Hiya Fam!
Hope you enjoy the joke! Elder
Schippers came in for a bit and helped me out.
Anyways, our week has been good! I
was on an exchange on Tuesday, I was over in Newtonabbey. While I was away,
Elder Schippers and Elder Harman taught F, and then they and F went to go teach
Ph!! So F went on a Joint Teach! And they said she did a great job too!! I was
so happy to hear that. The lesson with Ph went well, though his pet bird (it's
a kind of Parrot) freaked out in the middle of the Fall of Adam and Eve, which
apparently terrorized Elder Harman haha
We had several appointments set up
this past week, but none of them turned out after Tuesday. :( Not even Ph. We
had an appointment on Thursday but he had to cancel and had us reset it to
Saturday, but he wasn't there. He called us afterwards and apologized and
reaffirmed that he'd be coming to Church, which he did!
On Saturday we had another Belfast
Blitz! We set a goal to get 200 potentials! We set to work. We had a few
whiteboards set up for people to write down "What makes you happy?",
one Elder drew a picture of the Plan of Salvation in chalk, and we had several
going around just talking to people. At one station, we had a Born Again group
set up just 10 feet away, and they were singing and preaching and handing out
tracts for hours and hours. No hostilities, thank goodness. Anyhow, we worked
from 11 to just after 5. We had our appointment with Ph, so we had to miss the
pizza. :( But we got a text from the Zone Leaders informing us that we had
gotten two hundred and twenty five potentials!!! Woohoo!! It was a fun day.
Oh I gotta tell you this one thing.
During our lunch break, an Elder Forbush came up to me. He's pretty short,
probably about Claire's height. He's from Utah, loves Air Soft, really fun guy.
Anyhow, he came up to me and asked if I would go with him to the Disney store
across the street, just to check out the Star Wars stuff they had. We did, and
he found a Stormtrooper helmet. He put it on and turned to me, and I said
"Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?" BOOM! He laughed so
hard! Oh it was good.
Anyways, so Ph came to church. It
was really good. We showed up to church an hour early (we always do; the buses
are extremely few and far between on Sundays), and there he was, waiting for
us! We were so surprised! We asked him if he'd forgotten to turn his clocks
back but he said he hadn't. Still don't know why he was so early. But we were
able to talk with him, help him to understand some of the things he'd been
reading in the Book of Mormon. He can't read very well, but he does try, which
is all we ask.
It's strange, I don't think they do
Daylight Savings on the same days in America as they do here. Because yesterday
we got an extra hour of sleep (loved it!!!). Did you?
I got the package after the Belfast Blitz! Thanks so much! The ties are
great and I've already eaten everything haha!
When I go home. I want to go straight from the Airport to the Temple, and
I want just a few minutes in the Celestial Room to just sit and think and
figure things out. Can we do that?
There are already Christmas stuff in the stores. To be fair, they don't
have Thanksgiving here, so right after Halloween they don't have anything to
hold them back ha Unless we have an
appointment, we must be in by 6 on Halloween. Then we have Guy Fawkes Day.
"Remember remember the
fifth of November." Guy Fawkes day. This person, Guy Fawkes, attempted to
blow up Parliament, but he was caught and executed. In England, as I've been
told by some English Elders, they celebrate that he got caught by making
bonfires and burning effigies of him. In Scotland, they celebrate that he tried
by burning bonfires!! Ha! I'm kinda being funny, but it's true. They celebrate
it but for different reasons. I dunno about Northern Ireland. Probably get
both.
Okay, so I'll close with another
thought from my scripture study. I was studying something, I don't even
remember what, but part of my study brought me to Enos. And it really stood out
to me all the really aggressive adjectives Enos uses to describe his
experience. Labored, wrestled, struggled, etc. And I was really thinking about
it. Why did Enos have to exert himself like this? Why did he have to pray all
day long in order to get an answer from Heaven? I don't think I have the
fullest answer, but one reason I came up with is that sometimes God requires us
to show just how badly we want an answer. If Enos had simply prayed for
forgiveness, and then kept on hunting, his experience probably wouldn't have
been as fantastic as it was. Any thoughts on your end?
Somebody I heard said "I cringe a little whenever I read 1 Nephi
3:7. Because I know just what the Lord is about to command Nephi to do, which
will take all of Nephi's faith to get through." Nevertheless, it's a great
scripture!!
I love you guys so much! I was
informed by some of my fellow missionaries from my MTC group that yesterday
marks 7 months left!! Scary!! Hope you all have a great Halloween!! :)
Love,
Elder Bates
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