Fw: Not a greenie

 

 

 

 

Hello, hello!

 

I've heard it said that you remain a greenie for the first year of your mission, but I've been through one transfer, so I've had some experience... For this transfer, I'm staying in exactly the same place, as is my companion.

 

By the way, I didn't get the package you guys sent me. I was saaaad. :(

 

So before I begin my account of this week, I just wanted to start by saying, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVID!!!!" :D This is my happy birthday song. I'm singing it just for you. And when you hit the gong, it means that my song is through. My song is not so hard. Only one verse is said! I just keep singing it over and over again and again and again! Jk.

Alright. Now to begin. This week was significantly better than last week. Though for irony's sake, I played volleyball last P-Day and injured my knee again. Go me. I must have something against my knees. I'm going to end up coming home a gimp if I keep this up. :P

 

Funny story time. We had a zone conference. Now, back at home, the Lacey stake only comprises the boundaries of Lacey. That apparently doesn't happen around here. In fact, the Meeker stake ranges all the way from Wyoming all the way past Parachute or something, which is practically the entire western half of Colorado. As it is, Meeker is far far away in Judea's plains, but that's where we meet for stake conference, zone conference, the whole shebang.

 

So for zone conference, we had to leave pretty early to get there on time, and we were considering driving up to Glenwood and staying for the night to knock off half and hour of our journey. We would be staying with the Glenwood sisters, and we set up the time to have a sleep over. Well, we forgot a vital fact. The Glenwood sisters are pranksters. And so, the night of, we get this call from the Carbondale elders saying that they heard word that Sister Murdoch was in the hospital. Worried, we called up Sister Daily, and she said that Sister Murdoch had appendicitis and they wouldn't be home, but that we could still use the apartment. However, that's kind of a serious thing, and we decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to head up to Glenwood if the sisters weren't even there, so we stayed home.

 

Sister Murdoch was fine. It was a joke. They had been hoping that we would have already been on our way to Glenwood when we got the call from the elders, and so we would have come to the apartment expecting it to be empty and they would jump out and surprise us. The funny thing was that they spent almost an hour lying in wait for us to come before they thought to check their phone to see that we had sent a text saying that we wouldn't be coming over. Bahahaha.

 

So we made fun of them the next day.. It was highly entertaining, though it did mean that we had to wake up early the next morning.

 

That's our funny story of the week.

 

As for other stuff, Jessy was on vacation until Thursday which was sad, and Mindy dropped off the face of the planet, which was also sad. But Jessy went to church while in California, so that was really cool, and then she also attended church at our building yesterday, and she is well on her way to being baptized. She's already come to telling her coworkers that she's Mormon, and her mom and brother have accepted her decision to be baptized, which is super good news considering that a week ago, they were completely against it!

 

Random story, we were tracting earlier this week, and we came across this girl who knew nothing about religion. We asked her, "What do you think the purpose of this life is?" And she didn't know the answer. She hadn't even thought about it. She didn't think about where we were going after this life either, and she didn't even know who Jesus Christ is. We were shocked, and kind of stumped about how to go about teaching her, too. So that should be fun. We meet with her again this Tuesday.

 

There were a couple of frustrating things about this week, though. First of all, Pam (The woman who refuses to give up coffee) canceled our appointment to go to California. We gave her about a week and a half to wait for her to get back, then sent a text asking her how California was. Her response was, "Oh, I haven't left yet. I leave tomorrow." >:( grumble grumble grumble.

 

Second of all, we got one of those people who was only listening to us so she could try to debate with us and was trying to convert us to her religion. She had pamphlets and scriptures set aside before the lesson even began to try to disprove our religion. Let me tell you how horribly frustrating that is. I mean, I can see someone saying, "I'm not really interested in your religion," and then we leave, but she wanted to denounce us. It was sort of like, "Ok, we're wasting our time here. Just let us go about the Lord's work and find those who aren't so hard-hearted." We taught her the lesson (as calmly as we could) and then we were like, "Ok, we told you the facts, now you have to pray to God to know of its truth, because only your heavenly father can reveal truths to you," and her response was, "No. I won't pray about your book because I already know it's of the devil."

 

Ok, I don't care if you don't want to learn, but to refuse to pray to know is sheer mockery before God. It's like saying you're smarter than God is. And if you're so confident that it isn't of God, then wouldn't you be unafraid to pray about it if you're so certain of the answer? Because if it's wrong, he'll tell you. If it's right, he'll tell you. To not pray to ask for knowledge is to deny his intelligence.

 

I ended up having nightmares the next night of yelling at this lady and condemning her for her actions. And when I wasn't dreaming about that, I was dreaming that I was tracting and that all the people I was talking to refused to hear what I had to say. It was not a very nice night for me.

 

The whole experience sort of reminded me of the account in Jacob chapter seven. It's only too bad that I don't have the authority that Jacob had. Like Alma said, "Oh that I could be an angel." But I know that it isn't my job to force people to righteousness. And so I must hold my peace and simply move on with my life to find those that are willing to hear the gospel.

 

Oh, yeah! I haven't talked about Jeff yet! So we were tracting a few weeks ago and saw someone getting out of his car. So Sister Pfeifer and I said hello and introduced ourselves as missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and asked if we could share a message with him, like we do with all the people we randomly happen to meet. He said, "Yeah! I'd be happy to! Just not right now, I'm on a really short lunch break. But come back later!" He told us his name, where he lived, what time he would be available, but when we tried to knock on his door later, he wasn't home. We tried again several more times over the course of a few weeks, but never got a response.

 

Then earlier this week, we were walking in a different area and spotted someone walking the other direction. The sun was setting so we couldn't see him very well at first since he was kind of far away, but we greeted him and again started off by introducing ourselves as missionaries. Then he got close enough that I could see his face and I was like, "Wait a minute... I know you..." So we were actually able to set up a specific appointment with him.

 

We taught him about the restoration of Christ's church and the story of Joseph Smith, and he totally accepted it! And apparently, he saw a Book of Mormon once in a hotel room in Idaho and had started to read it there, and any time he goes to a hotel, he looks for a Book of Mormon so he can keep reading. He was actually very grateful when we gave him a Book of Mormon that he could keep with him! He said he would read it, and we could tell he was telling the truth. *Glares in general direction of a certain friend by the same name who promised me he would read the Book of Mormon and didn't...*

 

Unfortunately, Jeff is traveling to Grand Junction for the next few weeks and we won't be able to see him again until the 28th. But he says he'll have a lot of travel time to read the Book of Mormon in, so I'm hoping he will be a strong investigator when he gets back.

 

Anyway, I think that's all the stories I have for the week. I'm glad to hear that Aunt Cherryl is doing better. You're all in my prayers! The church is true, and the Lord is always looking after us! Never forget it!

 

~Sister Richelle Nicole Jones

 

P.S. I got called to do a musical number during sacrament meeting on September 8th. Apparently word got around that I can sing...