Week 8 9/21/15-9/27/15

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

Pics

Letters from Home

Elders Across Town

Week 7 9/14/15-9/20/15

Monday

Pday is like a national holiday. Not really but still... Transfers are today. Crazy, huh!? I've been out an entire transfer. It's a little bit wacko. It's gone by so dang fast. We had dinner tonight with R, our recent convert. He made us gumbo and it's the first time I've actually had gumbo. It's kinda strange and it's like nothing I've ever eaten before, but it's good! Actually it was really good.

Tuesday

Well we started out the day by knocking doors. Or that's what we had planned... On the way we were stopped by a preacher at a truck stop. (I didn't know they had those...) he started challenging our beliefs a little bit and after listening to him rant for about 15 minutes we asked him if he wanted a Book of Mormon. You should've seen the look on his face! He not so kindly told us no so we shared our testimonies and moved on, cause you know, we can't be wasting the Lords time on people like that...;) well we got to the area that we wanted to knock and started knocking. The first guy that answered was strongly anti, because he'd attended the Calvary Baptist church a few times. Apparently they show anti movies and stuff in their services. Who does that!? Anyway, he essentially told us to get lost and that he didn't want to stoop so low as to get into an argument over who was right and who was wrong... So we asked if he wanted a Book of Mormon and he "kindly" told us to leave. The next house was an older lady who came to the door and asked us what we wanted. We told her we were the missionaries and that started he on how she was Calvary Baptist and how she knew we weren't going to heaven cause we worshipped some guy who rewrote the Bible. We tried to correct her, but it didn't work so well. So we bore our testimonies and moved on, cause some people are just so stubborn that nothing you can say or do will bring the Spirit into their lives. It's sad really. Next house, guess what!? Calvary Baptist, aka Anti people who tell us we are too far gone to even try to save. And so it goes on for a few more houses. It was fun, love contention. And we offered a Book of Mormon to each person. We met some weird people today... Pentecostal who was convinced that speaking in tongues is not of the devil, pregnant lady who told us her life story, and then a guy who actually wanted a Book of Mormon! He is a super cool guy who was raised Pentecostal, but after he turned 18 started visiting all the churches he could. He knew that they're had to be more. So we had a good discussion about what "more" he was looking for. We are going to go back and teach him more!

Wednesday

Well today we didn't do much cause we had an appointment with a lady that taught us the entire plan of salvation... She talked a lot, but it was good! We were able to teach her a little bit about the restoration. Little bits here and there. It turned into a two and a half hour lesson. I invited her to be baptized and she kindly said no... But she's awesome and we are going to keep meeting with her and trying to get her into the fold. 

Tonight was a lot more anti... Heavenly Father is testing us. One house after another. This is the first real opposition that I've run into down here. 

Thursday

Today we had weekly planning. Weekly planning in the first week of the transfer is where we try to come up with our transfer goals. We also make specific goals to get people to church. We filled out an entire whiteboard with people's names and what we can do to help them. We knocked a street today with a member named Ian, I think I may have mentioned him a few weeks ago. He's the one going to Hong Kong on his mission. Anyway, surprise surprise! More anti. More doors slammed. More people telling us to go away. It's super tough to face it. But what can you do? Work harder, move on to the next house and so on. And offer them the gospel each time. Smile at them. Tell them to have a nice day. Just be like Christ would be. Because He is our strength and our guide, and we are representatives sent to assist Him in this great work. 

Friday

We had zone meeting today! It was amazing! It was all about working with the ward and how we can better work with the Ward Council. I was able to learn so much and so was everybody else! So yep, bottom line, it was amazing!

We went out contacting (again, cause all our appts fell through, again) more opposition. We met a lot of people, but nobody was really interested. (Again.) That's about how the day went...

Sorry for not much detail on the last few days, but we haven't seen or done much other than gotten told to get off people's porches...

Saturday

This morning started with a Ward Correlation Meeting (yet another of the never ending meeting circle of the life of a missionary) with our Ward Mission Leader. He's such a cool guy! I've told yall about him and how's he coached football for many years. 

After that, more contacting. Still nothing solid. It's gets old hearing the same thing over and over. You know, the whole I'm Baptist and that book can't be true. 

They don't know what truth is. I do. We do. And we have come to share it with them that reject us. All day. Day after day. 

The day ended after we had knocked for quite a few hours, and skipped dinner. We wanted to find somebody. Didn't matter who it was. We just wanted to find someone that would listen to us. We were kind of dejected. We had knocked from 1 till dark or so cause all the lessons we had lined up canceled. We didn't teach any doorstep lessons. Everybody just told us to get off their porch. Or they would listen for a while, we would talk to them and then they would say they weren't interested. Come about 8:00 we finally decided to head home for some dinner, cause obviously we weren't having any success knocking or talking to people. We should've given up round 4, but decided to stick with it. So we started to head home. We were biking through some back roads so we could ride side by side and talk about the day. We turn the corner and there were a few kids outside. We stopped and started talking to them. Gradually more and more kids came and started talking and asking questions about religion. We sat down on some guys driveway and had an hour long lesson/Q and A session with about 5 kids aged from 10-18. Come to find out, they all go to Calvary Baptist Church... But they were so cool and they wanted to learn. And we could answer their questions! The Spirit was definitely guiding our answers. It was a really cool experience and I'm grateful that we had it. The biggest obstacle in baptizing these kids will be the fact that their parents are anti. We will see what happens.

Sunday

Church today was amazing! The talks were so good and the Spirit was super strong! I wish we could've had any investigator there. We invited so many different people and none of them came. We did everything that we could to get people to church, but none of them came. It was kind of sad

For lunch I made pancakes for a few of us elders. We had invited the Beaumont South Elders over for lunch and I fed them all pancakes. Seriously, we have pancakes like once a day. I'm getting super good at making them. Not to brag or anything...;) thanks mom! We really like pancakes. Instant mix is like our greatest friend ever. The whole "Just Add Water" thing really makes me excited! 

We had an awesome lesson tonight. It was probably the best lesson we've taught. We had never met the person that we were teaching and an hour later, she wanted to be baptized. Simple as that. But we might have to give her to the YSA Missionaries, cause she's about that age. We had a member there with us, Brother DeMoss and I'll tell you, members bring the spirit stronger than missionaries. Without fail every time. The members testimonies are more powerful and effective than our testimonies as full time missionaries. I don't know what it is, but I'd rather have members teach than have us teach, cause the Spirit that is brought is so great and powerful. All yall are missionaries. We are just the full time ones. Live your life in such a way as to be an example to others so as to invite discussion about religion. Recognize opportunities when they arise and take them. You never know what can happen.

-Elder Allen