Explosion of Slime!

So right off the bat, I got another nosebleed this week. But it was Tuesday morning, and I haven't gotten another one since, but it was weird because usually I go years without getting them. and then 3 within 2 days. It was quite the sight to the member that we went to to go wash off (I got it during tracting, so we went to a member that lived nearby).

We've definitely been having a lot more success tracting lately, and it's not really finding per se, but more just getting a chance to talk to people and get rid of misconceptions. Like this one old guy was funny, we told him about a prophet, and he was like "well what's he running around doing then?" and we got to bear testimony of food storage, getting out of debt, and the disintegration of the family, and he was all like "well, I have no debt, I've got a food storage, and a shotgun with plenty of ammo." So that was pretty funny, he told us we could come to his house if anything happened. And it got me thinking, why wasn't a gun a part of the original food storage advice? It's a part of mine.


We've been having a lot of trials this week, a lot of our appointments fell through, and that investigator we picked up last week is kind of going on the backburners. But hey, when that stuff happens it just puts you on your knees, and these are the times when you can prepare for some real cool miracles. You gotta show the faith before you can reap the reward.

One trial was we were riding our bikes, and decided to go tract at the farthest end of our area, which was a half hour bike ride away. We went along the freeway on a quaint little bike path that was off to the side. I got in a little accident, where I wasn't being particularly cautious and slipped off my pedals and landed right on the frame of the bike. And I'm not going to go into too much more detail, but suffice it to say I really hurt myself. It took probably about 10 minutes before the pain subsided. So then we decided to keep on going, and 15 minutes later, I hear this POOF and look over and Elder Summers back tire exploded, and slime was just spraying everywhere. So we got down, cleaned up what we could, and began the long walk to the nearest place we could get a ride from. It was kind of annoying, and as I write this, I guess we could have just kept walking to the tracting place, and gotten a ride from one of the zillion members that lived there, and got something accomplished, but we didn't. I just realized that and kind of wish we'd kept going to witness the miracle.

We did manage to give a Book of Mormon out this week, this lady was really nice and remarked that she worked with Mormons and she knew a bit about it, and then when we asked her what kinds of things she knew she started talking about stuff that was really kind of deep doctrine/sacred things, and she didn't even seem weird about it, just kind of matter of fact. And then we asked her about the Book Of Mormon, and she started talking about the first wagon trains into Utah, and about a documentary she'd watched. So we got a chance to talk to her a lot about it, and her eyes widened as she realized what we really believed and then she took of Book Of Mormon! But it made me think, I wonder if a missionary asked any of my friends from school what they knew about the church, how much they would know. It's a good thing to think about, how much do we tell our friends?

Then the next door after that was a gay guy who didn't want to talk to us, and then some guy that bashed with us. Man I just hate bashing so much, but I will admit I was a lot better at it this time. But you never get anywhere with it, so I'm glad we didn't spend too long there.

Talked to some drunk people too, we were riding past them and they called out to us, and we started talking to them about the Restoration, and one remarked that he knew a little bit about it, and started asking some weird questions, and then we asked him where he learned those things and he said he learned them from South Park. Then his friends burst out laughing and started making fun of him, so he got upset and told us that we should leave. It was pretty funny though.

We also ate with a Samoan family, and they started out the dinner by telling us we had to eat everything on the table or else they would be offended. So I started pounding back pork chops, and these pork chops were huge, bigger than my hand, but I managed to eat 2 of them, and a chicken wing, in addition to some corn, and a plate of rice. Then I looked up and realized I ate twice as much as the father of the house, and he started laughing and told us it was the joke they played on missionaries. So that was funny.

We did have one cool experience this week, during our Gospel Principles class we taught about fasting, and our investigator was there, and he not only bore testimony of fasting (and he was a Jehovah's Witness and they don't fast) but also answered someones question, and then proceeded to share a story from the Book of Mormon that we'd previously shared with him. And in our last teaching appointment, as we were closing up he remarked he knew there was one true church. We didn't have time to pounce on that, but I regret that. We'll give him a baptismal date this week.

And that's all for now!

Elder Gibb