We did an exchange this week with the Sister Training Leaders. So since I stayed my area, I got to drive the car. It was pretty exciting with all the round-abouts or rotaries as the GPS calls them. I swear there's a round about at every intersection. The 4-way stops that don't have signs saying they're coming soon (see attached picture.) Haha. It'll probably be the only time I get to drive on my mission. President Collins didn't even bother to certify visa waiters to drive but President Cleveland did so that's the only reason I was allowed to anyway.
At the beginning of the week, we had a lesson with Elvira. We talked about the apostasy and shared Joseph Smith's experience. She said she was confused because she didn't know what was true so we told her knowledge would come as she continued to meet with us. It was a strong lesson. We set up a return appointment for 2 days later. Well she dropped us flat before we ever got to go back. To make matters worse, she made her daughter do it. In a text. I mean, come on. The whole world knows you shouldn't break up with someone in a text message, let alone a text message from another person. That's just low. I don't understand why people don't follow the social norms when it comes to missionaries. We're people too! They said they already know about Jesus and want us to go teach people that don't know Jesus. Quite the switch from "Mi casa es tu casa"
We visited the Hernandez's and they are just too caught up in the details. He's worried about how the Book of Mormon mentions chickens and horses and other animals that as far as he's concerned weren't brought to America until the 1500's. He also doesn't like that in Jerusalem quite quickly after Jesus died, we say there was apostasy but in America the people lived for 400 years in righteousness. To him, if Jesus taught the people in the middle east, they should have stayed stronger longer.
Remember how we saw the bug boys last week and they gave us a referral. Well it was a sweet referral! The lady has a Jesus fish over her door so we took that as a good sign. She welcomed us in right away and said she had just been talking to a Mormon yesterday. We told her we didn't think it was a coincidence. She didn't either but it seemed she felt that way because she felt the need to correct our ways (maybe, she was too nice to actually say so.) She let us talk for a bit but really, she started teaching us. She does a Bible study for the ladies in her neighborhood and I'm sure she is an amazing teacher. We have an appointment to go back and actually teach her this time!
At district meeting, we focused on planning to reach goals so we were supposed to take 15 minutes to make a specific plan to meet a specific goal. Well, we were really worried this week on teaching enough lessons so we're talking about what to do and our phone rings. A guy we taught last month called to set up an appointment. We didn't go back for so long because he was going to be busy with a work project for a month. He said when it was over that he'd call. And he actually did! I felt like I was in the Best Two Years when the missionary prays: "Please bless that young man that he might call." And then the phone rings. It was cool! So if the movie plot follows, he should get baptized the day before I fly out. I might have talked about this guy before. His late mother and his brother are members and he's investigated the church before. Well since he's such an analytical person, our commitment to him was to reread the Book of Mormon, this time marking only the references to Christ and then everyday after reading write down how he FELT. He was really surprised with such a request but said he'd do it.
We met Robin again this week and took a member with us. We've been hesitant to bring someone before because I guess she had a negative experience in the past with a member but we really needed to to meet our member present goal. Well turns out the lady that came with us has the SAME life. They had so many connections, it seemed never ending. Both grew up baptist, left the baptist church for the same reason, divorced their first truck-driving husbands for the same reason, remarried and then those men died. That was only the basic stuff. They really made a connection and the member was able to so wonderfully tell of her testimony of the Book of Mormon and we could just see the progress in Robin immediately!
Another appointment we had, we were reluctant to take a member because what the man had said to us before, but again we did it to make our goal and it turned out great. We met with Jim Davis. His wife had a stroke 11 years ago and he has lovingly taken care of her ever since. When we got there he had these books for us that his father-in-law published about Indians- since we are in the wonderful state of Indiana and he has Indian blood. He had all these arrowheads on his wall and I told him how my dad majored in archaeology and had a bunch of arrowheads of his own. We we read with him in the Introduction of the Book of Mormon where it talks about the Lamanites being the principle ancestors of the Native Americans, he thought that was way cool. He had a Mormon friend back in the day who gave him a Book of Mormon and Jim read the whole thing (although he admits he forgot a lot). We shared the restoration and it was really powerful.
We stopped by Miss Mae's with the plan to read 3 Nephi 18, talk about church attendance and the Sabbath and see what we could do to get her back at church. Well before we got into the lesson she mentioned planning to go to the store to buy an ice cream cake for her granddaughter's birthday on her way to dinner on Sunday. I was a bit nervous to go ahead with the lesson plan because I didn't want to offend her but Sister Hansen went right ahead and sweet Miss Mae kinda chuckled about it and said how obviously God sent us to remind her that the little things matter and add up and that she wasn't gonna go to the store on Sunday after all. She was super cute about it.
We stopped by a referral from the Carmel Elders of a guy named Evan who has met with missionaries a couple times. It was really cool because I felt God really pick me up and use me as a tool. He used every bold, eloquent and charismatic bone in my body and magnified those abilities to engage Evan in conversation and we really had a great doorstep lesson with him. He's afraid to commit to even lessons because he knows eventually we'll ask him to make a leap of faith, but hopefully we helped him to see that right now all we want is for him to take one step.
Como siempre, envio mi amor a ustedes!
Hermana Pearson
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| Indianapolis Temple under construction! |
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| Round-abouts everywhere |
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