Dropped, New Family, Funny Thoughts, Bus Ride, and Double Baptism: May 29, 2013

Hey Family and Friends,

This was a week of many tales that I will tell you. It was full of laughter, horror, and misrepresentation. The first thing to report is that we have been dropped by an investigator Elder Moon found named Judy. She was a nice lady but all of a sudden she texted us (in all caps) that she is NO LONGER INTERESTED IN LEARNING, so that was totally lame. One annoying detail is that we weren’t sure it was her at first because her friends (actually, the people who use her) steal her phone a lot.  So there was a possibility it was one of them texting us.  That same day, we taught an investigator named Tommy Mizell with B. Franke. We discussed the law of tithing.  Tommy thought  the prophet and apostles got paid lots of money and that the prophet lives in a mansion. It was hilarious explaining how untrue that misconception is. We also got taken out to dinner by the Herricks. We were going to have a picnic, but ended up going to an Italian place instead. One of the kids spilled his drink on the table, then started splashing it, and the punch line was him licking his hands. After dinner we went to see this lady named Jennifer who was referred to us by her aunt. She had a lot of questions for us and the coolest thing was that she expressed an emptiness she felt in her current church and was looking for a good belief system to raise up her children in. It was a cool experience and we mainly taught the Restoration which answered a lot of her questions.  Interestingly, she kind of got stuck on the idea of a living prophet and the Book of Mormon. We’ll work on it.

The next day, we went to a less active’s house – they had a lovebird named Olive. And  it pooped on my shirt since it liked me the most. Funny. We also had a table time with our district leader which is Elder Hillock and my former comp, Elder Mathias, to sort out some problems with unity in the district since we are very separated from the district leader.

Other main good points of the week included a blessing I gave to a member, Jo Romaro, who was struggling with breathing and it helped her out. We are teaching this guy named Arturo who is a Spanish guy who speaks very good English. He has told us that he realizes that we are ministers of Christ but he just needs to commit more to reading and going to church. He is a really nice guy but it seems like he has the world on his shoulders. We'll help him out.

We had a lesson with William and he has a baptismal date set for the 15th of June and he has said that he is 98% sure about getting baptized and he is just so interested now. He loves how Alma describes the Atonement of Jesus – he thinks it is very poetic.  William loves talking about Christ. We also were able to get him to church for the first time and he liked it a lot. He was as dressed up as we are so I was very surprised. Funny thing was in Gospel Principles we talked a lot about baptism. I think by now he should get the picture. Finally, we took a bus ride to do Walk and Talk instead of just hanging out on the sidewalk.  During that, I talked to a less active member turned Mennonite and Elder Moon bashed with this atheist in a wheelchair.  The atheist was arguing that Joseph Smith was crazy. Elder Moon won in the end, but a Pentecostal woman came over to help him out. We also found out that two baptisms happened last Saturday and Sunday for some past investigators I helped teach:  Junior and S. Hardy’s dad. I wasn't able to go (I wanted to, but didn't get permission), but I will get pictures. We just have ups and downs.   

On Memorial Day we made a Philippino meal called Lumpia which is like an egg roll with pork in it. Really interesting. Elder Quiambao is close to leaving so he is trying to raise money.  He returned a knife sharpener he had bought and is trying to sell an outback gift card ($25 on it) for $30. It was really funny and B. Franke was calling him out for it and saying, “Elder Quiambao. you would sell the leftover bones of your meal to a Chinese restaurant.”  Really funny!

Well, love you all and have fun!

Elder McClure

 

 

Massive Explosion, Fall Thru Days, Spectacular Days, Sick, Crazy People, Funny Nonsense: May 20, 2013

Hello People,

Week full of ups and downs.  It is pretty fun learning all walks of life. On Monday, after I had emailed last, we went with our Ward Mission Leader to a member’s house and our WML’s friend shot an explosive target – it was really loud and made a shock wave as well. Don’t worry, we were a considerable distance away.

