This week, a horde of missionaries descended like locusts to some Tornado destruction sites in Granbury. It was.... well, it was a mixed bag. It's awful to see so much destruction. Bumpers and doors in trees, trailer parks completely leveled, barely a foundation still standing... Having to dig through dirt piles and find photos... It's an experience. But the camaraderie was excellent. You're always in good company whenever you find yourself working with the servants of God. Word of advice: ask the missionaries. They can help. But seriously, you guys, Mormons get it done.
This week has been rougher than the others... mostly because this is the week all our investigators decided to skip their baptismal dates to go stay with cousins that accidentally shot themselves, not keep their commitments and appointments, or decide that the "Holy Spirit isn't leading them towards the Mormon church." It's been real frustrating, but some good has come out of the wreckage!
For starters, my french investigator is getting baptized this week!!!!! WE'RE SO EXCITED FOR HIM! I've never seen somebody get so into the gospel and just accept it. His name is Harris, and he absolutely devours the gospel. Every lesson he's always "no, no questions, keep going!" We talked to him about the Word of Wisdom earlier this week and told him to give up tea. He walks into his kitchen, brings out one of his boxes and asks "can I drink this?" I looked at it, saw that it wasn't herbal, and said "'fraid not, Harris." He said "ok" and tosses it out. As if it wasn't even a question or struggle. Can all my investigators be like this? Probably not. If a mission was that easy, they'd call it... something else. They definitely wouldn't be calling it mission, that's for sure.
So, with all our appointments falling through, what do we do? We CONTACT. And we TRACT. We knock on doors till our knuckles are bruised! And sometimes we meet cool people. Sometimes we get the doors slammed on our faces. I haven't heard a gun slide yet but... well, I'm honestly more concerned for the hidden shanks.
Fortunately, we found a pretty cool dude yesterday. His name is David and he was one of the best contacts I've had so far. We taught him the first lesson and he was all " That's right! That's right! That's what's up!" He got so excited for our return appointment that he said "I'm gonna go tell my wife right now! I'll see ya tomorrow!" One of the reasons I loved contacting him so much was because his neighbor came down in the middle of the lessons (we were teaching him outside) and was like "David! Who's they? They's yo' neighbors?" and he goes "Naw, man, these is God's Kids!" It's so nice to be recognized as who I truly am.
Speaking of who we are.... We contacted into this guy named JR. He attempted to tell us what we believed in and who we were. He said "You're scared. Why you stumblin' on yo' words? You's scared!" My companion and I kept saying "No, we're not afraid of anything." Then he switched subjects and told us that we didn't believe in Christ. Again, we told him, "No, we believe in Jesus Christ!" I said "JR, I wear His name right next to mine every day. I know he died for me, knows me by name, knows YOU by name, and knows what we've gone through and what we will go through. I believe in Christ."
It was rather infuriating because he was trying to take my identity away. He was trying to tell me who I was and denying who I really am. Not just my calling as a missionary, not just my personality, not just my likes and dislikes and opinions and memories. But I know my eternal spirit. I know who I am now, who I was then and what I can become. Tell me something, world, why would change or deny who you are when what you are is a child of God?
Needless to say, we got out of there FAST. The spirit wasn't there, he wasn't going to learn, and we had to say a prayer to get the spirit back. There was a whole lot of sadness as I thought "forgive them. They really don't understand. They really don't know."
To not know who you are must be the saddest thing in the world. If a tornado leveled our apartment, I wouldn't care as long as I had my photos and my journal and my scriptures. Knowing who you are and then BEING who you are is the first thing we teach out here. And when it boils down to it... I think it's the only thing that matters. Because everything else just domino effects. If God is real, then He would love us as His children, which means He would send a living prophet, which means the Book of Mormon is true which means the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true which means you should be in church this Sunday.
Know ye not, am I right?
Love, Sister Gunson
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