So, Thursday was an interesting
day. We had a few appointments to go to in St. Pauls, which is the
furthest city away that we actually work in. (Got to love the mile
limit.) So we were knocking doors for a little while but then we decided
to move on to another area. Well, we took a wrong turn while we were
walking, and ended up in downtown St Pauls, about 2-2 1/2 miles from
where we parked. Whoops. So, we figured that we could just head back to
the car and knock some doors on the way back. As we turned around to
head back, a police officer pulled up. He asked us if we had parked our
car where we had left it, and we said yes. Apparently we had
accidentally parked on somebody's property (it didn't look that way, but
oh well) and the owner had called the police. The officer had gone to
the car and checked the plate, but then saw that it belonged to the
church. So he knew that it was missionaries and just kind of drove
around town looking for us. He found us and just asked us to move the
car. As soon as possible. So that made knocking on the way back kind of
not going to happen. Especially because as he pulled away, another
officer pulled in behind him and demanded to know if we were soliciting.
We said we weren't, we were missionaries. He gave us a dirty look and
then drove away. I liked the first one a lot more. After that, we
decided to speed walk all the way to the car and get there before we got
towed or something. We had barely started off when someone yelled at us
from the stairs leading up to his apartment, "Hey! Are y'all the
Jehovah's Witnesses?" We said no, and he said sorry, he just wanted
someone to pray for him. We looked at each other and told him, "Well, we
are missionaries!" So we walked up and he explained that his life had
been pretty rough lately and that he just wanted some comfort. He then
stuck out his fists as if he wanted us to fist bump him. We obliged. At
which point he looked at us weirdly and said, "Oh, so you don't pray?"
We were confused, but reassured him that we did and just weren't always
familiar with the different ways that people prayed. So we put our fists
together and Elder Turner prayed. During the whole prayer, this person
was prayer talking a lot. It's always pretty funny when happens. For
those of you unfamiliar with this phenomena, it is when someone begins
to "help out" with the prayer by offereing commentary during the prayer,
usually in the form of saying things such as, "Yes, Jesus" or "Thank
you, Father" commonly repeated throughout the prayer. It was an
interesting experience. After that, we kind of booked it back to the
car, which thankfully was still there and ticketless. Thanks again,
first police officer.
On Friday? we had a lesson with our
only investigator who has a baptismal date. It went pretty well, and he
still seems to be interested in learning more and progressing. We got to
teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he committed to live it. We
committed him to go to church with us as well, but he texted us the
morning of and told us that he couldn't make it, so that was pretty
sad.
On Saturday, we used a lot of miles. We had to go to Red
Springs for an appointment, which is pretty far away. It went fairly
well, and she seems to be open to learning. And then we had to go to
Hope Mills to help out one of our members. And then back to Red Springs
for more knocking and appointments. Still, it was a pretty good day.
Sunday
was pretty cool, mostly because I had to translate. Now, the weird
thing about me was that translating from English to Spanish was easy. I
could do that no problem. But, going from Spanish to English was nigh
impossible. But Elder Clement (who did it before for me) is gone, and
this was the first week that our member who normally translates was
gone. So it fell to me. I actually wasn't really nervous, which probably
helped a lot. The hardest part about translating is that it is a live
translation, and so I'm listening to it as it happens and speaking at
the same time. The first time I tried this here was three months ago,
and I didn't translate much of anything, and passed it off to my comp
halfway through the first talk. The branch president's wife afterwards
had told me how terrible it was. She's a very straightforward lady who
tells you what's on her mind. But this time I actually had to take over
for my comp and translated the entire meeting without a problem. She
came up to me afterwards and told me how great I did. So, I'll take that
as a sign that I have improved a lot.
Our district meeting
was the only other really interesting thing that happened this week. It
was really good, and we had some great role play time. The only issue I
have with the role plays is that ever since the role play jar that has
everyone's names on slips of paper was introduced, I have been drawn to
do it for all but one time. Coincidence? I think not! But we had some
really great instructions, and it was just super good overall. And I
learned how to use chopsticks, which apparently isn't that hard at all.
Also, this might just be the longest email I've sent.
