Tuesday, July 21, 2015

July 7th—July 13th: Our First Street Display

     The week started off with us going to Lancaster, which is where all of the other missionaries in our District live and serve.  Our District consists of 4 companionships.  The District leader, the Zone Leaders, a companionship of sisters, and us.  Their area is 1/3 the size of ours and there are three.  It was fun to spend some time together.  We spent the night and then had Zone Conference the next morning.  It was very good.  We talked about the formula of faith which is (1) desire (2) belief (3) action (4) expectation.  The one statement that really stood out to me was “Miracles are Faith in Action.”  I just think that is so true.  We hurried back from Zone Conference to have Tea with Steve, who is an ex-member of the Church, who is a great man, and is actually the ward pianist.  He is super active and helpful to the missionaries.
I have found my street contact stop.  I walk up to them and I immediately shake their hand.  It naturally makes them stop and intrigues them.  People keep saying that I am bold so I will go with that for now.  This week marked my 1 month out in the field.  1 month since I have seen my family.  It sounds like a long time that way, but it has gone so fast.  It is true that days are weeks and weeks are days. I wanted to let you know that I have been getting along with my companion very well for the last week and things are much better.  He isn’t any different but I am.  It is a testament to me that Heavenly Father does answer prayers.
We did our 1st street display which was so hard.  We had a table and it was just 2 of us against so many and was overwhelming.  We did teach 11 lessons though and got one solid investigator so that is success.  I don’t think that I have ever had someone try and walk through me before.  It was like I was invisible to these people.   The next day the rest of the district came and helped us do a 2nd one.  The District and Zone leaders came and brought some banners so that looked actually quite professional, much better than the one we did.  One of our ward missionaries was there, a crazy lady (but super funny), and brought her own street display that was super awkward.  It was a crocheted picture of Christ in a frame sitting on a knit doilie.  She had some Books of Mormon and some pamphlets.  The icing on the cake was that she had a CD player booming super loud.  I was teaching a lesson right there and it was really messing me up so I subtly turned it way down.  It felt like our street display was solid and hers was the competing JW stand.  The only word I have for it is awkward.
I think today, P-day, has been the highlight of the week.  We had an appointment with 2 investigators.  We have set a baptismal date of August 1st,  so pray for them to have strength.  She really struggles with smoking and he is just waiting for her.  Also, as we were at church emailing, some random man came in and scared the poop out of me because he looked drunk.  He has bowel cancer and was on his way to the hospital and wanted us to give him a blessing.  He is a less active, but he still has faith.  He told us to come and visit him and we gave him a Book of Mormon and some stuff to read while he was in the hospital.  We gave him a blessing and immediately he told us how much better he felt and how he felt so much less pain.  It was the first blessing that I have ever given.  I have only done the anointing before.  I will tell you more about it next week.

Elder Tarbet

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