As for this week we had interviews with President and Sister Bennion on Tuesday and Thursday. He wanted to interview each member of the Zone for 15-20 minutes each. This meant that he needed close to 5 hours to do all of the interviews. We broke it up into two different groups for the two days with half of the zone one day, the other half the next. It was sweet since we have to go to every District Meeting as Zone Leaders and we were able to go to every single one since they had them on Tuesday and for this week Thursday. Our interviews were on Thursday and we only had about 5 minutes with the President and Sister Bennion. President's first words to me were, "Well Elder Rodabough it sounds like you and Elder McArthur have had an interesting few weeks huh?" We chuckled for a bit and then he mentioned that the weekly letters he receives from the Sugar Hill Zone express the most trials, but he also sees the most miracles. It was interesting to me that he would bring it up, but he's right, sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. On Thursday we had a bomb dropped on us by President. Elder Thomas (you guys met him at Christmas on my call) has been facing some serious depression and other mental medical issues for the past 6 months and finally he along with President Bennion decided to send him home to get some extra help. I was really sad at first since Elder Thomas is one of my best friends in the field, but I felt comforted knowing that he will be receiving the help he needs.
Well that's enough about depressing news. We also saw some super awesome miracles today as well. For the past two months Elder Hamer and I, and now Elder McArthur and I have been teaching a man named Bill. Bill has had a really rough past--probably the most rough past I've ever heard. Despite that he knows that we were sent by the Lord to help him and he's been very responsive. He just has a huge problem trusting people in churches since he's been kicked out of about 4 or 5 during his life. During the last two lessons he's called for his step daughter Celeste to come out and listen. Her first question to us the first time we sat down was, "How old do you have to be to be baptized?" We were a little shocked, but answered her question and then kept up with the lesson. This past Wednesday we invited a member to come with us as a team-up. We taught the lesson and Celeste was very involved and attentive. As we were leaving our team-up Bro. McLeod stopped us and said, "Elders you've done a great job helping Bill, but you're here for her baptize her." Then he hopped on his motorcycle and drove away. So we're going to start teaching Celeste.
Aside from that it was pretty normal week actually. We had a funny experience on Saturday night though that made me decide to never drink but will mess with drunk people even more. So we were tracting and we stopped by these two guys that had been drinking. One was a little buzzed, but the other was hammered drunk and barely standing. We asked them where they were off to and the super drunk guy responds, "We're goin' to see Satan!!" He then starts talking to us about God and telling super weird but hilarious jokes. Then he comes up really close to Elder McArthur and asks, "Is your mother alive?" The following conversation then occurred.
McArthur: Yes she's alive
Drunk: Is your dad alive?
McArthur: Yup he's still kickin!
Drunk: Are your grandparents alive?
McArthur: There's where we start losing them. They've both passed.
(Drunk man then grabs Elder McArthur by the arms and shaking him back forth in a fit of drunken yells)
Drunk: WHY DID HE TAKE YOUR GRANDPARENTS?!?!?! WHYYYYYY!?!?!?!
It was probably one of the most memorable memories of my mission. Then as we were leaving he yells, "Don't trip on Satan!" I'm so glad people like him exist.
Love,
Elder Rodabough the second
No comments:
Post a Comment