Shortly after I emailed last week, I was approached by a man named Jeffrey, who's supposedly a member and hasn't been to church in years. He was desparate for company. He talked to me like he was on the run or something! He sounded pretty emotionally unstable. We gave him the church address so he could come on Sunday (which he didn't). He said he wanted us to "be [his] witnesses..." Interesting stuff. We tried visiting him yesterday, but his neighborhood is gated, and we don't have an access code. We haven't seen him since.
Tuesday was another interesting day... Remember the member I told you about that fed us Pizza Hut??? The awkward dinner date??? Well, his son and daughter-in-law, named Mark and Lori, also happen to live in Sulphur. They are both less active. Last Saturday we visited them and talked about eternal marriage with them. They've been working on quitting bad habits and going to the temple to become sealed--and honestly it was the most progress I'd ever seen with them since I've been here in Sulphur. So the three of us were SUPER excited for them! Then three days later, this past Tuesday, things took a nosedive. We were done for the day, in our apartment, and changed into regular clothes when Mark's dad, Charles, called us and asked us to call his son. Apparently Mark and Lori got in a HUGE fight and didn't want to get sealed anymore. We called Mark, and he told us to go to the Shell Gas Station (where Lori works) and talk to her. Okay, we aren't supposed to get involved with personal issues like that. We told Mark that it wasn't right for us to get involved with their marriage. Long story short, he got super upset with us and hung up. He called us three more times complaining about how he's never treated right by the church and how "missionaries tried to choke him" and yada yada yada. He yacked and yacked for 15 solid minutes and wouldn't give us a chance to speak. See the correlation here??? So at 9:45 we disdainfully put our proselyting clothes back on and went over to Shell to talk to Lori. When we got there she seemed really upset and didn't want to open up. We tried comforting her and helping her out as best we could. After that we went home and went to bed!
The next day was a little better... Lori called us and wanted to talk to us, and she told us everything. We listened to her (something we hope Mark will do too!), and we came to find out Mark was drunk when he kept calling us... He even went over to our apartment to try to talk to us! Except we weren't there at the time... Anyway, long story short this place is full of drama, but it's full of people needing the gospel! On Wednesday before we talked to Lori the five of us sang at a funeral for a member that had passed away last week. None of us knew her, but the funeral was good.
So now Thanksgiving... It's kinda weird that I did less on Thanksgiving than I did on Tuesday and Wednesday... For Thanksgiving we ate at the Fairbourns and had turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes, and the like. It was so good... Closest thing to home, that's for sure. We couldn't proselyte, so we played board games all day at the Fairbourn's. It was a super fun day!
Sunday was of course fast and testimony meeting. Tammy and her parents came. Her mom got up and bore her testimony in who knows how long, but she has come SUCH a long way since we've been meeting with her family. She was in tears, and I almost did too! It felt so amazing to hear her testimony and how much she loves us and her family! Probably the best thing that's happened this week!
Today, I'm just coming off a cold I've had for a few days that started just before Thanksgiving. It's not fun being sniffly and sore throaty while being a missionary! But the Lord provides, and He watches out for us. We have zone P-day in Ardmore today. It's going to be a great week!
Love,
Elder Garner
PS— You can NO LONGER send me letters and packages to the mission office address. You can still write to that address, but the mission office can't forward mail anymore. The only way to have anything sent to me is if the zone leaders pick it up. SO, effective IMMEDIATELY you must now send stuff to my apartment address in Sulphur, so here is the address:
Elder Chad Garner
1826 W. Muskogee Ave. Apt. 7
Sulphur, OK 73086
. . . at least until the next transfer - haha!
. . . at least until the next transfer - haha!
No comments:
Post a Comment