January 17, 2017

Hey! This might be the funnest weekly e-mail to read. This week Elder Abhau got sick

and he planned to sit out of basketball last monday but ended up playing and he got even more sick, but we decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings :) And it just so happened to be the pre-game of the Clemson - Alabama game, we didn't plan that out or anything :) But it was my favorite Buffalo Wild Wings I've been to, right in the heart of Downtown. The joke in the mission is we say we're going to Brother Dubs because he always had good food and a good game on. After eating we went straight home because Elder Abhau was really sick. The next day was a sick day for him, we rested all day. We did as much as we could, calling referrals, weekly planning, sending out texts, listening to talks and stuff like that, oh and also Elder Abhau loves to cook so when we don't have dinner's we still end up having a good meal :)

So we received a call this week from the mission office and they were telling us about a guy that wanted to talk to us, he wanted some spiritual guidance in his life. They were hesitant about us going because they didn't want him to just try and get money from our church, because he had just lost his job, and broke up with a girlfriend and stuff but they told us to go anyway and if he needed anything temporally then we'd let the senior missionaries help him. But we met him at McDonalds, he's the nicest guy and we talked to him for about an hour. He is from Haiti, I asked him, "Why did you think to call our church?" and he said "Because you're popular" Haha we met with him twice this week and he came to church on Sunday. We are going to meet with him today and put him on a date to be baptized. I love the people from Africa, this week Coralie, the person I was teaching in the other Eagle Creek area gave us so much African food :) What it was was rice cupcakes and you dip it in a tomato-pepper sauce, it's pretty good!

Now on to the best part of the week, so it's about 8 at night, and me and Elder Abhau decided we were going to go try and drop off a bible at this referrals house that asked for one. So we knock on the door and this is what happened.....We walk up to the door. It smells like illicit drugs. When we knock, someone goes to answer it, and another person screams, "Don't you touch that (bad word) door!" Then, "Who is it?" "Church people!" we respond. "Who?" "Church people!" Elder Clark bellows, a little louder. We hear someone lumber up towards the door, and she says, "You best speak up playa. I can't undastand what you be sayin." We see her eye flash across the peephole. She yells to the people behind her, in the house, "We got two badges here." I get a little worried, because if they think we're cops, we might be in for some trouble. Elder Clark, not quite catching on, says, "Yeah! We got badges. Wanna see 'em?" He gestures towards his nametag. I quickly, motivated primarily by my non-desire to be shot, clarify, "Jesus-Badges! They're just Jesus-Badges!" I brace myself. At this point, the door swings open, the lady glances at us, yells a little more, snatches the Bible out of my hands, and slams the door. We didn't try to get a return appointment.

This week was full of fun experiences and good food. Elder Abhau made me a Steak dinner, he makes mashed potatoes with it and it's so good :) We also had some authentic mexican food, it was Delicioso! We had something called a Pambazo, and Quesadillas packed full of meat and cheese! Brother Cheek gave me a haircut, he has a nice little shop we go to in Carmel. A lot of Colts player go to a stylist that works right across the hall from him. Also, this coming week me and Elder Abhau are going to try and knock in this neighborhood where supposedly a lot of Colts and Pacers players live! Should be fun :) We met with Sheila a couple times this week, the only thing she has to do is give up smoking and she can be baptized! This week we went on exchanges and I went to Avon with Elder Hauck! Elder Hauck went to Davis, and his family lives in Kaysville! It was a lot of fun, Avon is a hard hard place to do missionary because a lot of people there are set in their ways, not willing to talk, and don't like missionaries or people walking around knocking on their door" This week I thought to myself.... When we go up and talk to someone, we should just say to them "Do you think that Jesus Christ would ever put his church back on the earth, with a Prophet, 12 Apostles, and even 70 Disciples? Well pray about this, and ask if it's true, because his church is on the earth." and then just walk away. Hahah I'm going to try it! I think it'd work, it would kind of shock people and as soon as we walk away they're going to be wondering why we aren't telling them more. And maybe even leave them with an Ensign with the pictures of all the General Authorities.

It was a fun day with Elder Hauck, we were out in this pretty small town called Danville and we parked and got out to go talk to some potential investigators and instead we walked into this small little laundromat and there was one lady in there, right as we're walking out of the door, I felt inspired to start a conversation with her and we talked to her for about 15 minutes and left her with a Plan of Salvation Pamphlet and set a time to come back and talk to her. A HUGE MIRACLE THIS WEEK! So we were at the library and I decided I was going to go through the missionary portal we had and text all of the people over the last 3 years that had never been contacted, to try and get in contact with them. One lady texted us back and wanted us to come by! Me and Elder Abhau we're pretty excited to go drop off this bible and hopefully teach her about the Book of Mormon, we then checked and realized she lived in another Elder's area so we sent it to them. But the problem was we already had an appointment set with her that would work for us, and we just had to hope it'd work for Elder Howlett and Elder Fonohema, but this is what happened. They had actually planned to be in that area knocking doors so they said yes we can go! They went to her house and long story short, her and all of her kids want to come to church and be baptized :) They've been to her house twice, when they taught her about the Restoration, they asked her if she thought it was true and she said "Oh yeah, I know that this is true" and when they got to her house they asked if anyone in her house wanted to listen and she called all her kids down to listen :) I am so glad I went through those referrals :)

I know that Jesus Christ is the leader of this work and I'm glad I can be a part of it. We are going to start knocking on all the apartment complexes in our area, that's where the African people live and I can then speak the little Yoruba I know to them and they can see the nametag I have. I asked President Carlson if there was a prophecy about the gathering of the African people before the Second coming and he said he didn't know if that was a prophecy but he said "You look at what's happening, the Lord will either send the church to them, or bring them here"

I love you guys so much can't wait to e-mail you more next week!