We finally received pictures from Elder Rebalkin!! Yippee!!
Well as you might have noticed, i'm sending this on Wednesday and not Monday like I normally do. That's because we went to the temple yesterday and so our p-day was moved from Monday to yesterday. Of course, the temple is in Spokane so we didn't get back until P-day was over and we had had to rush to get to a dinner appointment. So ya.. we're doing our email this morning. haha
So last Monday we had the opportunity to take an investigator and his family on a tour of the church. I call him an investigator but he is technically a less-active member. He was baptized when he was 10 but hasn't been to church since. So he says he wants to look back into the church he was baptized into. His Fiance (actually an investigator) and two kids came along too and we had a good tour and lesson.
We had a member and his family also there for the lesson. The ward member that came with us is a returning less-active. He is a kind of rough looking guy. You know, with a goatee and with tattoos all over. But he's turned his life around and is trying to get as involved in the church as we can.
He took us out to Subway to eat, after the lesson. He ordered first and we were waiting in line. He started talking to the employee. It went something like this,
"Do you go to church?"
"Uh, ya. I goo to the OCC, why?" (Orofino Community Church)
"I was just wondering. I actually used to go there but now I go to the LDS church"
"The what?"
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"
"Oh, I actually live down the street from that church"
"Oh that's cool! Well you should go to it instead of the OCC"
"haha, Why's that?"
He then told him a little bit about his story and how becoming active n the church turned his life around. They had a little small talk about the OCC and the different pastors and the member shared a little bit about our beliefs. The employee seems really intrigued.
After the member finished ordering, he back to where we were in line and quietly told us that he needed a Book of Mormon. We told him where they were in our Jeep and gave him the key.
He went out, and when he came back in we could see the book sticking out of his back pocket.
After his family and us had ordered he went up to pay. After he paid, he said, "Here, I have something for you"
He handed him the Book of Mormon and the guy said, "What is this?"
The member then explained the Book of Mormon and asked him to read it. The guy said that he would. Regardless of if that guy actually reads it or not, it was really cool to see this member so excited to share the gospel.
Another fun experience we had was when we were coming back from a long day in Weippe. On our way back Elder Sanders had a feeling that we should go visit a certain member of the ward. This member had recently had knee surgery and so he had a little bit of a hard time walking, We got to his house (in the middle of nowhere) and we noticed that he had no firewood on his porch and that his walkway wasn't shoveled.
We knocked on the door and his wife let us in. He visited for a while and we quickly learned that he was concerned about his wife walking out to her car in the morning because of the ice and that he was burning through the last of his firewood that he had in the house because he's not able to walk out to get some more.
We told him that we would go out and shovel and bring him some firewood from his wood shed, He has an ego an doesn't like accepting help from other people. So he told us that he didn't need any help. Of course, we insisted that we were already there so we may as well do something. He said that he didn't want us to freeze. We insisted that we would be fine.
It was really funny because is actually turned into a little bit of an argument about whether or not we would help him. we were laughing the whole time and so was his wife. You could tell that he was trying not to laugh but he was trying not to let it show. He kept insisting that there was no way he was about to let us go out there and do anything in the cold. I said, "You can't stop us, you can't walk!"
Needless to say, we did end up clearing a pathway from the door to his wife's car. It took a while because it was a couple inches thick in ice. We also brought him wood to last a couple days. And we went back that Saturday to clear some more paths and to split a lot more wood.
He tried to pay us, but we settled on just having some tuna sandwiches instead :P
That's pretty much all the excitement we had this week.
Oh and I was hoping that I could maybe ask for something. I have a desperate need for music. I don't very much on my iPod and only have two CDs. We have listened to all of my companions music and all of my music countless times and its starting to get old. So if maybe I could get some "Mission Appropriate" music burned to some CDs and sent to me I would love it. I don't have to time or the resources to do it myself.
Any kind of classical music is pretty much guaranteed to be allowed, and I would love some non-vocal Jazz. Songs that aren't just instrumental need to have lyrics that are uplifting and not romantic. Pretty much anything that a song about God or just has an uplifting message is Okay just so long as it's tempo and beat aren't distracting.
