December 23, 2013
Longmont,
CO
A funny thing about
Mormons. They all assume that the missionaries know exactly who they are
and where they live. Occasionally we will tract into members who invite
us in, because we are the missionaries, but they don't know why we are there
and we don't know why we are there and it is a great chance for us all to get
to know each other! Then there are the members who haven't been to church
in a while (like years, they really think it isn't their thing anymore) and
sometimes we tract into them and have experiences like the other day:
knock on door, man answers door,
makes a motion to close it, we assume he is going to say he's not
interested/has another church/etc but surprises us by "Wait, what are you
doing here?!"
"um...We're missionaries
from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints..."
"Yeah. You didn't
know I was a member?"
"Well, nope, just wanted to
invite you to come unto Christ"
Or something like that.
Anyway, Sister Carbno and I laughed all the way to our car and still laugh
whenever we think of that experience.
Speaking of Sister Carbno!
She is my new companion, fresh from the MTC and awesomely ready to
go! She is from Illinois
and has 9 siblings! Oh man, both number of siblings and size of
scriptures has increased from Sister Z, I didn't think it was possible.
We have been having a great time and some cool experiences already, though I
believe every set appointment has canceled on us, never fear! We have had
some really promising interactions with people who seem interested in learning
and coming unto Christ, despite the Christmas season.
Not that there is anything wrong
with Christmas, I really love Christmas actually and Christmas music is my
favorite genre of all! And Christmas stories (thanks mom!) and snow and
service and everything about it! The only trouble is that people go out
of town or are busy, but really that just helps us as we can go directly to the
people who are prepared! (Meaning Heavenly Father will arrange things so the
people we need to talk to we will be able to talk to.)
So mostly it has been a
questionably awesome week! (Phrase invented by Sister Carbno for the
express purpose of describing this week and in particular a certain experience we
had last night.) Walking back to the car, about to go home and we see a
lady standing outside her house. We introduce ourselves and she seems to
recognize the name of the church. So we ask her about that and she says
yeah, just from people coming to the door.
"So you know about the
restoration then?"
"Yeah, I think it's
great"
"Oh, so did they tell you
about the Book of Mormon"
"uh-huh"
"Oh. Cool. Have
you read it?"
"Yeah, I've read some of
it."
"Oh....what did you think
about it then?"
"I think it is great."
"..." what?
Luckily my companion had the
presence of mind to set up a return appointment since we did need to get
home. I just didn't know what to say to that. Some of you may be
surprised to find out that I can think of 2 times on my mission when I have
been rendered speechless. Missions are incredible things. It
occurred to me later that the next question should have been "So...have
you been baptized? Would you be willing to follow the example of Jesus
Christ and be baptized by someone holding the Priesthood authority of
God?" We will try that next time :)
Merry Christmas to
everyone!
love, Sister Emily DeFord
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