Average Week

This was an average work week in the mission field. We saw Bonnie Zerckel this week. She is an excommunicated member of our branch. She chose to have her name taken off the records. At first I wondered if she got excommunicated for publishing false doctrine because some of the things she tells us are far out there. I have met with her about 5 times now. Each time I leave there I understand her a little bit more but I am still way off. I don't know what she is thinking. This last discussion with her was a good one. Elder Crowther doesn't like confrontation too much. And the first few weeks in this area I let him take the lead on most of everything both because he knows the area/people better than me and because he has been out 21 months. He definitely knows what he is doing. I hope I can be as good as he is someday. But we have different styles of teaching. I like to push our investigators and make them think, otherwise they won't do anything! So for the first three weeks with Bonnie we would go in her home and have some small talk, share a scripture and challenge her to do something small and leave. But this last time I pushed her a little further. I read on her teaching record that she had an issue with prayer and that she doesn't pray anymore so when we went there we planned on talking about that. I asked her "what do you think about prayer?" and she told me she didn't pray at all. That just doesn't makes sense because she believes everything that the Book of Mormon and the Bible says. She is a genius too! She knows it backwards and forwards. She knows the doctrine way better than I do. Yet she doesn't live it. So I asked her "If you believe everything in the Book of Mormon then why have you decided to take a different path?" That was a scary question... But the spirit told me to ask her. After a little bit of thought she said "Well I don't think I am on a different path". And then I backed off  because I didn't want to offend her. I should have gone one step further but I got scared ha ha. I guess we will save that for next time. It is very interesting the way she thinks and lives though. She is offended by the hypocrisy she sees and also the practice of unrighteous dominion by some of the members and that has drove her to the point where she has left the church. We are trying to let her know (even though she already knows it) that the members aren't perfect but the church is. She knows that! But she has no plans of coming back to church. At all.

We also meet with Kyle Rather. He is a 19 year old kid that is dating Sam McClain. Sam and her family are members. Less-active member, but members. They think they are active... It's weird. They promise to us that they will be at church every single week. And they never come. They truly think they're active but they only come once every other month. Hopefully that will change now that a non-member is living in their home and planning on marrying Sam. Sam and Kyle should be married in a month or two, which is good because they are currently living together. Kyle wants to learn though. Brother McClain said that he could live in his home only if he went to a church. He picked their church. The LDS church! hooray. So now we are teaching him and he came to church this past Sunday and he is loving what he is learning. He is reading as well. That is good. Good progress. We will probably put him on date next time we see him (Wednesday at 3)

We also teach Mark. Mark is 17 and he comes to church every single week. He attends seminary as a non-member. But he doesn't want to be baptized. He lives with members and they don't require him to go to church or attend seminary. He wants to do all that himself. He lives with our Branch Mission Leader, Brother Riley.

Elder Crowther is from Littleton Colorado. I don't know if I told you that. He went to Columbine High School. Littleton is closeish to Boulder area. About 40 minutes away, so we can relate on some things that I remember from living in Colorado. So that's fun. We get along. He likes video games a lot.  He is excited to be home and play video games again. And listen to The Beastie Boys.

What else? I dunno. No time.

Love you all. I keep hearing GG and Papa's names up here :) That's fun.

Love,

 

Elder Paxman