Story Time (8/8)

Hi everyone,

Some people say that they want to know more about what's happenin'. So I'm gonna tell you today. It's gonna be the best story you've ever heard. And if it isn't, then, well...👅

On Sunday we had a lesson planned with our new person we're teaching (in case you didn't hear, with the updated Preach My Gospel we are no longer supposed to use the term "investigator", which transition is not going very smoothly) named Wilmer. He's pretty dang solid! He actually read a decent chunk of the Book of Mormon after our first lesson and feels like he should be baptized. We got a member to come, one Brother Orencole. Now nothing against Brother Orencole but there was no particular reason we chose him. The Elders Quorum president recommended him for the lesson and we were just happy to get any member at all to come with us. But he came in handy, as you'll see.

We get there and nobody answers the door. Weird. We wait a short while and talk about Brother Orencole's Spanish-speaking mission in New Mexico. Then someone drives up, but it's not Wilmer. It's some older lady we haven't met. She says Wilmer isn't here. Okay. She days she'll call him and drives further into the driveway. After a couple of minutes she gets out and tells us she's Wilmer's mother, Isabelle, and that we can wait inside for when he gets back since it was hot outside. We politely declined. Just kidding, the heat was gross so we quickly followed her inside.

Elder Cichoski, Brother Orencole and I sat down with Isabelle and got to know her a bit. She is Hispanic and told us that her English isn't the best, but it really wasn't bad at all. However, Brother Orencole started speaking to her in Spanish. Perfect! Except she says Wilmer probably wouldn't get back for another 20 or 30 minutes. I'm all ready to head out and try our backup when Elder Cichoski asks her if she'd like to hear a message. She says sure. Wow!! Yeah!

So we taught her the Restoration. With Brother Orencole there, it was amazing. As a convert himself, he testified of modern-day prophets, the Book of Mormon, and the Holy Ghost. The Spirit was there so strongly, largely thanks to him. It was amazing and unplanned. I was not even aware that Wilmer spoke Spanish or even was Hispanic. He looked more middle-eastern to me. (And the black Jesus with black twelve apostles picture on the wall had thrown me off even more.) So we had no clue that bringing a Spanish-speaker would be something we wanted, but it worked out perfectly! Isabelle agreed to pray about our message and read the Spanish copy of the Book of Mormon which we didn't have at the time but will leave at their house after our lesson with Wilmer tonight.

We also visited a person who was taught previously, Rachel, and a somewhat-recent convert, Rhonda, who both are in wheelchairs and live in a small disabled/elderly-care facility, which is always interesting to visit. We're visiting them again tonight! We aren't sure how likely it is that Rachel will be baptized but she's going through a lot of hard times lately so it'll be good to keep stopping by with spiritual messages.

The other day Elder Cichoski and I were passing by an old man sitting on a lawn chair in front of his home. I asked if he would let us read a scripture with him. He said he knew who missionaries were and didn't agree with our doctrines and didn't really have time or desire to meet us at the moment. He threw out a couple of the standard attacks on Mormonism but we continued giving him simple responses. Soon enough his wife came out and we had a nice chat with them (since they apparently have met and befriended many missionaries before even though they strangely weren't in the area book) albeit laced with basically every standard-Christian anti-Mormon argument in the books. We ended up talking with them for 25 minutes, but they wouldn't commit to a specific time to meet again, just that we could stop by in the evenings on certain days. We had to leave or otherwise we would have stayed there and kept addressing their questions/concerns, but as we finally got out of the conversation and said goodbye, I was laughing. Elderly people just love conversation. Nothing wrong with that though.

The 10-year-old girl we were gonna baptize is on hold because her semi-active member mom doesn't think she's ready. She's probably right though.

Yep, things are going alright. Not fantastic (we should be finding way more new people to teach and probably should be baptizing), but not bad either.

You know, for some reason I understand now why many RMs lose their spiritual drive upon coming home. Yesterday while on exchanges with our district leader (one of the Nepali-speaking elders), I had a lot of worries in my head about what to do when I get home.

And I thought about how it's so easy to be good as a missionary. What will it be like when no one is expecting me to be a holy minister of the Gospel? A "man of the cloth" 👔?? What will it be like when I have to choose to be spiritual amidst all the distractions of everyday life that aren't present now as a missionary? How can I possibly keep this up and not return to my previous life (or "go a fishing" like Peter)?

I don't exactly know. Thankfully I've got a while to figure it out.

He's not finished with me yet.

Love,

Elder Gallagher