Today was an exciting
week!
On Tuesday we held our
booth on campus, so we spent the morning prepping, then we waltzed on over and
set up. It was raining, so we were very thankful that we were inside. (See
attached picture. Elder Carraway included for scale). In any case, we had quite
a bit of success. By the end of our 3 hour block, we had had 20 or so people come
by and read a page from the Book of Mormon! While most of them moved on pretty
quickly, it was awesome just to see people reading these things that are so
important. You could also tell by people’s eyes as they walked by if they might
be interested. One young man clearly looked several times, so I invited him to
participate. He declined, and so I asked him what he knew about the Book of Mormon,
which led to about a 45 minute discussion about things he had heard and what
our beliefs actually are. I was so engaged in talking about the gospel that I
completely missed three people going through the booth! When Elder Carraway
told me more people had gone through, I couldn't believe it! It was sweet,
though.
We went directly from
working on the booth to go help someone move. I really do love service, because
you can clearly see the fruits of your labours.
In Institute that
night we discussed the Liahona, and how the two spindles could represent the
two spindles of personal revelation, as taught in Doctrine and Covenants 8: I
will tell you in your mind and in your heart.
Wednesday was our
quarterly temple trip. The ride we found for the Temple, our branch mission
leader in the YSA, is preparing to go on his mission to South Africa by working
in the temple. Because he lives so far away, he signed up to work a double
shift. This Wednesday was his first day. What did that mean for us? Well, we
left our home about 4 am, arrived at his around 4:30, arrived at the temple
about 6:30, and didn't leave until 6:30 that night. It was awesome! The rest of
the temple workers started noticing the two missionaries who just kept doing
temple work. We got to participate in everything in the temple, from baptizing
each other for some names that I had brought (note: it was the closest thing to
swimming I have done in 16 months), all the way up to serving as proxy sons for
sealings. Of everything in the temple, I must say that my favorite to watch is
the sealing of husband and wife. The spirit is incredibly strong, and the
promises and blessings are awesome. It truly is the culmination of temple
blessings. I really love the temple. I feel the presence of the Lord in His
house. I can't wait to get home and be able to work in the temple more often!
Despite such a
spiritually exhausting day on Wednesday, we were back at it again on Thursday,
working on campus and finishing helping that person move.
We zippededoodad back
up to campus to do a rescue visit with one of our YSA, and then zippededoodad
back to volleyball in Port Arthur, which Elder Carraway and I both in
participated while we served down there. One of our YSA's, who just moved down
from BYU to do an internship with Valero, invited all of the other interns to
come, so we went to meet them.
Friday we were on our
way up to Silsbee and exchanges when the Assistants called us and asked if they
could do exchanges. Well, this was the third time they tried, so we rearranged
things to make it work.
I got to go with my
ole compañero, Elder Ewell, and we went to try to find the people on the list
of unbaptized YSAs we have. We didn't have any success, but we did have a good
time. It was definitely fun to spend time with him again, he is a riot.
It was a busy, busy
and tiring week, but all in all a very good one. My transfers are next week, I
don't know what will happen, but remember that my p-day will be Tuesday.
Love y'all, take care,
Elder DeFord
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