 

We had fun teaching a couple of people this week. One of them is Judy who is old, kind of crippled and is getting used by this guy named Eric. We had some lessons with her. We read 1 Nephi and also taught her half of the Plan of Salvation. She just kept going off on this JW that won’t leave her alone. The JW’s way of teaching is going off on other topics during lessons, such as trying to describe the Bible according to Greek and Hebrew understanding. It was really interesting to hear about.

 

We taught William Ingram twice about the Restoration to clear up any misconceptions.  We also taught him the first half of the Plan of Salvation with Bro. Franke there. We went into considerable detail about the Atonement and how Jesus died for us. That was really nice. The funny thing was as we were outside talking to Bro. Franke this lady came up and tried to steal him away by inviting him to her church thinking we were talking to him off the street. Really funny.

 

We taught another lesson to the Huffman kids which was hectic as usual. Gave them a scripture chart and taught them how to read the scriptures to strengthen their testimonies. They were just so hyper and were throwing this dog-abused dragon toy and its wet diaper at me. It was horrid. We played golf afterward to have a fun thing to do with them. I got a bogie on the hard shot, too, so I felt happy about myself.

 

We also taught this lady, Joyce, who was really interested and just an awesome lady.

So we had some cool spiritual experiences this week. We usually see this LA guy named Jim Barnes.  We went to see him and it just wasn’t as effective as we’re used to.  So, I said “Who else can we see?”  The first person we decided to contact was Bro. Eshbaugh because he hadn’t met us yet.  We introduced ourselves and talked with him. He was having problems connected to a time that he received a revelation for something, but it didn’t happen. But he is trying to come back to church, which is a good sign and I felt like our discussion helped out majorly. The second person we contacted was Sis. Howdyshell who had recently been in a car accident.  We didnt know about the accident and we found that she was also suffering from depression so we gave her a blessing and tried to make it better. It felt good to contact and help out those LA people.

I was pretty sick this week with aches and temperature problems so I was bed-bound for a night and then just felt weak the rest of the week. It wasn’t fun.  But, good news, I found out how to wiggle my ears.

 

At the end of the week, we went all the way out in the middle of nowhere in our area to see these people, but they had moved.  We tried visiting some less active people.  We saw this old lady and her dog Winston.  The lady has hearing problems so we would ask, “How was your day?” And she would respond, "My leg? My leg is okay." We asked, “Do you need help around your house?"  She answered, “I can’t remember where I got him. I forgot” (talking about the dog). I was just petting the one eyed pug Winston saying in an old lady voice "Winston, Winston!!" She couldn’t hear and Elder Moon said things too and she couldn’t hear him either.

 

One more cool experience:  we were going to a member’s house for dinner and the car made a funny noise so we got out to check and this guy stopped to ask if we were Elders.  He said he wanted some literature, so that was really cool talking to a guy put into our hands by the Lord. The member dinner was really funny because the youngest kid of the family would sing these songs they are doing for graduating preschool and ended by singing the last half of the song in a Joker Dark Knight voice.

 

Well, loves to the family and friends!

Elder McClure

 

 

Clergy, Blessings, Strange Tracting and Woodgrill, Drunk Encounter, YW Dinner and Walk 'n Talk: May 13, 2013

Hey Family and Friends,

This week has been an interesting week full of fun and excitement. It all started on Monday after emailing and stuff where we all went to the hospital to get our clergy passes to go inside. It was really cool. We just got our pictures taken and our ministerial certificates shown plus the lady went on and on about a spread of infection that should be treated very carefully when we visit a patient who has one. We also played the slug bug game during the day but when we play it, after we get hit we have to scream as if justice has been violated.

Tuesday was just apartment deep clean day and we got taken out by Sister Briggs to a small buffet place which was really good. It’s in the Harrisonburg mall so it’s really weird walking through a mall and seeing society again.  The last time we did anything like that was in Lawrenceville. We ended the day by chatting with a member, Sister Fuller.  She has notions about the relationship between our church and the Pentecost.  The ancient church wasn’t called Pentecostal, but in a way some of their beliefs are like ours.

