Elder Nickerson and I got some serious work put in. The week
started with and all day leadership meeting. I know one thing, God speaks to
people today. A huge standout from general conference was personal revelation.
I know under each stewardship, there is revelation to be had. (I will get into
stories in a minute). We received inspired training from President Dymock.
We also taught the Hassnawi family again!! They are doing so
well. They came to church again on Sunday, that was interesting with all of the
changes that took place. It was pretty confusing for them, but they got invited
by one of our members to come over for dinner on Wednesday. They thought that
priesthood keys were literal and physical, that roused quite the discussion
during Elders Quorum. Especially when one of our members starting spouting some
questionable doctrine about physical symbolism and the distribution of
keys.
Wednesday we taught Caren G again. We were super
hopeful for her, then she got pneumonia and couldn't come to church... Bummer.
But she is very humble and accepting of the teachings. She will
continue to be on the radar.
Oh boy - here is quite the story about Larry B. So he is
supposed to get baptized in 3 weeks and we have been meeting with him 2 times a
week and teaching him. We call him almost daily to read the Book of Mormon with
him and review the lessons. He lives in probably one of the worst parts of
Hilliard and does not have the best friends. He said he is a former drug addict, but he had been clean.
Anyway, he has been coming to church and he
likes it, but he is also a little (a lot) crazy. So we taught him about the
word of wisdom this week. He dropped all of his habits immediately (that
never happens, by the way) then we taught him about tithing, fasting, and fast
offerings. Sunday he showed up with 3 bags of groceries as his fast offerings.
One of them was just for him and he didn't have room in his freezer, so he
wanted to stash it in the church, haha.
So we are sitting next to each other
in Sacrament meeting. Elder Nickerson is a few rows up with the Hassnawi family
and their fellowshipping family. So it is me, Larry B, and this little primary
girl investigator to my left. It is also fast Sunday and the testimonies being
shared are super off topic, confusing, and not great. I am already stressed
out because we have a bunch of investigators there and they are witnessing
something between Baptist preaching and Pentecostal speaking in
tongues. Also, the little girl investigator to my left is being loud and her parents aren't
there, so I am having to be a 1-man entertainment system.
Can you picture all of this? Then Larry B turns to me and says, "If I pass out, check my heart beat" and I was like, "What?" He tells me that he let this homeless friend stay at his place the night before and ... "long story short I ended up smoking meth with him." I was
like, "Dang it Larry, come on man." Then he told me his friend had mixed some sort
of arsenic or poison into the meth and that the Lord had appeared and told him
he was going to die. He then starts motioning to the front of the chapel and
said, "Oh, there it is... I can already feel it sparking. There is my
grandma's spirit over there." I'm thinking to myself, "Is this actually happening
right now?" Well, it did, and Larry is still alive. So that
happened. I got home from church and collapsed. That was seriously the most stressful 3
hours of my week.
Here is the last experience: We
called a potential investigator to set up a return appointment, not sure why
but we felt like we should schedule it for Sunday at 5, even though that is
usually when we take dinner. So we got there and called the guy and he had
forgotten about the appointment and so we rescheduled and we were walking away,
and we waved to this guy across the street. Upon realizing who it was, I was
floored. It was Eric Sims who came to church and we hadn't been able to contact
him for 3 weeks. We struck up a conversation and he invited us into his apartment
and we got to teach him and he accepted an invitation to be baptized :)
Definitely inspiration that we were there when we were.
I know God is real. I know his light is powerful. I thank
you all for your support :) Love ya
-E.Rapier
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