No, my letter today doesn't have to do with cheese. Remember that lady I told you about last week? The one who had been turned off by the church a few years ago? Well come to find out, she has 2 children, has progressive brain cancer, and is missing part of her brain. Nobody talks to her anymore. The poor lady has no friends. So we've decided to meet with her twice a week and are bringing a relief society sister with us this week. (Do the math: lady with no friends + relief society = HAPPINESS!!) She is already doctrinally converted, now we need to get her to church and get her socially converted. I bet she could be baptized in the future sometime. She has had a rough life, and the gospel really is going to help her. It's people like this that make me glad to be a missionary. She even asked us to give her a blessing. Elder George anointed and I blessed. It was really a different feeling giving a blessing to a nonmember. The blessing really was surprisingly simple. It's probably why it was such a special experience for her. I found out my authority to do that is very closely connected to the prophet. We act under the authority of the bishop when blessing members, but for nonmembers, I act under the authority of the mission president, who acts under the authority of the first presidency! Wow talk about amazing!
Otherwise, we are trying our best to find people. We tried 2 really strange methods of finding this week. One I suggested was that we put our names on lists at hospitals and funeral homes as clergy for people to talk to in times of crisis. (Hey it’s actually an idea given in Preach My Gospel, so it's inspired!) The second is we went through all the contacts from our phone and called all the people that we don't recognize. If they didn't answer we would just leave a message saying like "hey bro/sis/ so and so, it’s the missionaries yah di dah di ha, just give us a call and let us know how you are doing." We totally pretended like we knew them and guess what? We have 3 appointments this week from doing that. So we are finding new ways of finding people to teach. And our efforts are paying off!
Just to let everyone know I'm pretty sure I'm sticking around for another transfer or two. President Maynes HATES moving people. He wants us to have only 4 areas in our mission, six months for each area. Two transfers to learn the area and two to teach the area. That's the ideal situation anyway. If I get transferred I'll be surprised.
Well I love reading all the letters and emails sent to me. J It makes me happy to get mail. I love you all!
Elder Bringhurst
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