Week #71

Hi Mom!

I'm sad to hear about Nana. Let me know when you get updates. I'll for sure keep her in my prayers. 

My ankle is doing okay! It doesn't hurt at all when I walk on it or anything, it's just pretty sensitive to touch. I have an appointment next Monday morning so I'll let you know how that goes. I'm not too worried about it, other than the fact that I can make it pop on demand... The doc will most likely just tell me to put a brace on it and take advil. 

I'm sad that I don't get to take a picture with the family again! I hate to say it but I would love to take a family picture! Poking Bennett or Cooper in the side as we take the picture still sounds like a fun time! 

Elder Christiansen and I are still having a fun time together! We just laugh all day long at each other which makes missionary work really enjoyable! Well... missionary work is enjoyable either way. I love it out here! Elder Christiansen grew up in Florida but moved to Utah 2 or 3 years before his mission. He's super musical and a way funny guy! Love him! 

This week, there were a lot of happy moments! One of them was when we were contacting a bible referral. So we get these texts from the church head quarters that tell us when someone orders something. So this guy Byron ordered a bible. Usually when we drop the bible off, the people are pretty well grounded in their own faith and don't really want to talk to a couple of white Mormon boys. However, Byron was ecstatic when we came with his bible! He let us right in to talk with him and his wife Harriet! They're both super nice! They are pretty active in their Baptist church but were more than willing to learn about and read the Book of Mormon! We set an appointment to come back and talk to them more and teach the Restoration, so we did just that. We taught them and they both listened intently and had some great comments! They're a very spiritual couple! I'll let you know how our lesson this week goes with them. 

Frank isn't going to be able to make his baptismal date this Saturday. He isn't giving himself credit for how well he is doing with understanding the Gospel! He's putting in so much effort and does remember a lot but just keeps getting frustrated with himself. I think he wants to remember everything perfectly which is not what needs to happen. He's got to take it one step at a time and recognize the progress that he's making.

Lauren came to church! She's been sick which is why she didn't come last week but she came for sacrament meeting this week and loved it! She texted us afterwards and told us she was impressed with the way that we worship! She's so amazing! I'm loving teaching her! We're still trying to help her set a baptismal date but as of now she doesn't feel ready to be baptized. She feels like she needs to know a lot more and read more of the Book of Mormon. She finished 1 Nephi this week! She is understanding and applying everything she reads. It's SO great!

Yvette is has been busy so we didn't teach her this week. She's still doing good! We're trying to get her to the church so that we can show her the baptismal font. We want to teach her more about baptism so that she can feel more comfortable with the idea of baptism. 

Anthony has been out of town all week so we didn't meet with him either.

We're starting to work with a lot of new people but none of them have really become very solid yet. Hopefully we'll get some new progressing investigators. 

We had some really memorable experiences this week! I wouldn't say that they were necessarily good but they were funny! Thanksgiving night we were going to go over to a potential investigator's house for some food. Her name is Tange, super nice lady that has investigated the church before. When we showed up, the door was open so when Tange saw us walk up, she waved us in. As we stepped through the door, a large and very loud black woman says "Are you Mormons?" She said it in such a way that I wasn't sure if she was interested or worried. However, her following choice of words dispelled any uncertainty on how she was feeling. "Oh NO! Get the _____ Out! We don't need no evil spirits in here!" Tange attempted to calm her friend down but it was all in vain. She was committed to make us leave. We didn't put up much of a fight. Later when we called Tange, she apologized and we set up a time to come back, when there weren't any scary, angry people. 

Another kind of funny moment was when we knocked on a door of a potential investigator we met. No one answered but as we were standing there, we were looking at all these divots in the door frame. After examining closer what it was, I realized there were a bunch of small metal bb's lodged into this metal door frame! This guy had a shot gun blast to the front door! That guy's street cred just went up by 150 points! Good times in Cleveland!

That's all that I can really think of that happened this week. Lots of meetings that took a ton of time but all good things! 

I'm loving the hard top on that jeep Ben! It's sweet! Cooper, congrats on the phone! Liza, I'm jealous you got to camp with dad! I miss you family and am excited to talk to you on Christmas! Have a good week! Love you so much!

Love,

Jack