It is incredibly strange to think that Rory is now married. Like, beyond all belief. I'm really happy for him, though, and especially that he married someone so amazing. I love Rachel, and I know that they'll be phenomenal together. I'm sending off a kind-of wedding gift today for him (though it's not really much). I miss that guy so much. Scotty too! I miss him. Oh well, it seems like if the rest of my mission has gone this fast, then seeing them will end up being just too soon anyway.
I think you're right, a lot of the things that I'm experiencing now on my mission have grown... Normal. That's a funny thing about being with a relatively new companion: things like waking up at 6:30 every morning, and talking to people while you're out -- to him, they're still an active choice. I mean, I suppose they are to an extent to me as well, but they've become a good deal more second-nature. It's just... Life. Still, I'll try to come up with a few things that are "exciting".
Last Monday we had the chance to go make Mexican food for the Stake President's family, the Gilmour's. They had started it off as a sort of face-off between Elder Slade (who claims that Arizona Mexican food is better than California Mexican) and I, but President Gilmour tactfully pulled that down with, "Well, the two types of food are too dissimilar, so we can't really judge which is better..." Oh well. West Coast, Best Coast. It was fun though, we spent a lot of time discussing General Conference and talking about family history with them and their neighbors who got baptised last year.
We saw Millie quite a few times this week, and she's doing great (as usual). I took the opportunity in one of the lessons to ask her why it was that she wanted to get baptised, and it was really interesting. She said that the way we were explaining things, it all seemed to her as if there was going to be a moment where she just got an answer right away, but that for her it wasn't like that. Everything just felt really good the whole way through, and it just seemed like a really good thing to get baptised. I told her that my "conversion" experience was pretty similar, and that I found that the most convincing thing about the Gospel was the fact that it changed me over that period of time, and that it only seemed to make me happier and bring more good into my life. Just always reminds me how great Heavenly Father is, and how much He knows each of us.
Wednesday was pretty sad, for all the wrong reasons. Elder Mercer and I made a big point to make sure we were acquainted with all of our "Homeless Homies," and so we'd talk to them quite regularly. One of them, Haley, passed away a few weeks ago, which was really sad to hear. So, Mandy took us down to her funeral on Wednesday morning, and we postponed district meeting until later on in the day. I've been to three funerals on my mission: one LDS, one somewhat Evangelical, and then this one. The LDS funeral was so happy. Almost interestingly so. There were a lot of fond memories shared, and everyone had a smile on their face... You felt like you knew her better after the funeral, and that you were happy for this next step in her existence. The Evangelical one was very mournful, and very, "We will miss Auntie May, and we will praise God in our sadness. Let us sing a hymn." And then the jazz organ comes out and we all start singing some uptempo dirge. This one, was more depressing than anything. The priest had never met her in his life, and so pretty much all he could say was, "Let us thank God for Haley. I'm going to tell you a story about how she bet her nephew a pound that he would eat a spoonful of mustard, and then didn't pay him. Also, let's tell some cutesy stories from her childhood." And then we listened to One Love and Three Little Birds in remembrance. The church was pretty empty, and everything seemed pretty dead. I think I like LDS funerals better.
Picked up a new investigator this week. We met him about a month ago on the road, and helped him saw a pipe that he was fitting for a plumbing job he was doing. Really nice guy, and he really enjoyed the first lesson. Didn't commit to baptism, but perhaps if we had had more time, we could have explained it more to him. Oh well.
The only other thing I can think of was that we helped some of our friends move this weekend. Paul, Andrew and Sam are people we know from just around town that are super great. Paul's religious, so is Sam, and Andrew's not, but even though we're not teaching them, they're just super friendly to us whenever we see them in town, or anywhere else. It's awesome, though, because I found out that Paul actually gives out copies of the Book of Mormon to pastors and priests of other churches that he knows. Pretty sweet, huh?
Anyway, that's all the exciting bits for the week. I'll throw in a few pictures too.
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| One of my weird "selfies" with Elder Fifita. |
Love you,
- Elder Green
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