Hey Mom! May
16, 2016
This week:
Washington Rednecks, the most
interesting day in the mission, getting the hang of teach-to-needs, and the
most gloomiest day in the mission!
Wow, I would've suspected you
and Dad to maybe have slowed down after becoming an official empty-nester.
Seems like you guys have a whole bunch of other things to attend to anyway, but
I guess that's good! One of the things I've come to learn is that if it wasn't
for work time, we'd forget the value of quiet time!
Speaking of work time, we
expanded our tracting efforts this past few weeks. Ephrata isn't necessarily a
metropolis if you know what I mean. So on days we had the car we headed out to
the more rural communities and side-streets off the highway to knock on doors.
According to RM's who served rural, proselytizers in general aren't seen there,
so it's a good place to go!
Well, after getting our of the
car and stepping in a patch of bullhead thorns, we began knocking. I'm not
going to lie, the run-down shacks and single-wide trailers surrounded by
overgrown cotton wood thees reminded me of something Paul probably saw/endured
on his mission. My main concern was probably not getting shot. Much to my surprise/relief,
everyone there was pretty nice! Sometimes you throw formality out the window
just talking normal. Only one family flat-out turned us down (they told us off
from their lawn/field as we approached the fence), but other than that it was
pretty nice!
Anyway, we found ourselves
doing it again to not much luck a few days later. That's when Elder Painter got
the impression to drive back to town and tract a series of town homes we hadn't
hit before. After saying a prayer to ask if it's what we needed to do, we drove
back down to Ephrata. And....things got interesting after that. Turns out, that
impression was valid! We ran into a younger guy named Joe who's an
auto-mechanic. Set a return appointment, and it was pretty good! After that
though, it got super weird. Let's just say we looted the variety bin when it
came to the types of people we got around talking too. It was all pinnacled in
a conversation we had down in a sketchy trailer park with a young couple. The
conversation was going well until her husband stepped out and, after waiting a
few lines, started talking to us about the spiritual effects of weed w/o
getting high. Yeah...I know. They talked to us about a half-hour about
that subject, and to summarize it, they basically wanted us to know that you
could churn cannabis with butter or salad for a more "healthy
alternative."
Words do not describe how
hilarious it was listening to that one. The guy'd obviously ate some
"butter" or something before he came out.
Well, on a more spiritual need
of things, we got to meet a less active named Steve on Saturday. The lights
aren't all on upstairs for him (a result of a rougher past), but he's got a
sincere heart and a desire to serve others. We talked to him about the
atonement and how that helps us figure out, and then the conversation turned
towards keeping the Sabbath day holy. It was a concern with him that he had
previously told us about. In short, we helped him recognize that he could
appreciate church and the sacrament more if we relied on the atonement to help
us overcome our past. We then explained the repentance process and let him know
we'd be there to help him out no matter what.
And whaddya know? He was at
church the next day!
On Friday we saw Joe. We
eventually got to see him a few days later on for a great Restoration lesson.
Said he'd be baptized when we came to know the Book of Mormon was true! Go
humanity!
And to cap it all off,
yesterday we walked around in the gloomiest weather I think I've ever been in.
Even the dogs that regularly bark at us were asleep on the door step. Kind of
felt like Eeyore to a certain extent. No sun, clouds, a light dirzzle, and dead
silence.
But it's been a great week,
and your emails always make it better Mom! We had an amazing lesson with Alva
and Bev, and we could tell they were truly devoted to learning more about the
gospel. But the work rolls forward in the town of Ephrata. God is so good to us
that sometimes we may not notice. But when we slow down to realize all He's
done for us, then we truly begin to appreciate all that life has for us.
Love you!
Elder Michael
Camit
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