Week of Parties and Miracles written July 8, 2013
Parties
and miracles are definitely the two words to describe this week. The
week started with the usual grind. Trying to put together activities for
the elliptical, putting our movie night together, I had an exchange
with the zone leaders. Nothing super exciting. On Wednesday we had
President's interviews and I was able to get some advice on the
difficulties we face in this area. Namely the fact that a number of ward
leaders don't really trust missionaries and aren't particularly keen to
work with us. This came because of missionaries in the past who haven't
always done the things they should or treated the leaders as they
should be treated. It's been an issue here for a long time apparently.
And things really don't go anywhere if you don't have the support of
ward leaders. So President Calderwood encouraged me to try to do
everything I could to gain their trust and support.
The first miracle happened Wednesday evening. We randomly met
the 2nd counselor in the bishopric at the church. He is kind of in
charge at the moment since the Bishop isn't always there. We have had
some struggles with him in the past because he likes to be in control of
things. So we sat down and chatted with him about the ward and about
missionary work. Our meeting ended up lasting two hours and by the end
of it, we were all on the same page. He explained his frustrations with
past missionaries and we told him we would try to fix those things. He
told us he would encourage the ward members to support our activities
and be more willing to teach with us. It was a really helpful meeting,
one that we've needed for a long time now.
Thursday was our P-day and the 4th of July! We all went down
to Coney Island to see the world's largest hotdog eating contest. Oh my
goodness. It was the greatest thing ever. I've never been so pumped to
see a guy eat hotdogs. The reigning champ is named Joey Chestnut. He has
won like six years in a row. He had the world record at eating 68
hotdogs in 10 minutes. The whole event lasted a couple hours, they had
entertainment beforehand and there was a women's competition too. We got
there early enough to be let into the main crowd area. The women's
event was intense because the winner at 36 and 3/4 hotdogs while second
place at 36 hotdogs. So crazy. The men's competition was the main event
though. And wow was it incredible. These guys can eat hotdogs. Joey
managed to beat his previous world record by eating 69 hotdogs in 10
minutes. And I watched it happen. So amazing. I also loved that ESPN
covered the whole event. That's hilarious. The rest of the day involved
going to a BBQ at a less active's house and having correlation later
that day. We ended the day with ice cream and watching fireworks as we
walked home. Great P-day.
The miracles got back to work
on Saturday.
Saturday we did hurricane service all day. In another area of Brooklyn,
there's a community group that is rebuilding houses. So we went out to
help with that all day. It was nice to get back to hurricane service. On
the way home, I got a text from the zone leaders. They told us that
President got a message about a less active in our area who has a
daughter serving a mission in Oaxaca, Mexico. She requested that we
visit her dad because he was leaving
on Monday.
We gave him a call and headed over
on Saturday night.
He was a way cool guy, he was so excited to see us. It turns out that
he actually has two kids serving missions right now, his daughter, who
is 19, and his son, who is 21. He has been living in Brooklyn for 5
years and has never once had a Sunday off of work. This week he is on
vacation, his first vacation in 5 years. He really wanted to go to
church, but he didn't know where the chapel was. He had been praying for
the missionaries to come by, and then that night he got the call from
us. I told him that it was a miracle because we don't have him on any of
our records or anything. We were able to chat with him for a while and
then we came back the next day to pick him up and walk to church with
him. He was so pumped to go to church again. He took a picture with
every missionary he saw so he could send them to his kids.
On top of that miracle, we had a less active family come back
to church yesterday. We have been working with them for a month now.
They haven't been to church since last year. I was so happy to see that
whole family sitting in the middle row. And to make things even better,
we found our investigator, Efrain, again. He had disappeared for a week,
but then he showed up at church, so we were able to teach him a lesson
and get him back on track towards setting a baptismal date. It was the
best Sunday we've had in Midwood for a long time.
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