Wow! What a week!
I can say that things are getting better and better! Slowly, surely I
stop worrying about the people I left in Lancaster and just realize
how inspired it is that I'm here in Butler.
But, like I said, it's a slow process. I'm a slow learner :)
But! I have a lot to write about and a short time to do it, so here we
go. On Monday we had an AWESOME dinner with our Puerto Rican
investigator Ivan. He made this amazing spicy rice with like salad, I
don't even know. But it was amazing. It made me so happy! It felt like
being back in the branch again...almost 😉
On Tuesday we had an amazing lesson with our incredible investigator
Perry! He's probably my favorite person out of all the people that we
teach, he's just amazing! He's been having some issues with his Jdubb
girlfriend who doesn't want him to come to our church, and I was just
feeling super passionate and I looked at him and said, "Perry, there
are some things in this life that are worth compromising with and that
are worth working around. This is not one of those things. Your
salvation is not worth compromising." And I was just like crying and
it was super embarrassing because it was like the first lesson I've
ever had with this guy and I already cared so much about the choice he
made and how it was going to effect his happiness and GUESS WHAT! He
came to church yesterday!!! He just like waltzes in and we're like,
"Geez, Perry! What are you doing here?" And he looks at us like we're
idiots and says, "Well I'm coming to church, duh!" Haha. It was
amazing though, he's only come one other time and he's been taking the
lessons for like 3 months! So it was a huge deal and we were just
grinning from ear to ear. So cool.
On Wednesday we had our district meeting which was super awesome. Our
district leader is really good, his name is Elder Perry and he's from
Canada so that's nice. We learned about getting referrals and the
spirit was really strong! I felt super motivated!
After distinct meeting we will usually go and play revenge in the gym
since we all like basketball. It's pretty funny. This time we played
"bump" so you could hit each other's balls around and stuff. We were
laughing so hard. There's this elder - Elder Klima (he was in my zone
back when I was serving in Hanover) but anyway he's like one of the
funniest people in this mission and he's just... If you've ever seen
brother bear, he's like the moose on that movie and it just cracks me
up. He's from Canada, too. 🇨🇦
Anyway, so he's just the big, goofy kid and he was like flailing all
around, throwing the balls everywhere and dunking the ball or like
smacking it away from the net and it was the funniest thing ever.
I hope someone else gets a kick out of that, but maybe it's just one
of those things you had to be there for...
But anywhoozies.
Thursday was amazing. It's like my absolute favorite day of the week!
First off, we had an awesome lesson with out investigator Jonathan. He
was set to be baptized and then kind of fell off the grid for a while,
until a couple days when he texted out of nowhere saying he wanted to
meet up. We called and invited one of the boys in the ward who just
got his mission call to California and he got all dressed up and was
all nervous and it was really sweet. They got along really well and
the lesson went great and Jonathan said he wanted to get baptized! So
we set him with a date.
But then yesterday morning he said he wasn't coming to church because
he had a runny nose and I was like, "Well that's the lamest excuse
ever." So (in nice, patient, sister missionary words) we told him that
he'd better get his hiney to church and hahaha he was there!
I'm telling you, the excuses that people come up with... It's ridiculous.
And then THE BEST PART OF EVERY THURSDAY we went to Katie's kitchen to
do service 😍😍 I know it's only my second time, but I love that place
to death. The people there are literally the best. Jean and Larry and
Barb and grumpy Bob are my favorites. It was Jean's birthday, so Barb
made her this multi-flavored pie which was awesome, and we sang to her
and had pie and told jokes and laughed and cooked food for the
homeless people in Butler. Then, during our break time, Sister Welch
took me up to the sanctuary in the church (cause the service is at an
old Lutheran church) and it was breathtaking, there were all of these
stained glass windows that basically told Christ's life story as you
went around the room, and this GIANT organ, and there was even holy
water and a tithing box or whatever and !!! It was sooooo amazing.
But yeah so then when we were serving dinner, this youth group from
another church came in to help out and there were a couple people that
were super nice to us and were talking and laughing, but then I don't
think the other girls liked us very much. Hm. #theirloss
Oh...hold up. I realize now that the dinner with Ivan that I said was
on Monday was actually in Thursday, so now I don't remember what
happened Monday... I know we had pday and it got a little cray... We
bought onesies and I'll send some pictures for you all to enjoy from
that adventure. It was hilarious.
Moving on.
Friday we did weekly planning and one of the people in Sister Welch's
ward in St. George ordered pizza for us and had it delivered to our
house! Like they called the Dominos here in Butler and paid for it! It
was so nice! I didn't even know people did that! When I get home, I'm
gonna order chicken wings for every missionary I know on weekly
planning day and send it to them hahaha. Don't ask me how I'm gonna
fund that. But it has to happen.
So while we were enjoying that, we got this call from one of the less
actives in our ward and she was calling to confirm dinner and we asked
her how she was doing and she said she wasn't doing well and we asked
why and then she went off for like 15 minutes about how her fish had
died and how the other one was sick and she didn't know what she was
gonna do... I was looking at Grape Juice, trying to figure out if this
was a for real thing that was actually happening to us. Well we asked
if there was anything that we could do, and she ended up asking us to
come over to keep her company and so we went over and we vacuumed and
did the dishes and talked to her and she sang to her fish and I was
just trying to wrap my head around what was happening... It was so
awkward and random and funny but also sad, because you could tell that
it was really affecting her. So on the one hand, I was happy that we
could be there to help her out and to cheer her up. But on the other
hand I was kind of like, "Come on. It's literally a fish." I don't
know. It must have been really important to her, and I know it would
be hard for me like if my dog died or something. So I guess I can feel
for her. Just kind of...random.
We had some other good lessons. One with an investigator named Kristie
who said she'd like to be baptized, but she's got some pretty big
things to work through before that can happen, but she said she knows
our message is true, so I think we'll get there!
Then we had a lesson with Ken, who is probably one of the most
mentally "there" people in the whole town of Butler. It was kind of a
nice refresher. He asked tons of good questions and basically came to
the conclusion that our church had to be true, it made sense. There is
only one God, one truth, etc. It was cool to watch him pretty much
work it out for himself in his mind. He also said he'd like to be
baptized, but wasn't ready to set a date.
I also met Bill for the first time. He's awesome! He reeeaallly wants
to be baptized but he's got this bad addiction to smoking. He said he
knows he just needs to throw his cigarettes away, they don't make him
happy or healthy. He couldn't come to church because he was puking his
guts out, so hopefully he gets feeling better. He's such and awesome
guy, totally knows the church is true, loves God, willing to do
anything... Just needs help overcoming this addiction, but we know he
can do it!
Anyway! Yeah! It was an amazing week, and to top it off, yesterday was
the primary program which was adorable and today we are going to
PITTSBURGH!!! I FINALLY MADE IT, MY DREAM COME TRUE... A PDAY IN
PITTSBURGH. 🎉🎉👏🏾👌🏾👍🏾
This is for real, guys.
This is Bills in the Burgh.
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