"Boo"

Quote of the week explanation

I am just going to go directly to the source on this one. We were in a part of our area we weren't super familiar with, so we turned to good old Google maps for deliverance. We needed to head up towards the temple (or, rather, the meetinghouse right next to the temple). One of the reviews for the temple was as follows:

Nice looking building, but I came here to worship Heavenly Mother and they were all ''Heavenly Father has instructed us not to worship Heavenly Mother.'' And I was all like ''Yeah, what did Heavenly Mother say about that? Did you even ask? Did you even ask? Because I did, and she told me not to worship Heavenly Father. So who you gonna believe?'' Then they started on "Jesus this and Jesus that". I told them "Talk to the Holy Hand," and put my hand up to their faces and they took a step back. There was an awkward pause for a full minute as neither side knew what to say next. Missionary training did not prepare these devout devotees for encountering a prophetess in the flesh. "Boo!" I said finally, raising my hands over my head. They ran. I shrugged and walked away.

This was an event that happened less than a week ago, so Elder Carter and I are trying to find out which sisters it was that this "prophetess" was talking to, just to get the other (and I'm sure more accurate) side of the story. My personal theory on what happened is that the sisters actually started to answer her question by referring to the way that Jesus taught us to pray to the Father and things like that, and then, not knowing how to respond, the lady said "Boo", and the sisters, realizing that this individual was wasting their time, said goodbye and walked away. That was just an amusing thing that occurred this week.

Good morning from down under! Another week has come and gone, and it has been packed with craziness.

First, something that I mentioned last week was Iris, the person we found through tracting. We've met with her two times in the last week, and she is super cool. We taught her about the restoration on our first official meeting, and she was insanely receptive to the whole thing. When we were teaching her she was talking about prophets and the priesthood as if she was already a member. She was in agreement with the whole thing, and was talking about how much sense it makes that prophets would be restored to the earth in modern times. The other time we went over we just read in the Book of Mormon with her. We read in 3 Nephi about Christ coming to the Americas, and it was kind of funny because every few seconds she would say "Oh, Lord, Amen!" or something like that under her breath. She is very, very open to the message. For some reason, we haven't felt like we should invite her to be baptized quite yet, but that is in our future plans.  We are very excited about her progression.

Something else big happened this week. We have been teaching Joan for a while, spanning back to before either Elder Carter or I have been in the area. We have been dancing around the issue of baptism for a while, but this last Monday evening we invited her to be baptized on September 14. She accepted the date. We still have some things to teach her, and we really want to go over the restoration again to help explain priesthood authority (because of some of the things she brought up in our last discussion). She is very faithful, though and she is going to get baptized. Hopefully on the day that we have set forth, but if not, soon after that.

The new transfer has begun, and we are very excited not just as a companionship, but as a district and a zone. We have set some pretty spectacular goals that we are working to achieve, and going forward it's going to be a good time.

So, yeah. I apologize for taking up so much of your morning. 

Bye.

P.S. I almost forgot about Moses! He is a less-active member that we have started to work with. He's super cool, and actually is more supportive of missionary work than some of our active members. Its really fun to talk with him because of his screeching cackle of a laugh, and I am excited to be meeting with him more during the upcoming weeks as we help him to return to the fold, so to speak.

P.P.S. Oh, yeah, I also forgot about Anthony! He was a former person who previous missionaries had been teaching. We dropped by him this week and he invited us to come back. We went over on Saturday, and he is also very open. He has some concerns which we are planning on helping him work through, but he is another very prepared person. It's an exciting time.

P.P.P.S. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz