The hymn of the week award goes to: Master the Tempest is Raging. Want to know why? Because the "big bad wolf" disguised as the "clouds over Mustang" almost blew me and Elder Bolan right off our bikes! We had some major wind over in Mustang this past week.
Elder Bolan and I have a street map of our area. We decided that whenever we go tracting we would mark in highlighter the streets we tracted. We have a goal of tracting for two hours a day, so at the end of each day we get to color in a little portion of our map. One day that entire map will be colored. Earlier this week we decided to tract in a neighborhood that wasn't particularly fruitful. The last house we knocked on belonged to a United Pentecostal pastor. That turned out to be interesting. He was very friendly—he invited us in and we got to talking about our beliefs. He gave us an entire lecture on being overtaken by the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. He even asked us if we wanted to be baptized "in the name of Jesus Christ" rather then by the names of the Godhead. His explanation behind all of it seemed almost... salesman-like. We felt like we were being sold religion. It didn't feel right to us. He invited us to his building. Too bad it's out of our area... He does have a friend that pastors for a United Pentecostal Church in Mustang though, so we might go visit that one if we feel so inclined. It was interesting experience, for sure.
On Wednesday we felt the wind the worst. It was blowing at 45 MPH! Or so we heard... We were on bikes that day, so when we biked north we got to our destination in only 15 minutes! After doing some tracting, we biked back against the wind, and it took us half on hour to get back! Then when we got home we had to wipe our faces with wet wipes (thanks mom!) to get all the dirt and sand out of our faces. The wipes came out brown. Gross... We certainly tried opening our mouths to share the gospel, but whenever we did we get sand in our teeth. Gag...
We had a couple child or record baptisms this Saturday, and those were awesome. After the baptisms we had a church tour with Alex, one of our investigators. The tour was very spiritual and enlightening for him. Afterwards we had a lesson with him with a member. After the lesson with Alex we went to go try a lady named Becky that I tracted into with Elder Faulkner on exchanges. Becky asked us to pray for her granddaughter, Beth, who was sick. When we tried Becky's house, we instead get Krista. We got to know her and found out she's Becky's daughter and Beth's mother. She was incredibly friendly. After getting to know us she invited us to an Easter get-together that she was having with her family. Her husband, Glen, invited an LDS member from the OKC 5th ward named Mark, who happened to be childhood best friends with Glen.
So on Sunday after church we headed off to this Easter get-together. We had no idea how it was going to turn out. When we got there we got a lot of strange looks! Whenever we looked and made eye contact with people in the room they'd kind of just look down or avert their eyes. It almost felt like we were playing Whack-a-mole with our eyes. But we introduced ourselves and they were friendly towards us. We met Mark, the member that's childhood friends with Glen. We had a good conversation with him. Later on we were approached by a lady named Debbie, the wife of Mark, who is the brother of Glen. Turns out Debbie is an inactive member! Coincidence? Definitely not. Inspiration? For sure. We visited with Debbie for quite a while and got to know her and her feelings towards the church. She felt that our presence at the get-together was a sign from God and a hint that she needed to start getting back into church. We got her contact information and found out she's in the Quail Creek ward up in Oklahoma City. Time to sick missionaries on her! Anyway, Elder Bolan and I definitely knew the get-together was inspired. We made some great connections with the guests at the get-together. Krista and Glen and their family were incredibly nice to us, and they invited us back! Mark told us they are now starting to ask questions, so Elder Bolan and I are praying that this whole experience goes somewhere.
Our Easter was certainly a great time of remembrance and peace. We felt it all throughout the day. We know the Lord's watching over us each and everyday as we bring souls to this gospel. I hope your Easter was likewise.
Elder Garner
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