Today I'm sick. So I'm at home. I was playing guitar again hoping to be able to string together a few more chords. I still can't sing while I'm playing most songs except a few I've learned of other people's for fun and even then I'm usually stammering a bit. Maybe it's the futility of the activity (I'm half asleep in the process and uninspired), but I have this vivid flashback of being back in Mississippi as an elder. I can't remember the city, but I see government duplexes all around me. There's the incessant rumble of subwoofers in the background and kids passing on torn up bicycles. We are walking through an empty basketball court and the broken chain from the goal can be heard clanking in the wind. There's also a tint of darkness that isn't from the sky. Maybe it's the bleak attitudes. Or maybe it was from the sky. I think it was clouds. We're here to see a woman and we come by and she lets us in, but it is different today. She's hiding something. And then my mind splinters and it's a different woman, a different interior, and a different city probably. But it's the same pulse in that room. And it's nearly the same noise outside. We're supposed to check to see if she stopped smoking or chewing tobacco. I remember then it was such an easy thing to suggest to our strangers of hosts. And I can feel the same prayer in my heart as we walked in there. The feeling I tend to forget is the wariness and guilt that comes from wondering whether we were wasting our time there. It was something intangible we hoped for, though only slightly. Until we prayed with them and heard the sincerity of their hearts open. This varied. Rarely did someone really want what we wanted for them. And rarely did we bend our view of the gospel to promise them what they really wanted.
I don't remember a lot of details from the mission. I remember what the spirit did to me at times. After a powerful discussion once or twice I needed to just pull our bikes over and sit down. Or maybe we would ride home and I'd be completely silent. I remember the time in Bay St. Louis when 3 of our investigators who were ready for baptism turned rejecting at once. And I just started bouncing a ball off the wall over and over humming, "I saw a Mighty Angel Fly" and wondering what I did wrong.
The first, Mr. Spiller, I can never forget. His was the most powerful prayer experience I'd felt up until then and I don't think there was another more powerful afterward. He was a big ex-biker. He prided himself in being a tough guy and was into government conspiracies, but other than that he was very sane. I loved the guy and he was ready. He had some tough concerns he had to get over though. A niece of his had been molested by a bishop. We don't think that stuff happens and thankfully it is very rare, but it happened here and he was very skeptical at first. He had a good friend that we kept trying to get contact info for from the records guys in our ward there. He knew his bible and we would frequently discuss Revelation. When he got the Book of Mormon, he inhaled it. We came back for our next appointment and he had questions about Alma or Mormon (he started from the beginning). He went to conference and loved it. He told us there that he was ready to be baptized. This was immediately after the experience we had on our knees. He was praying for an answer to a question about the Book of Mormon and we helped him resolve this by suggesting prayer. I was concentrated on our recent emphasis on kneeling in prayer and so this made me feel good to know he was willing to do this. He prayed and there was a warm washing silence in the room. This intense love like feeling entered with a subtle onset but rolled like a snowball into a feeling so fragile none of us could really speak without care. And then our host held his arm out to show his goosebumps. He knew. That was the take home message. He knew and we all knew. A couple days later, just a few days before his baptism, he had a coldness in greeting us. He told us about how he finally got a hold of his friend and then brought up a lot of anti literature concerns. The thing that happened next was devastating. I could not defend against them. Neither could my companion. The man was belligerent and his eyes had completely changed. "I almost let you get my son too..." those words stung like a hot iron. And I felt powerless and flooded. I tried to bring up a few things, but I couldn't do anything. He wanted us gone and that was it. There is no ending to this story. Just a painful resignation. I gave up blaming myself or the men involved awhile ago, but it still stings to think of it. The contrast. But contrasts are what Jesus endured more than anything. I had tasted only a sample and couldn't drink anymore.
Reflecting on the mission brought a great joy to me though in the form of an electronic reunion with a child from a family we baptized. I had been trying to contact her mother off and on for years, but her phone changed and I lost touch. They were kind of my last contact with the memories of my mission. I thought, she's about 16 now (she was 9 at the time I met them) and I did one of those random facebook searches that I rarely do. I messaged her and she remembered me! I can't really say how happy I was. I'm just really excited to talk to all of them and find out how life is. It really was a miracle running into them too. It was my first door, haha really. I knock and this big black lady comes to the door and I'm like a deer in the headlights. I was way nervous. And she just looks at me with pity for a second like, "seriously?" then gives a chuckle and says come in. We teach her. She's not interested. But her sister, who lives close by is and then we start teaching her husband, and then her two kids. And a strange thing happens. We love these people. One of the best moments of the mission is the last day that we hung out with them. I've only got a couple pictures to remember it, but one of the elders in our foursome brought a guitar over and started playing some blues and we all kind of sang to it. And I started chasing the mom around with a camera cause she was like don't take my picture. And we were just playing with the kids and it was like the perfect day. They were excited about church and seemed happy and it was my first time getting transferred, but they made the mission for me. I tried to keep in contact with them, but mostly tried to keep them connected to the ward members who could love them on a regular basis. Thank God for facebook.
