This has been an incredible week.
Our zone leaders, for their zone vision, instituted a "fantasy football" type competition, where our daily actuals of how many people we contacted, lessons we taught, and new people being taught count as points, and we compete with different companionships each day. I am still not sure how I feel about competing around numbers, but it is at least a fun little thing.
We have seen so much awesome stuff happen, though.
On Tuesday, we had planned to go contact at this one street. There was a park there, and I figured that there would be plenty of people to talk to. Well, not so. The park turned out to just be an empty field, no one there, and it didn't look like there was anyone on the street. Well, we had faith that the Lord had prepared someone to be there, so we started walking. We walked down the street, and there were a nice couple of ladies sitting on their porch, and we went and taught the about the restoration and the plan of salvation. That was fun, having a lesson with them. On our way back, we saw who we thought was a woman sitting with her kids. Well, when we approached we realized that the person we thought was the mom.was just another kid, oops! By then we were pretty close, so the kids said hi and asked what we were doing. We explained, and they ran and got their mom, and we talked to her and she invited us to come back and teach her family! It was pretty cool.
I think it was also Tuesday when I met D__. D__ has been hanging out with missionaries for something like 10 years, he knows all about the church and everything, but he attends a Pentecostal church. Which he invited us to and we attended, but more on that later. Anyways, it was interesting how much he knew without being a member. He is a funny guy.
So here in Port Arthur, we serve at a soup kitchen every Wednesday morning. It is so much fun, honestly. I love being there and helping out. I'd love to go and serve there every day, it is nice to just be doing something for people. Even though we are just serving, the people and the workers appreciate it.
Thursday we went to see the V__ family. Elder James and his previous companion had taught this family twice, but the dad wasn't interested. He was fine with them meeting with his family, he just wasn't participating. Well, we went by, and the mom wasn't home, but he invited us in. He talked to us about how excited his son was about it, and how he really liked that, and we invited him to learn more with his family and come closer to Christ as a family, and he said yes! We then hung out with him for an hour waiting for his wife to get home, so we built some good relationships there. He even invited us bowling ;) when his wife arrived, we taught the family a lesson. They are super awesome! I look forward to working with them.
On Friday we had some good plans for lessons we would teach, and everything was falling through, so we eventually just parked somewhere, and said we would try and find someone around there. As we were walking forward, this guy runs out to us with a big ole knife and says "I have some watermelon for you elders, what are your names?" Well, when someone actually looks at your nametag, you know that they have spoken to missionaries before. As we talked to this man (eating our watermelon, which was very ripe and tasty) it turns out that he had been attending church in Vidor and had just moved down to Port Arthur this week, and we happened to be walking by. Not only that...but this was someone that Elder Mooney had taught and told me about! So that was really cool, to get to meet him.
On Saturday we went to contact someone who had requested a Bible online. Bible requests are what we get most often, and they tend not to be very effective, but we went to go deliver it. She was waiting outside for us, but when we asked if we could share a message she invited us in and we taught the restoration. It seems like she enjoyed it, although maybe didn't understand the implications. In any case, at the end of the lesson, she shared that she wasn't going to let us in, but something told her that she should. So we explained that that was the spirit!
We also had a lesson with the V__ family...at the bowling alley. I am really bad at bowling, but we had a good time and they want to come to church and keep meeting with us. We hope to extend a baptismal date to them next time we meet!
On Sunday I got to be primary pianist for the day. I think I did okay for sight-reading everything ;) but it is my dream calling, so I need the practice.
I also got to call my dad, who I love very much. He has taught me so much about what it means to be a man: that it is about love and service, not being puffed up or having everyone follow you. I am grateful for his example, especially of dedicated service in the church. He is pretty awesome!
Sunday night we attended D__'s Pentecostal church, and it was a very different experience than our worship services. They take the proverb that says to worship the Lord with voice and cymbals, and they try and follow it. The band playing was pretty good, but the whole experience was very loud. It made me think of the scriptures Galatians 5:22 and 1 Kings 19:11-12. The preacher called us out for not jumping up and shouting praises, but that is not how we choose to reverence our Father in Heaven. I thought about when I called my dad, and how I would never have shouted or hollered at him, but I would speak to him in tones of love and reverence. Anyways, it was good to visit another church and experience their services.
It was late when we got out of their church, but we wanted to go and find someone to teach, so we drove out to our area and started to walk out in the rain and dark. We saw a pair of legs sticking out from under a truck and went over to talk to whoever they belonged to. He ended up inviting us in to teach his family. He was well versed in the scriptures. It was funny...he didn't say that we couldn't have prophets and apostles, in fact, he said that according to the Bible any church that didn't couldn't be the true church, but he struggled with ours because in Ephesians 4:11, which was the scripture I used to teach about apostles and prophets, it lists apostles before prophets, and so why is our church organized first with a prophet and then apostles? I explained that we sustain all of the apostles as prophets, and that our Prophet was the most senior apostle. He was really struggling with semantics, even though he seemed to agree with the meat of our message.
In any case, it was an incredible week, we saw a lot of miracles and met a lot of awesome people.
Have a great week, life, and all, as my brother would say (paraphrased)
Elder DeFord
P.S. I also ate Baloot this week. I dont know if that is how you spell it. It is a fertilized egg. Duck egg. Boiled, you eat the fetus. It wasnt too bad ;)
Mom's note: This is from Wikipedia "A balut is a fertilized bird egg (usually a duck) which is incubated for a period of 14 to 21 days depending on the local culture and then boiled or steamed. The contents are eaten directly from the shell. ... Balut is common street food in the Philippines and other localities, and is also sold in stores and malls."
Mom's note: This is from Wikipedia "A balut is a fertilized bird egg (usually a duck) which is incubated for a period of 14 to 21 days depending on the local culture and then boiled or steamed. The contents are eaten directly from the shell. ... Balut is common street food in the Philippines and other localities, and is also sold in stores and malls."
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