The One Where Things Picked Up

November 11, 2012

Ya’ll, I have had an awesome week. Like, an awesome week. We were busy, and we pounded pavement. We taught powerfully.  We found new investigators and people started to DO stuff. It was a great week.

I wanted to write and tell ya’ll about J.  J is a member of our English class. (Have I told you that we teach English classes?)  He is a really cool guy.  He is in his 40's and lives here alone. He has a wife and two girls in Mexico. He is so respectful and kind. I just love J.  One of the things that I love about J is that he DOES stuff. As a missionary, you teach a lot, but sometimes people don’t really enjoy acting on the things that you are teaching them. For example, we will be like: "Will you read this pamphlet before we come over in 3 days?" and people will say, "Sure! Yeah!"  Then we go over 3 days later and we ask:  "How did you like that pamphlet?" They are like, "Oh, . . . well, I was really busy and I didn’t have time to read it."  So, what you are telling me is that this 5"x 7", 5 page long pamphlet, that has pictures and a large font, that you could literally read through in 6 minutes, was too much?  You really need to loosen up your schedule. . . . It really isn’t that difficult. (Sorry, rant over.)

So, that is what usually happens when we teach people. But THEN we met J. We gave J all the pamphlets at once (unorthodox, I know) and the next time we saw him, he had read all of them. We were like, "J, what!? You read all the pamphlets!?"  He said: "Well....yeah...? They are really small." Why can’t everyone have that attitude? They ARE really small J! You are absolutely correct! In addition to reading things he has come to every activity, church, the temple and a baptism. He is the best! And get this, we have never even really taught J, yet.  We have had a couple short lessons with him, but mostly he is just ridiculously prepared and willing to do anything without us even teaching him. I just really love J.  

That is just the tip of the iceberg with the good things happening here is Waller.  

Hna Hosking and I have been walking a lot and that gives us a lot of time to talk. We talk about a lot of things, but this week we were talking about what we are doing here as missionaries. What our expectations were and how things have panned out. We talked about how grateful we are to be missionaries. We spend all day, every day, talking to people about Jesus Christ. We meet the weirdest, most unique, and coolest people every. single. day.  We have spent hours sitting and helping people cope with things that we have no experience in. We get chased by all sorts of animals. People buy us random stuff.  When would we ever, ever, have these experiences? It is such a blessing, and I love it so much.  I love you all!