Ups and Downs, August 29th

The miracles never stop! A few weeks ago one of our members, Matt, was going around in his complex trying to find the person who parked in his spot. Haha. Just when he was about to go home (of course) the spirit told him to visit one more door. So he went to the last house on the building and knocked. Danielle answered, she's a single nurse with 3 children (two 8 year old twin boys and a 10 year old girl). She also has a friend Nigeria living there. He asked about his car and they started talking. Matt found out that she had just been robbed a few days ago, all of their electronics; phones, tablets, TV's, Xbox,were stolen. So he ran over to his apartment, grabbed his xbox and brought it over and gave it to them. A few nights later we were at Matts house on our weekly scheduled visit and he told us about what had happened with Danielle and wanted us to go and see if she'd be interested in hearing the gospel. Referrals like this are some times sketchy, you never know what your going to get because they haven't actually asked if they would be interested yet. So we go over and catch Nigeria home, we found out very fast that Nigeria is a recovering addict and was in no state to talk to us. Perfect, looking good. So we will try again when and see if we can get Danielle. A few days later we got Nigeria again, worse than last time. It just keeps getting better. One more time. We go back one night and actually get in contact with Danielle. She came out onto the doorstep and talked to us. We asked her if she knew Matt and she said yes. We then went on to explain why we were there and said that we wanted to help her come closer to Christ, we explained that we have a unique message that will bless her family. She told us right away that she's too busy for religion right now, she said that she had been to church before back in DC where she's from and that she doesn't care about it right now because it's not that high on the priority list. She did however say we could come back to teach her kids, because he kids needed Jesus. So the next night we were back again, and we brought Matt with us. When we got in the house they were all watching a movie, Danielle and the 3 kids. We were welcomed into the small apartment and Danielle said "you guys can go to kitchen table, I'll stay here, watch my movie, and listen in". We told her that we had a video to share and that we didn't want to interrupt her movie, so she paused the movie and turned off the TV. We shared our video and asked questions. Everyone participated in the lesson, but we directed it at the kids. When it was time for us to go we asked for someone to say the prayer, after a minute of silence Danielle volunteered. She said a very sweet prayer and it was perfect. Matt encouraged her to go to church and she said yes. The next morning she actually came! Her and her 3 kids were there and stayed the entire 3 hours. They loved it and said they will be back next week. It was an exciting weekend.

Sheena was another of our investigators we took over when white washed into the 1st ward. She was on fire and excited to get baptized, she only had a few things holding her back. When we met with her the meeting was good, she spoke a lot of it and told us that she had been on an incredible spiritual journey. She was on fire and ready to go!We tried contacting Sheena in following weeks after our initial contact with no luck. One day we saw her playing soccer in a field with her kids and stopped to say hello. As we crossed the street to say hello she noticed us and started yelling "I don't want to talk to you right now!" We were confused and said " we just want to play some socc-" she cut us off yelling louder "I don't want to talk to you right now! I'm playing with my kids!" So we turned around and left. We apologized for anything we may have done over Facebook and prayed for the best. The next morning we got a response saying " I don't want to be a part of your church anymore". I'm not sure what had happened during those weeks when we didn't see her. But she was very upset.

We got to end off the week on a good note though, Sunday night a member invited us over to see their tortoises! We thought It would be fun to see them because "every Arizona missionary has seen a tortoise"we got to the house and these people had like 20 of them!!! They were all huge. The biggest one (the one I'm riding) is like 50 years old and weighs 130 pounds and is so strong. I never knew how jacked tortoises are holy! They also had a bunch of goats I swear these people had their own little Zoo it was awesome. I'm going to attach a video of me surfing the turtle. This week was great and it's awesome to hear from you all.

Elder Erasmus