And of course I got to talk to Shtebbadie on the phone and that was the awesome. She's such a stellar missionary and I was excited to hear about the people she's teaching (and baptizing).
Next entry is mother's day.
I don't remember a lot of details from the mission. I remember what the spirit did to me at times. After a powerful discussion once or twice I needed to just pull our bikes over and sit down. Or maybe we would ride home and I'd be completely silent. I remember the time in Bay St. Louis when 3 of our investigators who were ready for baptism turned rejecting at once. And I just started bouncing a ball off the wall over and over humming, "I saw a Mighty Angel Fly" and wondering what I did wrong.
The first, Mr. Spiller, I can never forget. His was the most powerful prayer experience I'd felt up until then and I don't think there was another more powerful afterward. He was a big ex-biker. He prided himself in being a tough guy and was into government conspiracies, but other than that he was very sane. I loved the guy and he was ready. He had some tough concerns he had to get over though. A niece of his had been molested by a bishop. We don't think that stuff happens and thankfully it is very rare, but it happened here and he was very skeptical at first. He had a good friend that we kept trying to get contact info for from the records guys in our ward there. He knew his bible and we would frequently discuss Revelation. When he got the Book of Mormon, he inhaled it. We came back for our next appointment and he had questions about Alma or Mormon (he started from the beginning). He went to conference and loved it. He told us there that he was ready to be baptized. This was immediately after the experience we had on our knees. He was praying for an answer to a question about the Book of Mormon and we helped him resolve this by suggesting prayer. I was concentrated on our recent emphasis on kneeling in prayer and so this made me feel good to know he was willing to do this. He prayed and there was a warm washing silence in the room. This intense love like feeling entered with a subtle onset but rolled like a snowball into a feeling so fragile none of us could really speak without care. And then our host held his arm out to show his goosebumps. He knew. That was the take home message. He knew and we all knew. A couple days later, just a few days before his baptism, he had a coldness in greeting us. He told us about how he finally got a hold of his friend and then brought up a lot of anti literature concerns. The thing that happened next was devastating. I could not defend against them. Neither could my companion. The man was belligerent and his eyes had completely changed. "I almost let you get my son too..." those words stung like a hot iron. And I felt powerless and flooded. I tried to bring up a few things, but I couldn't do anything. He wanted us gone and that was it. There is no ending to this story. Just a painful resignation. I gave up blaming myself or the men involved awhile ago, but it still stings to think of it. The contrast. But contrasts are what Jesus endured more than anything. I had tasted only a sample and couldn't drink anymore.
Reflecting on the mission brought a great joy to me though in the form of an electronic reunion with a child from a family we baptized. I had been trying to contact her mother off and on for years, but her phone changed and I lost touch. They were kind of my last contact with the memories of my mission. I thought, she's about 16 now (she was 9 at the time I met them) and I did one of those random facebook searches that I rarely do. I messaged her and she remembered me! I can't really say how happy I was. I'm just really excited to talk to all of them and find out how life is. It really was a miracle running into them too. It was my first door, haha really. I knock and this big black lady comes to the door and I'm like a deer in the headlights. I was way nervous. And she just looks at me with pity for a second like, "seriously?" then gives a chuckle and says come in. We teach her. She's not interested. But her sister, who lives close by is and then we start teaching her husband, and then her two kids. And a strange thing happens. We love these people. One of the best moments of the mission is the last day that we hung out with them. I've only got a couple pictures to remember it, but one of the elders in our foursome brought a guitar over and started playing some blues and we all kind of sang to it. And I started chasing the mom around with a camera cause she was like don't take my picture. And we were just playing with the kids and it was like the perfect day. They were excited about church and seemed happy and it was my first time getting transferred, but they made the mission for me. I tried to keep in contact with them, but mostly tried to keep them connected to the ward members who could love them on a regular basis. Thank God for facebook.
And of course I got to talk to Shtebbadie on the phone and that was the awesome. She's such a stellar missionary and I was excited to hear about the people she's teaching (and baptizing).
Next entry is mother's day.
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