,
This week was interesting and weird. We got stuck inside the Staunton apartment on Monday, thanks to the storm.  That was a little crazy, but we just played games with the Staunton elders all day.

On Tuesday, we thought there would be another inside day but we were wrong. Plus that day it actually snowed really hard. We got everything done in Staunton (email and grocery shopping). We were going to have a lesson with Chelsea but the family was pretty busy dealing with a sick child with the flu and rescheduled with us for Friday (by then half the family was sick and vomiting so not pretty). We had dinner with Brother Bagley and he got me to eat a little bit of a habanero pepper. Burnt my tongue!  We then had a lesson with Joni Campbell and I’m glad Brother Bagley was there. He knows how to help Sister Campbell and get on a personal level. I shared Alma’s conversion story with her as an example that she should pray and believe in Christ. She asked me to give her a blessing to get over the cigarettes. She said she felt a warm feeling afterward. I was happy to do it.

Wednesday:  We reported to our landlord about the leaky ceiling which got worse from the snow and it looked pretty bad. We had a lesson with Mr. Lawhorne and brought B. Rainy to help.  We were able to teach the Plan of Salvation to him. I feel like I teach much better now that I’m the one in charge and talking more. Mr. Lawhorne shared some feedback on what the Seventh Day Adventists believe.  He was very interested in the gospel. I asked him for a baptismal date but he told us he still has to  look into it. We were really glad he was thinking it over. He’s going to be baptized soon, I swear. The rest of the day we went to less actives.  One had threatened to call the cops because he’s in a private community and he told us to go away.  We later found out that if we come by again, he has planned to bring out the shotgun and maybe go to extremes.  Elder Downs was thinking of going back the next day – we won’t be doing that, though! From 5pm to bedtime we had to stay in because of Halloween and so I made a gangster costume out of a shower clock, glasses, VA hat, and a cane. I carved the First Vision into a pumpkin and then tried to update and write a letter. All Elder Downs did was update his journal to Roman numerals for each day. Waste of a Halloween!  J

Thursday:  we had a basic district meeting where Elder Beeton trained on power and authority while Elder Downs trained on less active work.  His lesson only took 5 minutes and was just on basic things out of Preach my Gospel so we ended early and ate lunch. I went on an exchange with Elder Beeton in Staunton which was fun getting to know the area. The records for it are crap - they have next to nothing to work with. So I scheduled a blitz (a bunch of missionaries tract one area that is struggling) and turned it into a zone blitz. Pretty cool. We went to a less active member who has a lot of kids.  One of them tried to put a booger on my face, one laughed crazily at me, and the teenager was just saying weird things.  Plus the newborn kept staring me down. Fun times.  We then taught a lady named Jasmine and it was cool. She is really nice and goes to college so we taught her the gospel in the empty social room of her dorm.  Waynesboro did badly without me since Elder Downs doesn’t know the record system and basically just went back to visit everyone we had visited the day before.

On Friday we helped out with a Bishop’s Storehouse thing where we unload boxes from a truck, lay them out, get order forms and fill out the forms by collecting the items on the list out of the boxes. Very helpful. We taught a new contact:  her name is Teresa Kelly and she is a former member. Our lesson was about the Book of Mormon.  Then I got sized for my suit at the Dennings’ and they fed us.

Saturday:  We basically did our weekly planning, talked with a less active family for 1 hour about things like animals (one of their gerbils blew up from a tumor), had a 4 hour lesson with Jeffrey Cosgrove during which he talked for 3 hours about a number of things and the one hour we answered his questions on the Book of Mormon and other things. He loves to learn and is very interested. He just has a problem with Satan and Jesus being brothers. He thinks maybe Satan wouldn’t have wanted him killed if he knew he would save mankind.

Sunday: no one at church.  We saw a dead kitten when we went to pick up Teresa for church.  Unfortunately, she was sick. We had dinner at 2pm since the husband of that family served a mission in Spain and that was the thing that they do there and he believes it is healthier. We got in early after borrowing a guitar from a member so really cool.

I have to go but love you all,

Elder McClure