This was a week of charity and taking out the trash. The golden contact we found last week met with us 2 days after General Conference and had already read and MARKED all the way through 2 Nephi. We were floored. She loves it all. She committed to be baptized on Oct 27 and then the bomb, she's not in our area so we had to hand her over on a silver platter to the Hermanas in our rival ward. That was so hard. Our transition lesson was amazing though and those sisters made me realize how much work I have left to do. I think my mouth was open the whole time at their ability to teach powerfully and to the point...and under an hour. It was amazing! I scribbled as many notes as I could and I'm for sure going to copy them. Two days later we got another golden couple from street contacting and sure enough...they aren't in our area either so basically we just handed that ward 3 baptisms in a month. You're welcome. Charity: check.
Saturday was bursting with wackadoo, but it was miraculous. We stopped to visit an investigator and she wasn't there...but her boyfriend that we've never got to talk to us for more than 1 min was. We ended up having a 45 min lesson on the doorstep with him asking questions about everything. I felt a tiny tug in my heart to tell him to marry his girlfriend so she could get baptized. After telling my brain that was crazy I finally blurted it out. He responded surprisingly well and perhaps this was the miracle we needed! Me and my big mouth. Later that night we stopped by one of our favorite members home, a part of town we never go that late at night, only to find all the lights off. We felt like we should knock anyway and their backyard renter (yeah, that's how people live out here) answered the door, drunk as could be. It took about 30 sec to realize we were there for him as he poured out his soul and desire to return to church. We bore testimony of the Atonement and let him know he was always welcome back to church. He burst into tears as we reminded him of God's love for him and surely that is why he sent us there that night. He asked us if we could take away his addictions...uh...sure...and he went to his trailer in the back and brought a stack of...ahem digital ladies and handed them to us. I wasn't going to let my sweet, innocent companion touch that so I took it and then asked him where his beer was. He said he just wanted it that night and in the morning he'd be done, with my gentle, soft voice...let's be honest, it was the Hna Hall 'I'm right' voice I said give it to me. He stared at me like I'd just punched him in the face and I started to get a little nervous but I stood firm and said it again, no more, give it to me. He broke down, walked over to the corner and handed over his booze. Picture it as we left that house, me with a stack of dirty discs in my left hand and a 40 in the other and of course we walked to the car the members came home. Awkward...as I slyly dumped the beer out behind my back and shoved everything else in the trunk as quickly as possible. Then, of course when we got home to dump that trash our member neighbors came home...so I hid behind the bush until they went inside. It just seemed a little too hard to explain what I was doing with beer and porn.
As for the food adventures this week, it was rough. Let's just say that the food burns going in and it burns going out. At one house this week, they gave me three plates of food. I stared at it for awhile and just prayed. Luckily she left the room and when she did I took back my plate and scraped the food back into the pot then hustled back to my seat...in such a rush that I sat on the curtain and pulled down the entire rod. Awesome. Whatever, I got out of eating a truckload of beans. And no, we never have dessert, they don't really do dessert or at least not my kind of dessert. We get a lot of fruit, I guess some people think that counts. Speaking of fruit, the other day at BINGO an old lady with dirty hands gave me an apple and made me eat it in front of her. I'm not going to lie, for a second I thought she was trying to Snow White me to death. But I survived.
In closing I would like to quote...ok just kidding I have no quote. But we have been talking a lot here about service. For us, conference really focused on service and yesterday we had a recap of Ballard's talk about bees and how it takes all of us to get that honey. I don't exactly know what he said because I listened to it both times in Spanish but I think it was something like that. Anyway, we've seen miracles in this area because of the work of members and friends. There is sweet honey in the work of service. No act is too small, it all makes a difference. As missionaries, we are very grateful for even the tiniest help from others, it really does make a huge impact on someone investigating this gospel and it will lead to a change of heart and life. So thank you for all your service, thank you for helping the missionaries help others. And as Nelson said, if you or anyone has questions or needs help, ask the missionaries, we can help.
xoxo,
Hermana Hall
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