Fall Thru Appointments, Awesome Lady, Service, and Fun District Training: September 23, 2013

Hello those who rely on the correspondence I give,

Crazy week in Farmville. We had a couple of appointments last week that we were pretty pumped up for but they fell through due to weird circumstances. We had an appointment at a college apartment to teach some guys: Alex, Ryan, and some other guy.  It fell through, which was really disappointing. We had an appointment with Henry and he wasn't there. Between the appointment with the college guys and Henry, all the appointments we had set up the week before fell through.  We got into this cycle of playing stalker and going by our investigators’ places a couple of times to see how they were doing. One investigator named Shirley was also hard to pin down but she kept the appointment with us and it was a really good lesson.  As we taught her about the Restoration she said, “Why doesn’t everyone know about this?  Why are people still in the dark?”  She told us that she had wanted to be rebaptized into her old church - she was baptized into a church as a little girl, but when she was 30 years old she felt herself more committed to Christ and wanted to be rebaptized as a way to show this, but they wouldn't let her get rebaptized. We told her she can be baptized, but she would first have to come to know that the gospel we preach is true and then join the church after that knowledge. She’s a really nice lady.

On Wednesday we had district meeting in Farmville so everyone in the zone came up to our chapel to enjoy the fun there. I gave a training on commitments. After I trained on it, everyone was bored or quiet so we did a funny role play of having to commit your partner to do something like: "Will you adopt 300 cats? Will you wear your shirt inside out?” or “Will you make a blanket out of bacon?" Then we committed each other to baptism and practiced explaining why this was a big change and why it was important. Later that night we were with the young men for mutual and they were being taught how to cook with a microwave. I even ate some microwave cooked bacon. It was okay.

We had a big service day on Thursday.  We went to the food pantry twice to volunteer – we fill up bags with food that needy people can take home.  After working at the food pantry, we burned scrap wood at a member’s house, then put away books at the library and stuff like that. It was pretty entertaining for us and time consuming.

 On Friday we brought the Chappels with use to teach another lesson to Shirley to go over what we had just talked about the last time.  We got more questions out of her, which was good. Our other appointments fell through but our branch president came out with us and got us two big containers of ice cream. It was nice and now we have a lot of temptation in the fridge.

 Saturday was a fun/crazy day. We started out serving at the food pantry early in the morning.  On that day, we put the food in a cart then went out with the person to help load it in their car. We met one of the sister missionaries’ investigators named Dakota and she was clinging onto Sister Brunty like a best friend would and it was funny. Dakota called Elder Martineau “Elder Marshmallow” so that’s a funny nickname for him now. While we were pushing carts around there was a young woman that was funny but was also playing the devil’s advocate about our church. Like she was criticizing how we won’t drink coffee by saying, “Well, air is also addictive.” I told her my first name and she said she would call me Brad. She didn't believe that I could juggle so I got a few potatoes and one upped her by juggling them. Everyone was amused that I was juggling and stopped for a second to watch. It was entertaining. We got free strawberries from the food pantry and then went to Richmond so Elder Martineau could fill out a form.  We tried to see people for the rest of the day.

 Sunday was good and we were able to get Henry to church. We visited with him after church and taught him the 10 Commandments.  Between our conversation of each commandment, he would ramble about his childhood and stuff but he is making progress toward geting baptized.

 Love you all!

Elder McClure