Don't be hasty...in Hasty

Well and look what we have here. If my calculations are correct, we are now at Week 100 of my mission....That's something that makes me sit and think a little bit. It's cool though, and I still don't feel like I'm going home. It still feels like a distant thing. So this week was transfers, and as you know we are staying here and that is that. So as with transfers, they moved our P-day last week to Tuesday, which is good but also not because it's hard to get the effort to work on Monday after putting in 6 long days, doing your stats sunday night, and then realizing you have to stay in work mode. So I always try to find service for Monday work days because it helps break up the day a little bit. So we actually did manage to help out a family in the ward who was moving but they lived in a place called "Hasty" (google map it) which is about 37 miles out of town to the east. So it was a big mile day, but also good to help them out. We had planned to tract in the town of Hasty when we got done and it finished pretty early which left us with a good chunk of time for tracting. So we park the car and start walking to do some houses and this truck drives up next to us "Are you from the Church of the Latter-day Saint" (pause: I really dislike when people do that. They purposely take Jesus Christ's name out of our church. Resume) "ya, the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints" "hold on I got a few questions for you" and right at that moment a few red flags go up in my mind and I'm like "oh great, Elder Wadsworth gets to see his first bash". Now of course, I don't do that so I basically was just planning on bearing my testimony and getting out of there. So the guy pulls over and turns out he's the youth pastor for the little community church in Hasty. Of course, the first person we meet. So we talk to him a little bit, explain that we believe in Jesus Christ, and I threw in that in order to be baptized in our Church, you have to confess that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world (it's true, check out the baptismal interview questions, question #1) and he was like "that's not what I heard" and I asked "well, where did you get your information?" and he changed the subject. Well at the end, he basically told us we were doing a good thing gave us his blessing to continue, and explained the order of the Rapture and the 7 years of tribulation. So not too bad. Then as we tracted in Hasty, we realized that it was closer to the town of Lamar, CO which is in a different stake, and everyone was like "yep, If I'm ever in Lamar on Sunday, I'll check out your church!" And I didn't have the heart to be like "No...well...you are actually located in the La Junta ward. You see, the church divides itself into geographical regions called 'wards'" Probably wouldn't have gone over too well. So we decided that we just wouldn't go out to Hasty again unless strongly impressed to go. Our investigator was at Church again, and even gave the scripture in primary! (we're not sure if they realize she's not a member...oh well I don't think it matters anyways for that). We got to read with her this week from the Book of Mormon and explained some cool stuff about the baptismal covenant. And since her mom wasn't there, we asked the non-member dad to sit in. See, we need a 3rd person to make it legal and you are the only one home. He worked around the kitchen a bit but it was cool because he was definetely listening and likes us a lot more now. Also got to help out one of the more "eternal investigators" in the ward. A lady who's daughter served a mission a couple years ago and is getting married in the temple next week needed some help with watering plants while they were out of town going to the wedding. So of course we agreed, and while we were at the house talking about what needed to be watered they mentioned they needed help cutting off some chickens heads. Well, Mountain Man Gibb volunteered, having had experience with this at that "Chicken Survival Camp" back in the day. They didn't mind gutting the chickens, they just didn't like killing them because they got attached over the past few weeks. So yep. I did it. 5 chickens and I got pretty good with the hatchet. We even cooked one of the chickens on the grill right then and there and ate it. Good stuff. Cornish Hens. And got to talk about principles such as revelation and commandments. Progression is being made in that family. And a trip to the temple this week shouldn't hurt either. I guess one last thing I'll share, we both prayed one night which street to tract to find someone new with a baptismal date. The guy that came to church this past week unfortunately didn't pan out like we would have liked. Super nice. Very non-denominational. He likes the churches with yelling, dancing, rolling, rock bands etc. But he's feeding us dinner this week so that's cool. But anywho we were really trying hard, and it came to pass that we talked to a lady who claimed to have read the whole Book of Mormon and "not one word is true". At first I was like "oh well. Let's just leave" but I had the distinct impression "she didn't read any of it" So I asked about it, I said "wait. You mean to tell me that "come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness" isn't true? or how about this "there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent?" She paused and said "well...I don't remember that" I then asked "did you actually read the whole thing from cover to cover?" "well I actually just skimmed about half of it" and I got the impression that even that was a lie. I guarantee she picked up the book, flipped through it, saw the names of the books, didn't recognize them and thought "this isn't the bible". I bore my testimony to her that the only way she could come to know it was true was by reading and praying about it. She didn't want to learn more, but it was good for me to strengthen my testimony of the gift of discernment works and to actually boldy "call someone out" like with Alma and Zeezrom. Well, that's all! Love ya! Elder Gibb