It's an adventure!

September 28, 2015

Hello everybody! This week flew by! It feels like I was just writing. Hopefully it's been a good week for all. Were to start.... Um so the Indian ended up being not an Indian from India but instead a paki from Pakistan. I have no idea what they're called. But we talked to him and went over the first lesson with him and found out that he's been reading the Book of Mormon, gospel principles, and for some reason started reading the bishops and stake presidents Manual. He's super smart and is basically just learning everything he can about the church which is awesome! So like the great missionaries we are we committed him to baptism on October 3rd! It was awesome and he is totally prepared and we were super excited! I use the word "were" because he came to church yesterday, like he has been, but informed us that he might be going out of town tues or Thursday and doesn't know when he'll be back... If at all... So yeah we basically just sat there and didn't even know what to do or say... So we're crossing our fingers and praying he decides to stay a bit longer so we can get him baptized... He's a golden investigator for sure and we might be losing him. We do have another though His name is George and he's 15 years old and he's interested in what we have to say. We taught him the first lesson and yesterday the second and believes it and wants to keep learning and we are still working with him. So we're hoping he feels of the truthfulness and we can get him baptized.
Other than that the wards slowly coming together. These last two weeks they've sustained like 50 people so things are a bit slow but the members are awesome and friendly which is a huge relief because the average virginianite is an insensitive bafoon.. We've done some good amounts tracting and the people here are heartless... We've also been doing a lot of member contacting and the active ones are really nice and some inactives are nice but a lot of the inactives are grumps. One guy told us that he keeps telling all us Mormons he'll come back when he wants to and how he's tired of telling people that... We thought about telling him a crazy way of changing that but we didn't. Another
told us he's not a member anymore because he wasn't gone in 15 years. We were just like actually buddy you are, you're just a pile of a member. All in all the people of Virginia are evil. Their license
plates all say "Virginia is for lovers" but it's a lie. A lot of them are Presbyterian or Jewish or Catholic and as soon as they see us they tell us which still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. "Hi we're
missionaries from the chur....oh I'm Catholic" and we just sit there like ok well what's your point? "Um that's cool we're Mormon, can we finish?" And in the case that they're  Catholic, which is quite often, having the pope in town has sure made things difficult... Everyone we try to contact is constantly talking about the pope and his majesty. Did I mention they're heartless?  After one pretty horrendous day of tracting we were enjoying the wifi of a local target and a lady (non
member) said hi to us then told us how amazing we are and how she knows it's gotta be so tough but that we're amazing for doing what we do. It was pretty awesome. It made my day. Then she bought us soup. It was beyond disgusting but it was thoughtful and we were happy. My happy day lasted a whole 2 minutes though because a guy walked past us and said quite rudely "the pope says hi..." We both about jumped up and beat him to the ground but we refrained due to our name tags and our increasing Christ like attributes.
Another "fun" experience: we were sitting at Wendy's enjoying wifi and lemonade and a big weird lookin guy came in and sat down at the table next to us and plopped down a bible and were were both just thinking great... Here it comes... So he started asking us why Joseph smith wrote another bible so we started to explain and he kept ignoring and hammering us with questions about him writing a new bible. We said something though ,without bashing, that made him stop talking. It was cool. He paused for only a moment though and started asking us about random crap and telling us what he believed. He told us of these crazy experiences he's had where God showed himself to him and told him things and some other random stuff. We just sat there smiling. He then drilled us on how the New Testament is correct and asked us, with sincere intent of destroying us, if we'd ever read the New Testament. And we both chuckled and said yes actually we have. It caught him off guard but only for a sec because he was quite persistent in finding out if we'd ever read revelation and again we chuckled and said yes, we believe fully in the New Testament and revelation.... He was stumped for a moment but failed again to shut his ever flowing mouth. He kept telling us how the New Testament is right and that we need to read it and how he knows some Mormons that were reading it and
teaching from it and that they were telling everyone about it and how people were upset because they were reading the New Testament???... He was psycho and we really messed up his plans of roasting us so he wasn't making much sense. In the end we said we had to leave and he told us not to teach falsely or we'd end up in a burning lake of fire with Moroni. We were upset but after a while got a good laugh out of it. And now we think it was quite hilarious.
One last quick thing. Our planning is often crazy and and random last second stuff but it always ends up working and people tell us how good our timing is and how good our lessons are and how we came at the right time and it's awesome to see how God has plans for everyone and everything is in motion even if it seems completely random.  So that's been an awesome thing to experience. God knows what he's doing and everything will always work out. Alma 26:27
Those are just a few of the interesting things we've experienced. And to clear up the "enjoying wifi" phrase I use. Most apartments have wifi in the leasing offices that missionaries use/need to update area books and maps and lds tools and check emails and such but ours doesn't have wifi so we have to go out about 3/4 a mile to Wendy's because it's the closest. Or target when we were in the area.
All is well. The work is good. Slow and hurtful but good. We're still trying to figure things out and we're out of money and have maybe/hopefully enough food till next pay day and pday... We had 29.73 to buy food today for the week...But it's fun and an adventure. Raman, cereal, sandwiches, and snacks are wonderful. As for this vs the MTC, this is much better. The MTC was nice but it's also nice to be out here learning and growing and doing as we please (all good obedient things of course). I hope all is well at home and that everything is going ok. I love you and miss you all. The church is true and the gospel is great. It's been rough at times but the scriptures can be life savers. So read and pray and endure to the end. If you don't... you end up in Virginia. Jk but for real
Elder  Lucas

P.S. We should be able to go to a members house for conference but we might also go to the church. We're not sure yet. The members are super nice and welcoming. At least the active ones are.. The wards huge but there aren't a lot of active members. The only ones we're teaching are Zafar and George. We've had no other luck. We do have a bunch of referrals that we're hoping will pay off though. We've bought some food. But we don't have much. Next week we should be able to buy a bunch because we'll get paid again. 165 a month... The elders bike I'm using has a car. We're working on getting one though because our ward/area is huge and there are tons of main roads. It's about 4ish miles from top to bottom. Maybe a little bit more. And 2ish miles wide more in some areas. We're living near the bottom of the area. And yes we wear helmets. We have to. Nothing super spiritual has happened but it's definitely been awesome to see gods effect and love in everyone's lives and in helping us connect with people and meet their needs. And nothing scary or crazy has happened. All is well. Some days are a struggle but they go quick and we're staying busy. My companions still awesome and we work really well together. I don't need anything. But I did get the pants and do
love the letters and emails and pictures. Will you send me a picture of the motorcycle. But yeah everything is good.