It's been a pretty rough week this past week, but hopefully things will get better! I don't really have much to talk about in this email, but i'll try to say as much as I can haha. It feels like so much happened, but so little happened. We had a pretty unsucessful week, and quite a bit of stuff go on that I won't even be able to talk about on here. I have just been in a downer mood lately with everything going on out here. Everybody brings their problems directly to us instead of the bishop, so that's super frustrating. I don't think I could handle being a bishop!
We had exchanges twice this week, I exchanged with Elder Neonte, a spanish speaking Elder, and Elder Crozer, the zone leader. That was pretty fun, and it was cool to go around with them and see their different techniques, and teaching/tracting skills! The only bad thing about that was both of those days that I went on exchanges, pretty much all of our appointments fell through so it made our area look bad! It was still a good time though.
Billy did good this whole last week with not smoking and obeying the other commandments that he struggled with, so he was baptized on friday! It was way good! I was able to baptize him, and I did it on the first try! haha. When I was pulling him back up, his foot slipped on the ground and he almost fell back down but I caught him. Only one person noticed that I almost dropped him though so that saved me from a lot of embarrassment! Haha I'm sure Bishop would have teased me a lot about that.
 |
| Billy asked Elder Bell to baptize him! |
 |
| Billy's Baptism - 1/11/2013 |
We have a few new investigators that we're not sure about yet, we can't really tell if they'll progress or not. We had a bad turn out at church this week we only had two of our investigators show up. We'll still invite them all to be baptized and continue to work with them, they just seem like they aren't super interested.
We taught Jessie and Adam the law of chastity this week, and we thought it was going to be hard because they have been living together for a while. Adam has some pretty bad health problems and we talked to bishop and asked if there is anything we could do about him not moving out. We came to an agreement that they could live in the same house, as long as they are in different rooms. They aren't a couple anymore anyways, and they live with a bunch of family so we know that they aren't sleeping in the same room now. Actually as soon as we told them Adam might have to move out he started sleeping out on the couch instead of in the same room as Jessie. Her baptismal date is on the 26th, but Bishop will be out of town and she really wants him to be there, so it might be pushed up a week! We'll find out about whether she feels good about it tonight when we go see her. She's awesome and has so much faith! We've prayed and been answered that she is ready, and so we'll see what her answer is tonight!
Phillip hasn't really been progressing lately, and it's really sad because he has a lot of potential, but just isn't making any progress I hope we don't have to drop him because we've spent probably over 30 hours working with him! He just doesn't have a love for himself and has some other problems. He is just overcoming a drug addiction he has had for 17 years and it's taking a big toll on him. He knows exactly what he needs to do, but he has a problem doing it. He knows by changing things it will make him happier, he just can't act on things. He knows the church is true and the Book of Mormon is true but still isn't sure about Jesus Christ. I know it doesn't really make sense, he's super confusing.
So Jaramiah sang some song about prayer at his baptism and he asked Billy if he could sing at his. Billy wanted him to sing "I Believe I Can Fly" at the end after all of it was over. It was ridiculous! Jaramiah tried impersonating R. Kelly's voice and trying to sing exactly like it sounded, but he didn't hit any of the notes haha. He would flap his arms like you would do in the chicken dance, while he singed the chorus "I believe I can fly". It was so hard not to laugh, I would send the recording of it, but it's too big of a file. (Elder Bell later sent his SD card, and the video is posted below)
I've grown to love Jaramiah so much, and I care about him a lot too. Saturday night is what made me in such a bad mood. We went over to Billy's to make sure he was going to be at church on time so he wouldn't miss his confirmation. When Theresa his mom answered the door, you could tell she was drunk. She started yelling at us about Jaramiah. They had done a background check online and there was something that happened in his past that they weren't too happy about. She told us that if we couldn't get him to leave her property, then she would call the cops and make him leave. I told her we couldn't really do anything about it, and that I'd call the Bishop. He said he would interview Jaramiah in the morning but couldn't really do anything about it. After we had left, we had probably stopped by 5-6 peoples houses and nobody answered. We were having really bad success. We got a call from Bishop saying that we needed to go to Theresa's and tell him that he was on his way over. He then specifically told us to be out of sight, and far away by the time he got there.
When Bishop got there, he woke Jaramiah up out of the Carport and talked to him about what he did. It was something in his past, but he hadn't talked with the police station about it yet. It wasn't a warrant or anything, he just needed to re-register. So Bishop told him to pack all of his belongings and to come with him, Jaramiah without fighting went with him. About ten seconds after they had walked out of the drive-way a car pulled up. A gang of teenagers hopped out and were looking for Jaramiah. Theresa, being drunk called some family friends to come over and take care of business. Billy, being the only sober one there ran out and held the gang back before they could get to Jaramiah. They were able to get away safely. He has always been talking about wanting to go back home to Cincinnati where all of his family is. He hasn't talked to them in a long time though, and isn't sure if they live there anymore. He wasn't safe being here in San B with a gang trying to kill him. A member in our ward bought him a bus ticket back to Ohio. I'll never be able to see Jaramiah again...
The Bishop kept thanking us for calling and not ignoring the promptings of the spirit. If we wouldn't have called, or gone over there, Jaramiah probably wouldn't be alive. Never ignore the promptings of the spirit! I'm so thankful that we had recognized that we needed to get bishop over there, and that the spirit was able to talk to me. I'm going to miss Jaramiah he's an awesome guy. I hope he can be safe and continue to go to church wherever he ends up.
That's pretty much all I have to talk about this week, it wasn't very eventful. Sorry I'm been in a bad mood, a lot of stuff has gone on in the past couple of days and it is just over whelming and depressing. I hope everybody is doing good! I love you guys and i'll talk to you next week.
Elder Landon Bell
No comments:
Post a Comment