9/26/16

This week went by really fast.

On Tuesday I went to Lancaster with Elder Mink. We had quite the adventure. We met a guy with a pet pig that he had recently acquired. We did teach two lessons to people so it was a good time.

Wednesday was an awesome day because we got a referral who actually wanted to learn more. We even set up a return appointment. You never know what kind of firsts you'll get even this far along on a mission. Now we have not two but three investigators. So we kept walking around and we strike up a conversation with a girl who was washing her car. It was her dad's car, we learned he passed away what seemed to be a while ago based on the 16 year old maturity on the subject. Wrong. He passed away last friday and she was washing it for the funeral. We were blown away. How could she be ok with this without knowing the Plan of Salvation?? Within ten minutes her mom came home and we were able to talk to her and she asked some good questions about life after death. So we set up an appointment with them as well! It was a really good day.

Thursday we got to participate in a wheel chair walk at a retirement home. It was quite the sight to see 60 or so old folks making a train of wheel chairs and parading through the neighborhood. We then started our newest tactic of talking to people... with ping pong. The problem that stood before us was the fact that we can't fit a ping pong table in our car. So we enlisted the help of our friend Slick Rick to help us build a ping pong table. It took us two separate occasions to make it but in the end it works out pretty dang well. So that's exciting.

We went to a Mennonite restaurant that was huge and expensive. But it was cool because you sit with random strangers at a dinner table. It was pretty awesome. We helped our friend Bro. Dowell move one day.

Moving Day

Elder Mink and I

Putting our Ping Pong table to use

Elder Simmons

9/19/16

This week has been pretty wacko. I'm pretty sure the Adversary know good things are coming. We had the ward come and visit Ralph and give him letters and it went great, he was overwhelmed with love. But later that night he felt confused and lost, and we got a voicemail the next day saying he didn't want to join the church anymore. We zipped over there as fast as we could and he talked and by the end of our time with him he felt much better. Its a thing to have Satan kick up his game a notch after a really spiritual experience
The rest of the week we had more people try to bash with us than I've ever experienced. It gets really old because these people are ignorant and in the end they really don't know much about how Christ's church should be run. One guy told us we were Satanic. hmm, obviously he's never attended our church in his life, even though he LIVED IN UTAH FOR 30+ YEARS. The second incident was very ironic. We went to the East Pete Fair with the Doyles, who are awesome. David wants to join the church. Here's David and I, (also I only took off my tag because I was about to ride a awesome ride that you go upside down. I'm positive the churches insurance covers, "Rickety fair rides made in the 60's that have a rusty chain to hold you in." )

We got there and a snooty guy told us we can't solicit. We told him we were there for the rides and games. Then he told us if we're wearing a name tag we're soliciting so we can't be here. Is this not the state in America where freedom was founded?? Good grief, so we stayed and didn't bug anyone. When we we're going to leave a dad with a stroller and his cross shirt came up to us and gave us cards and then started asking us questions. The cards just preached hell to non believers. So the two guys with tags who weren't soliciting got solicited by a guy in normal clothes. Ironic.
The guy was going off about being saved by grace alone in Paul's gospel and how if we don't follow that we're going to hell. He asked what my thoughts were and I said, Cool, I don't really care to argue with you. (I wanted to go play basketball) but I appreciate you trying to help us in what you know. That was that and we were done, I wasn't having it that day.
The last guy was in Dollar tree and his concerns were so easy. I read you worship Joseph Smith. Nope. Jesus is your Savior and the Son of God. Yep! Then he told us the bible is all we need. That's it. A comparison to this pathetic encounter is like a punk 14 year old kid going up to the Ace baseball pitcher Clayton Kershaw and telling him he doesn't know how to pitch and that all he needs to do is throw fastballs. It amazes me that people are too ignorant to ever think,"Hey maybe I don't actually know everything about God." Anyways..some people.

The end to this week was great. On Saturday we went down to Frederick Maryland and got to hear from Dallin H. Oaks. It was great and he was an awesome guy. His jokes about the election were spot on and he's a favorite now for sure. Its nice to hear from someone who has actually talked to Christ compared to people who drive me nuts arguing. It was also a good time to see a bunch of my friends. On Sunday we had the Philadelphia Temple Dedication, which I enjoyed immensely, except the camera shots and workings in general. Half the time when we were watching the choir sing it just focused on the white teleprompter that was blocking half the people. But anyways, life is good.