Wednesday: the main thing we did was go to members’ houses to give them blessings. I gave two, one to B. Hartman and one to B. Franke and they really enjoyed them a lot. It’s great having the priesthood and being able to bless lives. We then had dinner with the Herricks and the kids were really funny. I would just look at their little girl and she would start laughing (the added funny faces probably kicked it.) We tried to see less active members that day, as well. 

Thursday: I wanted to be funny for district meeting so I put on this old yellow coat that was in the closet over my suit and walked into district meeting with it on. It was really funny. I gave a training about the doctrine of Christ.  I took each principle and related each one to how the investigators are blessed or the fruit they receive from living that principle. Then I related their blessings to the ones the missionaries receive to bless them in their work. I blew some minds that day and ended that the doctrine of Christ was the Atonement. It was good. After that, we walked to Wendy’s and while our district leader and his comp walked ahead, we tracted some to help Elder Burbank get some rest for his arms on the crutches. We actually found someone interested from our first door – they said we could come back. Too bad it will be the Harrisonburg 2nd Elders that get to see him. After that, we tracted some random neighborhoods and found some interested people. One guy told us, "My religion is love, ties are good, and keep on trucking."  We think he was high. This other guy in Keezeltown told us he was a Satanist.  His hair was dyed on the tips and his eyes were weird and wide open the whole time. We ate at a really nice restaurant named the Woodgrill with the Butlers. It was so good!

Friday:  We talked to a drunk guy whose name was Ken. Shirtless and fat, he told us he was a pagan from being in a biker gang and asked repeatedly if we could help him with figuring out a handshake involved with satanism.  Like we could help.  A Progressive insurance car drove by and he got nervous and thought it was the cops. The funniest quote from him was: "I always have god with me because I have my dog and dog is god spelt backwards." Then his friend Bubba, white skinny guy, came down the stairs and fell flat on his butt on the last step. Elder Moon talked to him and told him he was drunk. Bubba said he wasn’t drunk but that he was drinking.  Whoo!  We also went to a Young Women spaghetti dinner where they had a silent auction and I bid on a pair of sunglasses. Then the auction turned into a real auction (with someone auctioning stuff aloud) since not enough funds were raised from the silent auction. 

Saturday:  we helped clean the church, did walk 'n talk which we followed the direction of a helicopter seed, and went into a store which sold all these party costumes and flags.  I got a stars and bars flag. During the following of the seed though, we met a JW who was nice but didn’t believe in the laying on of hands and she told us how one becomes one of the 144,000 which was just somehow knowing that you’re one of the 144,000.  She tried to explain it by comparing it to knowing the color blue. Weird. We also talked to a lady named Katrina who was interested and a couple of atheist college kids. We also hung out with the Spanish-speaking Elders during dinner and I made a Jello cake for Sister Franke because they told us that we were their children. We found Elder Burbank’s camera in our apartment so I took some hostage photos of it

Sunday: just church.  We asked people to do splits with us. We did Skype with our families for Mother’s Day, which was awesome. Elder Quiambao spoke to his family in Tagalog which was very entertaining. It’s such a cool language.

Well enjoy the week’s update and meboti meboti (good good).  Love you all,

Elder McClure

Mennonite food, Kyoto, Last Interview, Interfaith Conference, JMU Graduation, and Basketball: May 6, 2013

Hi Family,

A little about my new area:  Harrisonburg is kind of like Waynesboro except there is a lot more housing and the ward is smaller because it’s been split. The area is very pretty and the mountains are always in sight, so another reminder of Idaho. My area is half of Harrisonburg (mostly the James Madison University campus), Elkton, and Broadway. We don’t have a whole lot of investigators but we are in touch with a guy named William Ingram who ordered a Book of Mormon online. He has read to the part about Lehi’s Dream. Two other investigators are the children of a convert.  Their names are Madison and Matthew Huffman. They are having issues because parents got divorced and now when they are with their dad they hear about the gospel and when they are with the mom she is trying to get them to second guess what they learn and how they feel about the gospel.

