Man, for whatever reason I had the WORST luck this week. I don't know if I stepped on the wrong crack in the sidewalk or spilled some paint while making calligraphy or something, but seriously I think I had at least one epic fail per day. Anyway though, before I get any further with this email I think I'm going to take a moment to remind you that playing with fire is dangerous. From what I know the fires are a big deal, and they are everywhere. I'm praying for rain to come and put them all out, and you should all be praying for rain too. Be extra careful not to do anything with fires, take care not to cause any fires, and please stay safe from smoke inhalation as best you can. I'm very worried about all my friends and family in Utah, so stay safe out there ok? I'm counting on you! Ok so that aside, this week was a mess on wheels. I suppose though that this is the wrong way to describe it. It's probably better if I say this week I was a mess on legs, I don't have wheels. Why is that? I have no idea! But ladies and gentlemen I present to you: THE EVIDENCE.
CASE #1: THE NOT WAFFLES
I lost the car keys on Monday night. I absolutely could not find them. We had to walk to dinner, which was on the other side of our area by the way, and long story short we ended up over 30 minutes late. That's not even the worst thing! After dinner we had these weird, not waffle things that you can read more about in my journal one day in the future if you're in my direct family. If you aren't, here's the skivvy for you. Play Super Mario Bros. 3 again. In that game, in the first castle, there are these weird glowing waffle things that aren't waffles and will actually kill you if you touch them. Basically those. Long story short my not waffle exploded all over one of my favorite ties. Thank goodness for Tide-To-Go or who knows where we would be. Well, after that whole incident started our week, this next bit here finished it for us:
CASE #2: Our phones glitched out today man. That's why this email is a bit later than planned. See the app that controls our phones pulled an iRobot on us and defected. It actually took away almost everything, but of course I knew an app this evil was bound to go rogue eventually so I kept backups of everything, and ladies and gentlemen it has come in handy! Can't beat me you stupid app! You'll need fists to do that! HAH! Well it caused a great deal of trouble. We did eventually find those stupid car keys by the way. So no need to worry there.
Now you see that's not really the important part of the week either, that's just me being an airhead. No, the important thing is actually a super spiritual moment that legitimately had me in tears this week. So if you recall, last week I mentioned a bloke by the name of Michael. Well, things with him went very downhill very fast. Michael himself is a fantastic young man who I can tell really wants to know the church a bit better than he does now. His family situation is very bad though, and his mom is one of those single parents that chooses to pretend she doesn't have kids. The dad left ages ago, and the mom does enough drugs that she wants nothing to do with her kids for the most part. Luckily for them, their aunt from Australia swung by to give them aid this week, and because we met with Michael recently we got called in to talk to her. It was really a joy because she told us that God was merely a construct of human beings to provide something similar to hope and give us answers to questions that have none. She explained it better than that, but of the many reasons people give me as to why they don't believe in a God, hers was the most well thought out. She didn't say it to be mean to us either, and her help really did a lot of good for the family. For example, she got beds for the kids. They didn't have beds to sleep on, by the way. She also took them all to get doctors check ups, which they needed badly, especially Michael's younger sister who had been walking with a bad limp for months. Through all of this their own mother did nothing at all to take care of them. She doesn't even want to get a job. She just mooches money from relatives, but soon those reserves will dry up, according to Aunt Bonnie from Australia (and fnaf if you get that reference). By the end of it, the amount of help we provided brought Bonnie to tears and she said something that was incredibly interesting. She said: "A few days ago I told you that God didn't exist. But after seeing people like you, who exist just to help people, and who do it full time with no charge, I've seen something. I used to believe that there was no God to pray to, but if I met with a bishop, if I came to your church service and I prayed, I believe with all my heart that there would be a God somewhere to hear my prayer". This is what missionaries live for you guys. There was a lot of tears involved with that sentence, and it meant a great deal to me to hear it. Some of my favorite people in the world are atheists for just this reason. The moment they realise that God's been there the whole time, looking out for them, loving them even when they thought they didn't want to be loved; believing in them when they didn't believe in Him. The light comes on and they know. And it's an amazing thing. Now granted there are some atheists that are jerks, but there are also jerk Mormons. In the end, I see people. Not labels. So I don't really care where you come from. You've got just as much right to be yourself as I do. That's my philosophy, and not to brag, but I'm pretty sure it's God's philosophy too. My message this week is just that. Be nice to each other. Don't judge others. Always give second chances. And be the kind of friend a friend would want to have. As Horton the elephant says: "A person's a person. No matter how small"
Well, that's all for this week of ups and downs, except for the title, which I haven't really explained yet I don't think. So in case you've either been living under a small solid brick of cottage cheese or you just missed the news for whatever reason, it appears that President Nelson is at it again! Always pulling some little tricky trick out of his sleeve. Well, he says we can't call each other Mormons or LDS anymore. Which is unfortunate because the church has two official websites where we send referrals to; one of them is mormon.org and the other is lds.org. We also have a movie called Meet the Mormons. So don't ask me what happened there. Its been causing confusion out here with investigators. I wouldn't really care if it didn't directly affect my job, which it does. It's fine though. If all the prophet ever did was give us news we wanted to hear, I'd be kind of suspicious of him. At the end of the day he is the prophet and I respect his connection to Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father and I trust the man to lead the Savior's church. The church that I work for. I just don't know what on earth the reasoning behind it is, and why we have to change everything over it. That said, while it does bother me a little, I'll be fine. I believe in Christ, so come what may.
また来週
(まだがんばります、僕は)
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