The day has come and the decision is made: Elder Pectol, my dear sweet Elder Pectol, is leaving me. Where to, I do not know. But there is one thing I do know... and that is that I'm wearing a big fat polyester tie today... and also... I will miss my friend.
Well I guess I should go back a couple weeks to keep you updated on the life and struggles of Elder Merrill... That is my name. Someone told me that I should change my name yesterday. I don't understand the implications but I guess I do slur my speech when I say, "eldrmrll." I should work on that.
Now let me tell you about a girl. I think she's what we call "prepared to hear the good Word of God," but without so many words. Let me paint a picture of our first encounter. First, you should know that we split up when we contact so we can talk with more people and be less intimidating. We just make sure we stay within sight and sound of each other.
I was sitting on a bench underneath a dimly lit light surrounded by close to perfect darkness. I tried catching peoples attention as they walked by but only a few would stop and take the time to acknowledge my existence. I still felt confident. I saw one shadow emerge from the psychology building and walked almost towards me... but not too close to me. I asked how she was doing and then exchanged our little small talk. We ended up sitting down together on the bench while I taught the restoration. She has had Mormon friends before but never understood the doctrine too well. She kept saying things like, "This is so interesting... I had no idea.... This would change everything... I feel like I've just been wandering lately and didn't know where to go or what to do..." While we were talking I just kept thinking about Katy for some reason (RC that I was able to teach in Everett that moved to Bellingham)... so I brought her up and told her story a little bit. I have no idea why... I never would do that normally. A couple days later we had a lesson and Katy came and then I saw why. They were perfect for each other. Katy knew exactly what she was feeling and thinking and could relate so well. This investigator came to church and Katy actually gave a talk about her conversion story... what are the odds. I talked with our investigator afterwords and she explained about how much Katy's talk impacted her and how well she related to her. It was beautiful thing. Katy is helping so many people here in the ward: Members, investigators, everyone. Even the bishopric counselor went off on how much her talk helped him as he conducted over the pulpit.
Last week for FHE we had an open mic. Which just so happened to be great. Elder Pectol played the guitar and I read some unoriginal/original yet poorly written poetry. It's the only kind I know how to do so.... I think I'm ok with it.
We got a call from a journalist student named Brendan. He wanted to interview us for his school paper. We were way down so we had an interview ha. He asked about our childhood and upbringing and all that kind of stuff. Nothing too serious. I liked it though. I'll send you the copy of his paper when it's finished.
This week I felt pretty confused about the Godhead for some reason. On the surface it all makes perfect sense... then I was digging a little deeper and deeper and then SNAP I lost my focus and couldn't comprehend it's intricacies or generalities. It all just didn't make sense. So I went to be a little frustrated and Elder Pectol and I decided to make up a dream instead of going to bed. So for a couple hours we just made up a phenomenally adventurous nonsensical dream. That's not the point of this paragraph...I just got distracted again. I can tell you about it sometime though... it was a good one. I woke up the next day still confused on some things and was just hoping that no one would bring up that argument that day. I just didn't' know how I would even respond. Well... it's not too unpredictable that it was indeed brought up in a lesson later that day. I was on an exchange with a visa waiter missionary and the investigator was pretty ready to just disprove everything we believe. Which I'm totally down with going to town with those people. (Bad example) It's cool though, cause with this guy it's like I'm talking to a friend. He respects me and I respect him. We just believe different things. So anyways, he started asking about the Godhead vs the trinity and I just hopped right into the battle zone that we like to call the bible bash. I went extremely hard on it with any and every argument and evidence against his belief and to support mine ha. I would definitely not advise that. It usually, like... definitely most of the time, doesn't work. But this time.... he backed down and said he had no idea. He would have to look it up. God helped me understand my questions about the Godhead.
We've been teaching our solid investigator a lot to help him prepare for his baptism that's coming up here pretty soon. The only hold up he might have is with the Word of Wisdom. So we taught that wondering how it would all go down. Well it just so happens that it went down smoother than a Jamba Juice smoothie while on your way to a BYU football game with your family. (Specific memory? feels like it) While we were teaching it he just went off on how true it was and how Joseph Smith must really be a prophet. Man... it was cool. At the end he bore his testimony to us and told us of his commitment to stick with this gospel for the rest of this life. I love him.
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