Hello family!!
Things have been going really great this week! I mean nothing too special happened. Things are just always good on the mission, I've learned. It's hard to be sad if you don't let yourself be sad!
Without fail something strange happens every day, but I am absolutely horrible at writing in my journal so I forget. I know I know...I'm a terrible person! It's just so hard to have to sit down and write after a long day! I just wanna lay down and relax! I will be better, though.
The weather is getting better! I swear it snows every other day...and it literally has pretty much. There is so much slush and ice on the ground that it's not even funny.
I am always tired, though. I've heard it's just a city thing because we don't have cars and were ALWAYS walking somewhere...but this is ridiculous. It never seems like enough!!
But anyway...one thing that was interesting this week was our little run-in with a guy named Edward. He went onto Mormon.org and said that he wanted a free bible...so a week or so later, we get a text on our phone from MTC Referral Center telling us his information and everything so that we can try and get him his free bible. So we go over and he's super friendly and nicely tells us that he already bought one. So of course, because we're already talking to this guy, I tell him who we are and what we do and that we have a message for him about the restoration of the gospel. This makes him have a puzzled, almost interested look on his face, so we ask if we could maybe come share this message with him. He kind of reluctantly says yes and so he lets us in. We sit down at his table and start asking questions about, "so where ya from?" "What's been your experience with religion?" "How have you seen Jesus Christ's influence in your life?"...stuff like that. And so, he just goes off. We sat there for like an hour and a half just listening to this guy tell his entire life story. He tells us about how he was once gay, how he's been fighting it for a while and how Jesus helped him out of it...and it was cool! But then he starts getting into how whenever he'd go to church, he'd get "hit on by guys" and the preacher would be "hittin on him from the pulpit" and when he'd walk down the street "men, women, and children would always be hittin on him non stop." It was very strange. So we had to go, but we asked if we could come back and he said yes and said, "I know I just talked for a long time so next time, I'll let you do the talking."
So we gave him a Restoration pamphlet and asked if he'd read it and he said yes. So we come back Sunday and right off the bat, he picks up where he left off and explains that he's writing a commentary on the Gospel of John and how he's done lots and lots of research about all different religions and starts going off on what he "knows" about us. For like an hour he talks about how he knows everything about God and how we can't tell him anything that is true that he doesn't know and says that the only reason were talking to him is to get him to come to our church so we can get publicity from him (what??). It actually started getting heated because I was starting to get upset and said some things that just kind of fanned the flames. After a little bit, though, I realized what I was doing and started to relax and just let him talk. As soon as we could find an opening we told him we had to go and so...we went. It was so ridiculous. Ugh...some people are just so crazy and prideful and illogical that it makes me really worry about what humankind has become. But it's fun! Lessons like those keep life interesting and it give us something to talk about so they're fun!
Things really are starting to look up, though. It seems like just lately, we've been having a lot more success and a lot more chances to share the gospel! It's really neat! We had an AWESOME lesson with Lina yesterday about the restoration and it was incredible. We decided that she was ready to hear it and even though we knew we were going to have to explain a lot of things along the way because she doesn't have a background with Christianity, we went for it. It was a great decision and it turned out to be an awesome lesson with some awesome members that helped us out with it and it was just overall great. I am so excited for Lina. She is absolutely amazing and sooooo prepared by The Lord to hear the Gospel. :)
Its so cool to see how the spirit works. And how even though me and Elder Wang aren't nearly perfect teachers, investigators are still able to understand and feel the Spirit...or at least I am!
Speaking of Elder Wang, he is sweet! So he was baptized when he was 11 in China. When his parents were newly married, they came to California with his dad's boss along with 50 other business men. While there, they had lots of conferences and stuff, but (their boss being a member of the church) they also were taught the discussion in big groups of like 15-20 people by a set of mandarin speaking missionaries each. All 50 of them ended up getting baptized and when they went back to China, they went to their different towns and set up units there. So that's kind of his story.
He lived in California for three years with his family before the mission, so his English is good. He's been out for a year and we've been having some success! Lina is definitely why he was sent here, I believe, but we've also had the chance to talk to some Chinese people. We don't have any investigators, though, so we're still gonna be looking! We had a lesson with a Chinatown member that lives in our area yesterday and I just about fell asleep because I just had to sit there, not knowing anything they were saying! I think I even fell asleep during the closing prayer!
But about the fruity pebbles...
Haha yeah that was actually taken awhile ago when I brought a box of cereal to the church for lunch one day (don't judge me mom!). I was just looking through my pictures and thought that I'd turn it into a post! I'm glad Ally loved it so much hahaha :) she's so cute!
Well...besides all that nothing super exciting's goin down. I'm just so excited to hear about everything that's been going on with you guys!! I love hearing about what's happening over there...doesn't make me feel so far away. I love you all so much and can't wait to see ya again. I mean I've almost been out for 8 whole months now! What the heck?! Time is literally flying by. Hahaha as I wrote that I thought of Captain Literally off of the Studio C thing....... :) but anyways! I love you and pray about you all the time! Have an awesome week!
Your Elder,
Elder Stafford
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