5 February 2018

By way of explanation of the title, trailer parks don't have the best roads. So bad, in fact, that we can go no more than a few miles an hour on them. And if it rains, forget it. They're just about impassable. As are all of the driveways leading up to the trailers. In fact, just a few days ago, we got stuck. There were a whole bunch of little connecting roads to this main road that we had to turn onto to make it to our appointment, but they were all flooded. So, we were trying to turn down one of them that looked clear and all of a sudden there was a huge puddle that covered the entire road. (This was at night and so it was dark too.) We thought it would be alright to go through, but we only made it halfway across before the wheels started spinning. My companion was driving, and we both opened the doors to see how bad it was. I had water going up to about five feet off to my right. So my companion got out and I slid over to the driver's seat. He started pulling on the bike rack and some random guy came up and started helping. I had to turn off all of the car's electronic safeties because they were limiting tire spin, but we got out after a minute or two. So now our bike rack is kind of bent. Which is okay because the mission was going to replace it this transfer anyways and we've not been able to use bikes because it's such a huge area anyways and I don't have my helmet. Once I get one, I'll be able to use it again to help get around a little better though. The person who helped us ran off right after so we couldn't talk to him any more. I would call him one of the three Nephites, but he was smoking so... Anyways, we made it to appointment, we just had to go on foot. It turned out she didn't have a man home so we couldn't go in, but we were able to talk to her a little bit more. We're visiting her again on Thursday with a member, so hopefully that'll pan out. We went back to another trailer park for a return appointment who wasn't there, but we did have that same dog come up to us and follow us a bit again. We were about to leave when he found us, but he had learned from our escape last time and was determined to not let us leave. When we got in the car he came up to me and stuck his head in the car so I couldn't shut the door. I had to push him away and get going pretty quick. It's too bad we're not allowed to have pets out here, otherwise I'd just let him hop in the back and take him. Clearly he doesn't have anyone caring for him right now, and no collar. It makes me sad sometimes.

The coolest moment that we had this week was during tracting. We knocked on someone's door but as soon as we mentioned Jesus Christ, she said "Oh, we don't believe in that kind of thing," and shut the door. This really confused us, because she was wearing a cross. Later, as we were walking down the street, she walked up to us again. She apologized for being rude and said that she's always shut out people like us because she always felt bad for not knowing about this kind of thing. She started to ask us some really great questions about the purpose of life and what will happen after this life. We could answer all of her questions, and she said that it really helped her. She wasn't familiar with God and had never even seen a Bible before (which is really surprising in the South) and had only heard what people had said before she'd closed her door. Then, she asked us what made us so different from other churches, so we were able to share the Restoration with her. She loved it and invited us back! It's amazing how much the Spirit can open the hearts of people who previously wouldn't be willing to listen to us at all to then let us come back. The only downside is that she wasn't Spanish and so we had to refer her to the English missionaries, but hopefully she'll progress. 

That's all, folks!