Elder Simmons

9/12/16

You might call it miraculous

This week has been pretty crazy. We went to Baltimore on Tuesday to get Elder Allen's cyst checked out on his area of infection. (I don't want to say the word butt because then everyone on the internet could know his problems.) But anyways I got to go to Baltimore and go where my last vacation with my mother and brother was.

pretty cool right? Throughout the week we did some feeble finding and we visited Ralph twice. We made sure to plan better for this week so it'll be much more productive.

Saturday was pretty great because we all went down to Maryland to hear from Elder Gay of the 70. He's from Los Angeles, so when I had a minute I talked with him to see if he was a dodgers man. When he said he was I shook his hand again true dodgers fans have quite the bond, let me tell you. "I later told him I knew there was something a bit more awesome in you." He rocked our socks by teaching us how we can better help people, learning "their reason why" the gospel will bless them is a cool thing I learned. I had plenty of PPM friends so it wasn't as bad as I prepared myself for. The moment that I thought, "this is my life", is when I was playing hacky sack before the shin dig started and I ripped the front of my pants. right below the zipper. luckily there was still some black fabric underneath so it wasn't too embarrassing.

Sunday was when it got real epic. Ralph came to church and told us his daughter said he could do whatever he wanted, in essence. So he told us he's got the green light to get baptized! He's looking at the date of September 25th. It will be an awesome day if all goes well. on sunday I had the opportunity to baptized a 8 year old girl in the ward. That was pretty cool, after the ordinance I was trying to unscrew the chain but my attempts were pathetic and I looked up at the mirror to see the whole ward enjoying the show. when they finally closed the doors I got the plug open enough the have it start emptying. I then found myself in a pool of water, completely alone. I can't remember what happened while I was in that font alone..oh well. darn dementia. We had a successful time lemonading sunday night. It's my favorite thing.

This week should be super epic.

Elder Simmons

9/5/16

19 years doesn't mean your smart. (at least read the ending people)

Let me tell you about my week before I explain the subject of this week. We visited Ralph a few times this week and he is just the nicest guy. We watched 17 Miracles with him and it was touching of course. "Our church is a church of heroes." he told us after. Attached is a comment he had about the movie. We did plenty of talking to people. We met a few cool people and got their numbers. We may have less people to teach but the way we find people makes me just fine with how our numbers go. The amount of people we interact with and have a good experience with is a much higher number than other missionaries may do it. One night we went and balled with our friends, before that night one of them had a Book of Mormon but the other three all took a copy too by the end of the night.

One guy in Lititz we talked to had a Utah State Aggies shirt, making him the second person to be wearing a Utah school shirt in Lititz and not be Mormon. Lititz is a cool place. We also went to a Blues Festival and went expecting what any festival would have, food and tents with things to buy, etc. But not this Blues fest. This was just a stage a people listening to Lewis and his band make music. Lewis was a magical harmonica player. After they were done and had started packing up I went behind the stage and had met him. He gave me some advice and was a very nice guy.

Ok now that i've given you all the thought that i'm cool enough to ball and smart enough to go back stage i'll share the best part of the week. Last monday we went to a members to do some yard work, que lawn mowing pic.

After Elder Allen and I got roped into trying a hot sauce the "All the other missionaries have tried before." So we tried it. Here's the thing about the Scoville Scale. You can have something that's Millions of Scoville but have it be so diluted that its not that bad. I had a VERY diluted bean with 3.5 mil. and it was painful but nothing to what i partook of on monday. We had a dollop of hot sauce. a DOLLOP mind you, of 750,000 Scoville. Elder Allen started it off and I was rolling on the floor crying thinking this cant be as bad as what i had before. So then I tried it too. Elder Allen tried to stop me mid tears but it was too late. Thankfully I didnt swallow it. But let me tell you that I have never been in so much pain in my life. No amount of beautifully aligned words will ever describe the feelings-no wait, Hell. That's what it was. I had put Hell in my mouth. We were miserable for a good 45 minutes. Pacing the floor, sloshing water everything thing. My ears were ringing, my face went numb. NUMB. My body was trying so hard to ease the pain that it tried numb my face. but i was still in pain. Of course now that i'm not in writhing pain i can easily say it was pretty worth it. The story is just lovely. But i'll never do it again. ever. 19 years old doesn't mean i'm smart. the end.

Elder Simmons