 

My comps are Elder Moon and Elder Quiambao. Elder Moon is from Utah and Elder Quiambao is from Washington but originally from the Philippines so he knows and speaks Tagalog. So, mybotee (that means “good” in Tagalog)!! 

 

This week was a weird blast. Last Monday we bought a lot of food from a place called Sharp Shopper which is a cheap Mennonite market where there is a lot of variety for dirt cheap. So we bought a lot of food.  Later, our discovery was that most of it was expired or about to expire. Elder Quiambao was not happy about that. But, Tuesday really made up for getting gypped at the Sharp Shopper.

 

Tuesday: we had our last interviews with President Perry. The church was locked and the locks had been changed so our district just had our meetings on a bench outside. Like Joseph Smith in a way. So President Perry had good things to say about me.  He said he considered me a service missionary because I can fill any role he gives me such as leadership or building up an area.  (He told Elder Quiambao that I am a good leader but can also be a follower). I got a picture with President Perry and I gave him one of my original ties (the green one with silver stripes because I wore it to my first interview with him and he really liked it). He liked it a lot.  We had to wait a while to see which missionaries we were taking back to Harrisonburg. We took the Franklin Elders back and one of them, Elder Dolby, was joking around about the women in Harrisonburg. Franklin is the outcast area in the mission but they do good work up there.

 

Wednesday was slow, but then the Huffmans took us to a place called Kyoto, which is a Japanese grill where they prep the food in front of you. They urged us to get Filet Minon (expensive, tasty, delicious steak). The tricks the chef did were good too and my favorite is that he spun an egg and juggled it on the spatula and then broke it on the spatula.

 

On Thursday we went to an interfaith conference where many other faiths come and have lunch together. Our church was hosting and so our trio split up between tables. All they asked me at my table was about being a missionary and if it’s mandatory and how long we serve. It was interesting.  Our stake Patriarch gave a presentation on the Restoration from a logical college class point of view. Not very many people asked questions but at least now they know stuff about the Restoration. That night we had a lesson with B. Huffman’s kids, Madision and Matthew. B. Huffman is a convert and is divorced from his inactive wife. So the mom of the kids is trying to get them to second guess getting baptized.  Madison tore her Achilles tendon two months ago, right before her scheduled baptism, which wasn’t good either. We did the Restoration cup lesson and afterward we played some golf on the golf course behind us. Matthew hit me in the head with a club, I think because I was going to hit his ball. Whatever. We lost a couple balls that night but it was fun.

 

On Friday, it was Graduation for JMU so a lot of parties were going on. A lot of traffic, too. Bummer on graduation night, there were no really crazy parties to see but that’s a good thing. I just wanted to see a frat party, but from a distance. We also set up a couple of times to play basketball with these potentials but they ditched us both times. The first time we waited and I was so bored I asked two kids about 5 and 9 if they wanted to play two on two. So Elder Moon and I played with them. My team mate would just grab the ball and travel and try to shoot. The second time they ditched us these college kids came up and played 4 on 4 with Elder Moon, Murdock, Trammel and Dolby. They got schooled and said a bunch of curse words. The guy who swore the most was Methodist. It was interesting. I also saw a guy climb a pole, so challenge accepted. I have been doing a set workout from the workout book I got for Christmas.  I do the workout 4 days out of a week and I do Tae-Kwon-Do on the off days.  So, I’m pretty boss right now.

 

On Saturday night we went to a BBQ and played soccer with some kids and stood really still by some hummingbird feeders and they flew around me. It was crazy. The soccer didnt help for fast Sunday because I was really hungry, but I got through it all right. Be blessed, my family and I will get pictures to you soon.

 

Love,

Elder McClure