Week 2 in Boynton Beach

  Everything is well here in Boynton Beach. Except I HATE biking all over. And the area we work in is east of us and I don’t know if you saw it on the map but there's a huge over pass that we bike over every day. And on Saturday, the Elders Quorum and High Priests play basketball and they invited us to go. Elder Jones and I went and there were 8 other guys, about 5 Priests too. And we played super hard and I am SO sore now. Ugh it's the worst.. I like being in an apartment with 4 elders. It's a lot of fun. Unproductive at times.. But I enjoy it. The Creole elders have a car. So that's how we shop and go to church and such. Elder Ensing doesn't believe in dinner either.. But there isn't a lot of good places to eat around where we are so at the same time, I don't want to ride all the way home to eat then ride all the way back. I'll keep granola bars or something with me to suffice. Mom, the guy from NY at the MTC, was his name Bobby Jamison? Because that's the guy I taught in the MTC. I can't remember if I told you that. But that would be cool.   Now that I've been here a bit, I can tell you about our investigators. One, “B” has been investigating for like 9 months. And the main thing that has been holding her back was that she was living with her boyfriend but like the Monday before I got here, they had a fight and he moved back to CA, so I never met him. On Friday we went over and we committed her to be baptized March 10.  Last Wednesday, we were done harvesting and walking to our bikes when we receive a text from an unknown number "It's “B”. I want to be married and baptized on Sunday. Is that possible?" We were so excited it was awesome. So I guess they made up and he's back (well he has like army school in CA so he's going back on Thursday but after “B's” 4 kids from a different marriage are done with school, they'll move out there with him) But he came here so they could get married and he could watch her be baptized. The marriage was on Saturday and the baptism on Sunday. It was pretty cool. No one had a camera at both so I was the photographer... so you'll get some wedding photos as well. Anyway, that was an exciting first week. Another guy, Thomas Taylor. He's about 55 or something. I guess he prayed for God to show him the way and the missionaries knocked like 2 weeks later, about a week before I got here. He's super prepared and loves the BoM and knows it's true. He's just getting a lot of pressure from his family who are Baptist (I hate baptists... haha jk. but they're annoying.) He hasn't come to church the past two weeks because of his family. So we went over yesterday and talked to him and at 5 we asked him to come to the baptism at 7 and he said yes. But he didn't show... :( That's hard. To see someone who is so prepared but just can't come to church or be baptized. Oh well. We'll try our best. We have some other great investigators. And there are some who aren't so great.. There's one guy, Khalil, who is Arabic. Actually from Palestine I think. He lives in a house with like 4 Muslim guys so they don't like us. Anyway, usually when we teach him he just sits there quietly and listens but one time when we went over, he just was super animated about something. It's hard to understand him a lot. He kept telling us to look out the window and look at this plant and he'd say like "Look at the green" "Ok.." Now look at the greener" haha just like a crazy person. It was quite the experience. And he said all churches are corrupt and all this crazy stuff. But he wants to be baptized, sometimes. haha. We also met with this guy we blessed (a couple days earlier we set up an appointment with his daughter, who wasn't there) and had probably the most spiritual experiences I've ever had with him. We taught him the Restoration and about the BoM and he was super attentive and taking everything in and it was awesome. And he kept saying how he loved us because what we were doing and our spirit. Anyway, at the end of the lesson, we asked him to pray and ask God if the BoM and what we shared were true. And he said he didn't need to because the Spirit had already touched his heart so he believed all of it was true. I was just blown away. Like it was insane. So I said the closing prayer and after I said amen, he kept his head down for about 10 more seconds. When he looked up, he was crying. It was the best moment of my mission. We rode home and I was floating on air. Well...................... the next morning we get a text from the daughter’s phone (he said he used it sometimes if his didn't work) saying that the family came to a conclusion that they didn't want visits from us anymore. Straight kick to the stomach. It was the worst feeling. Anyway we found out that it was the daughter texting us, so we don't know if he had any say in the matter. That lesson was on Wednesday and the text Thursday. We haven't been back since. That was tough. Oh well. Life goes on. Maybe we'll try to catch him one day. Crazy week.
  There are a couple things I'd like to share as well. Psalms 37. Strength of the Lord. That one helps me. Also, the April 2004 General Conference was so good. I read a lot of it and I loved it. One I really liked was "Did you get the right message" from President Faust. Super good.
  Welp.. I hope you all had a good week as well. I continue to keep pushing. That's what you do as a missionary. All the people who say it's the best 2 years are Off their missions, haha but at the same time I'm loving it. I miss you all. I love you more than anything.