Monday
Pday! We were at the church most of the day playing soccer and basketball and emailing. Fun stuff. We had dinner tonight with our recent convert, R. Tonight they made poppyseed chicken for us and it was amazingly good! We had a good lesson with him as we taught the Restoration more in depth and applied it to his life as a recent convert. It was really cool!
Tuesday
Today we had a lesson with P. She's a super nice lady, but the lessons always end up being super long... We challenged her to be baptized, but she said no. She's the sweetest lady ever! We challenged her to come to church and she said that she wouldn't unless God specifically told her to come. That's about the extent of what happened today. That, and a lot of rejection. It seems like the more we knock, the more rejection comes. I think that it's like a law or something.
Wednesday
Sorry this weeks entries have been so short, we haven't had too much happen. A lot of doors are quickly shut after we introduce ourselves. We met someone tonight on the street next to the church. We were just leaving the church when we ran into this fellow outside. We started talking to him and we asked him if he'd ever been inside the church, which he answered not really. We asked him if he wanted to go inside the church and he said yes. So we walked with him to the church and gave him a church tour. We showed him everything from the organ in the chapel to the baptismal font. He thought it was awesome! Before we left, we all had a kneeling prayer in the relief society room and he felt something different. Then we found out he's YSA age. So we can't teach him, but what does it matter if he's getting baptized by us or the YSA missionaries?
Thursday
We had weekly planning this afternoon. After that, we went out knocking doors. Basically every door was a no show, with a few that really didn't want to see us...;) we walked up to some guy in his garage and he looked at us and said, I'm catholic. My comp and I kinda looked at each other, cause in the past, that hasn't meant very much... Anyway I walked into this guys garage to shake his hand and my jaw dropped. The entire garage was filled with model planes. Filled. Full. Wings and fuselages and big and small with radios. Stacked against the wall, hanging from the ceiling, come to find out, he had 5 more bigger ones in the trailer. We got to talking, religion aside cause he didn't want any of that and I'm a sucker for planes, and I found out that he's part of a club down here and he flies about 3 times a WEEK. The model port is not even a mile down the road. He had been working to fit a motor into a sailplane when we showed up. We talked for probably a half hour about everything. Dad, he said that the next big thing is pure gasoline engines, not nitro anymore. Or electric. And he also said that the big planes aren't worth the money, unless you can find one for under $350 or so that's been crashed. Then you can fix it up and fly it, or if it's beyond repair, strip it for parts. Ps. I got a picture. But it's on my camera, not my iPad and I have no way of getting it over yet. We are still trying to find a computer.
We knocked doors till late tonight. The last door we knocked was at about 8:30. We usually stop before 8:00, cause after that it just gets dark and people don't open the door after dark here in Beaumont. We knocked on this door at about 8:20 and it was an all glass door. This was one of the nicer houses in the area. Anyway, we knock and this lady comes walking by. We think she is coming to answer the door, right? Cause we had already knocked and everything. Remember, it's an all glass door. She comes walking by and so we wave to her. Apparently, she didn't hear the knock... We wave and she screams and runs away. We kinda stood there not knowing what to do for a second. So we knock again, cause ya know, we want to get this straightened out. we can see her huddled up in a corner in her kitchen on the phone... She wasn't coming out of her corner anytime soon. We don't know who she was on the phone with, but we guess that it was her husband or the police. So we said a few prayers and left a sticky note on the door with our phone number and an explanation of who we were and what we were doing. She hasn't called yet... And I don't know if she will ever accept the gospel in the future...
Friday
We tried going back to see her, but she wasn't home. But the sticky note was gone! We had a good district meeting today. All our appointments fell through today...again. Kinda sad, but it's ok. We were able to meet lots of nice people and introduce them to the Gospel. So it wasn't a bad day, just kind of slow.
Saturday
Today we had a few miracles occur. The first one happened as we rode by this street and felt impressed that we needed to go knock some of it. So that what we did. After a few houses, we knocked into this guy named J. J has a pretty cool conversion story and we spent an hour talking about beliefs. He believes pretty much everything about Mormonism. We were able to find some common ground and teach him a little bit more about Mormons. J will do anything for God and his servants, it's amazing! Anyway, next miracle. We were trying A again this week. This is the Pentecostal guy I told y'all about a few weeks back. We haven't been able to get in touch with him for a few weeks now. Anyway, we bike up to his house and as we are walking up to the door he comes outside and sees us and says that he's got food cooking and that we needed to come inside and eat. He had been making biscuits and gravy. So the biscuits and gravy finished and as they are finishing, he's telling us how the sausage in the gravy is homemade from a boar he and his dogs killed last week... Go figure. Kinda cool and it tasted amazing! Then he gave us some sausage to take home. Next miracle. We have an appointment set up with K. Her husband is a member and so are about half of her kids. She's been taught for a few years now and just won't commit. We have a lesson about the blessings that come from baptism. After we committed her to pray for a baptismal date and to pick one in the next few months. She knows it's true, she just won't commit. She's seen the change in her husband, kids, and the Spirit of the house. The lesson brought the Spirit so powerfully, it was amazing. It was one of the best lessons that we've taught as a companionship. So we will see what happens.
Sunday
Got caught in a rainstorm. Again. Imagine that. It started raining when church started (9:00) and hasn't stopped yet (Monday morning, yes I'm typing this Monday morning cause we were too busy drying out last night) still raining. We went out at 5:00 last night to eat dinner with a family that invited us over for dinner. We were soaked by the time we got to their house. Then we went and gave K a blessing cause she hasn't been feeling to well and her husband asked us to come help and assist in a blessing. It was really cool to be a part of that. As I said, she knows it's true. And then we biked home, in the rain. Soaking wet. I have a video of me dumping water out of my shoes and wringing my socks out. Crazy stuff...
Earlier in the day, we were able to participate in a community event called "Pray for Beaumont" which is an event where everyone comes together and different preachers and pastors pray for Beaumont. It was strange. Eventually some of the missionaries got up and brought the Spirit, but it was strange to hear the rest of it. That's the first time I've actually seen black people preachers pray... I understand why Alma thought that the prayer of the Zoramites on the Rameumpton was so bad. There was just no spirit. It's amazing how the Spirit works, how one quiet prayer can invoke the Spirit only to have the next preacher destroy all peace amidst the chorus of hallelujahs and amens. It's sad, that these people want to have the Spirit, but don't know how to invite it. It was a strange experience. It was really strange. And there was no Spirit when others prayed. But soon as the missionaries started praying, the difference was night and day. I dont get how people can NOT notice it.
Ps. Thanks for the letters! Both via SnailMail and eMail!
-Elder Allen
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