Hey there,
Again this week we were unable to spend much time working our
area as we had to go on exchanges with the elders in Broken Bow for two and a
half days. We drove up after a zone
conference in Kearney on Tuesday and I spent that night with Elder Madox. He’s on his second transfer in the field and
is still very green, but his testimony and will to serve God are strong. We went to their branch activity and had a
great time. They had a gingerbread
(graham crackers actually) building contest and we totally dominated. We teamed up with a couple of the youth and
made the little old woman who lived in a shoe. They had some nonmembers there so we were
able to further their relationship and trust.
I caught Elder Madox off guard that night when I jumped out of the
bathroom clothed in my red long johns :).
The following day I went with Elder Jackson and visited some people out
in Ord and Arcadia. Because of the distance between those towns
and their apartment we spent the night up in Arcadia. Their branch president has an extra house
there that the missionaries will sometimes stay at and man is it full of
temptation. You know the house of
horrors? Yeah this was the house of temptation.
There’s a tanning bed, 3 tvs, tons of dvds, an x-box with games, and
tons of other distractions. I'm so glad
I don’t have to stay there on a regular basis, otherwise I don’t know how long
I could last. We met with an
investigator who was extremely close to accepting a baptismal date. Her husband was baptized last August and she’s
been investigating for a couple months now.
Her biggest obstacle is believing that she can forgive herself. We had a really spiritual lesson with her,
and I found out two days later that she has accepted a date to be baptized at
the beginning of Feb. The next day we
did studies with them and then Elder Vawdrey did his reviews. Once those were finished we headed back to
Lexington.
On returning we got another treat with the opportunity to go
to our ward Christmas party. We had tons
of food and the church was filled to capacity.
The entertainment had double booked so we had to step in with a couple
other individuals and fill their place.
We sang a couple Christmas songs and read a picture book to the
children. We had a fantastic time. I mentioned awhile back that our goal was to
gain back the member's trust after the fiasco with past missionaries here, and
I think we've accomplished our goal. At
the party everyone was open and friendly and being themselves with us. I haven't felt so much love from the ward
members during my entire mission. We've
gotten tons of referrals recently and plenty of food. Bishop and his wife even lent us an extra Christmas
tree for the apartment.
Those were the biggest occurrences this week. Another thing to note is that I've now
officially experienced black culture. We
were over at W's house and we met his new friend. She’s pretty crazy and insists on attending a
large, black, Baptist revival church even though she won’t be able to find one
for hundreds of miles. We were at the
house when another African woman walked in.
She and W's friend began going off at each other for a while in a
language called Sierra Leone or 'free tongue' English. It’s a cross between English and Nigerian and
sounds crazy! When we left they insisted
that we pray in a circle holding hands, and as we offered the prayer they would
periodically mutter hallelujahs.
We had a fun morning today.
At the ward party we were talking with some of the youth and they couldn’t
believe that we run in the mornings. So
to prove them wrong, we woke up at 6 today and ran to the church to catch them
off guard at seminary. They couldn’t believe
we actually did that, and Sis. Hovie the teacher was cracking up. We're going to help her out actually, and
teach seminary for her this Wednesday.
That about it, love y'all
E' Harker
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