Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Better Letter

Okay finally I have my full hour to write you guys. I have some news for the week. I met with President Maynes this week! It was really a relief because I hadn't seen him for quite a while, over a month at least! Well anyway we had a good talk and he keeps telling me "you look good Elder." So I thought that was funny. He really is such a great person you can open up too. I told him Elder George and I were very different from each other and president with perfect understanding said “I know, but he has a desire to serve." That was awesome.


We had a much better week this week and we were able to put in 21 lessons. So it was nice to be working hard. By the way the weather here is incredibly WARM!! For the last 3 days it’s made it over 60 degrees. The wind has picked up so much because of it and that caused a lot of problems. However, Elder George and I decided it was the perfect opportunity to ride bikes! So yeah I rode bikes for 2 days this week. And yes I was able to assemble the bike just fine and it rides like a dream. Thanks dad for showing me how to do it all.

Okay so I guess I will share a couple cool experiences.  Elder George and I were tracting a pretty beat down neighborhood and we came to this big black door with the windows covered and everything. The whole place just looked like "drug dealer." But we knocked it anyway and they weren't home. But then this guy pulls up and with eyes wide looked at us and said "are you the cops??"  We said no.  He was kind of okay, but from the get-go it was obvious this guy was on a number of substances. We talked to him a bit, told him who we were, and he let us in his house (I was pretty nervous about this) and he started talking about his meth addiction that he's had. He has no job. He would just go on and on and I really wanted to say something to bring it to the gospel. But something stopped me. After 30 minutes of him talking (he was now on government conspiracies or something) he looked at us and said, "No one has ever listened to me before. I have no friends, my girlfriend doesn't care, and I'm glad you listened to me.  You are welcome to come back anytime to talk about your church." Unfortunately by that time we had to go and never taught him a lesson, but it was cool. Obviously we aren't going to go in his house if he's high anymore for safety reasons and this guy will probably be a LOT of work, but I thought it was a cool experience. Hopefully it turns into something awesome. We'll get him to an addiction recovery group or into rehab to help him get clean but he seemed receptive to our message.

It’s really sad a lot around here because people just don't want to hear our message. The place is like 70% catholic and apparently Catholics are incredibly against hearing from other churches, so it’s hard sometimes. Also its hard whenever I bear my testimony about the church and how I know it will bless them and they say "well that's great for you but it's not for me." Also a lot of people are Christians, but they believe that they will believe in Christ but not through any church. I'm really praying that I will get a baptism, but so many people we teach are either not progressing or someone in the family feeds them anti-Mormon material. It’s pretty frustrating sometimes, but I know the Lord will lead us to those who are ready.

I was doing really great this week, but it gets discouraging when week after week you put 0 baptisms in the weekly report. One of the things I really wanted to see on my mission was helping people change, but so many people just don't want to change. And those who do don't have the will to do so.

I would just like to apologize for not sending enough information about my doings here the last couple times. I feel bad. I am getting behind on my letters and am going to write back to everyone who has written me, but my time is restricted on the internet.  I will redouble my efforts in writing people and do all I can to keep you updated. Thanks family!

Love,
Elder Bringhurst 


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