In short summary, I need Chrstian or instrumental music, or music that is uplifting.
So last Monday we had the opportunity to take an investigator and his family on a tour of the church. I call him an investigator but he is technically a less-active member. He was baptized when he was 10 but hasn't been to church since. So he says he wants to look back into the church he was baptized into. His Fiance (actually an investigator) and two kids came along too and we had a good tour and lesson.
We had a member and his family also there for the lesson. The ward member that came with us is a returning less-active. He is a kind of rough looking guy. You know, with a goatee and with tattoos all over. But he's turned his life around and is trying to get as involved in the church as we can.
He took us out to Subway to eat, after the lesson. He ordered first and we were waiting in line. He started talking to the employee. It went something like this,
"Do you go to church?"
"Uh, ya. I goo to the OCC, why?" (Orofino Community Church)
"I was just wondering. I actually used to go there but now I go to the LDS church"
"The what?"
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"
"Oh, I actually live down the street from that church"
"Oh that's cool! Well you should go to it instead of the OCC"
"haha, Why's that?"
He then told him a little bit about his story and how becoming active n the church turned his life around. They had a little small talk about the OCC and the different pastors and the member shared a little bit about our beliefs. The employee seems really intrigued.
After the member finished ordering, he back to where we were in line and quietly told us that he needed a Book of Mormon. We told him where they were in our Jeep and gave him the key.
He went out, and when he came back in we could see the book sticking out of his back pocket.
After his family and us had ordered he went up to pay. After he paid, he said, "Here, I have something for you"
He handed him the Book of Mormon and the guy said, "What is this?"
The member then explained the Book of Mormon and asked him to read it. The guy said that he would. Regardless of if that guy actually reads it or not, it was really cool to see this member so excited to share the gospel.
Another fun experience we had was when we were coming back from a long day in Weippe. On our way back Elder Sanders had a feeling that we should go visit a certain member of the ward. This member had recently had knee surgery and so he had a little bit of a hard time walking, We got to his house (in the middle of nowhere) and we noticed that he had no firewood on his porch and that his walkway wasn't shoveled.
We knocked on the door and his wife let us in. He visited for a while and we quickly learned that he was concerned about his wife walking out to her car in the morning because of the ice and that he was burning through the last of his firewood that he had in the house because he's not able to walk out to get some more.
We told him that we would go out and shovel and bring him some firewood from his wood shed, He has an ego an doesn't like accepting help from other people. So he told us that he didn't need any help. Of course, we insisted that we were already there so we may as well do something. He said that he didn't want us to freeze. We insisted that we would be fine.
It was really funny because is actually turned into a little bit of an argument about whether or not we would help him. we were laughing the whole time and so was his wife. You could tell that he was trying not to laugh but he was trying not to let it show. He kept insisting that there was no way he was about to let us go out there and do anything in the cold. I said, "You can't stop us, you can't walk!"
Needless to say, we did end up clearing a pathway from the door to his wife's car. It took a while because it was a couple inches thick in ice. We also brought him wood to last a couple days. And we went back that Saturday to clear some more paths and to split a lot more wood.
He tried to pay us, but we settled on just having some tuna sandwiches instead :P
That's pretty much all the excitement we had this week.
Oh and I was hoping that I could maybe ask for something. I have a desperate need for music. I don't very much on my iPod and only have two CDs. We have listened to all of my companions music and all of my music countless times and its starting to get old. So if maybe I could get some "Mission Appropriate" music burned to some CDs and sent to me I would love it. I don't have to time or the resources to do it myself.
Any kind of classical music is pretty much guaranteed to be allowed, and I would love some non-vocal Jazz. Songs that aren't just instrumental need to have lyrics that are uplifting and not romantic. Pretty much anything that a song about God or just has an uplifting message is Okay just so long as it's tempo and beat aren't distracting.
In short summary, I need Chrstian or instrumental music, or music that is uplifting.