Well first off I would like
to note that church attendance yesterday was a little lower than normal. Rumor
has it that the Seahawks game had something to do with it. Either way they're
going to the Super Bowl so in a few weeks we are going to have a very low
church attendance seeing as we have 12:30 and 2:30 church sessions. Anyways
moving on.
This week was a pretty awesome week. I guess the overarching thing is that since we live in a town
house with 14 beds in it we become the housing squadron for misplaced
missionaries. So for the past 2 weeks we have been housing an extra set of a
missionaries who got kicked to the wayside due to a plumbing problem in the
house so there is now six of us living together. It gets pretty hectic.They finally got another place so
they will be moving out this Friday. It’s gonna be strange having the house to
ourselves again.
But in other news, let me
tell you the story about Joe and Sally (not their actual names). Flashback 10
years ago to Idaho Falls. Joe and Sally get in contact with the church and go
through the lessons and get baptized, but before getting confirmed, they move
away for some reason or another to Yakima, WA (about an hour and a half north
of Tri-Cities) and fall away from the church. They fell onto some hard times
and make their way over to Kennewick to escape the whole Yakima scene (just so
you know, Yakima is supposedly the 3rd scariest place to live in in the States).
Fast forward to a few months ago and they run into some missionaries on the
street and talk to them and said that they had actually been baptized and
wanted to start meeting with the missionaries again, recognizing how much
easier life is within the bounds of the gospel, so the missionaries grab their
name, and just their name. No address. So they all shake their head in dismay
but as luck (or the plan of God) would have it they run into the same
missionaries again a month later and this time they remembered to grab the
address. The only problem this time is that the missionaries can never find
them at home and so after a few weeks they give up but one night at 8 with
nothing to do they say what the heck and try by them again, and find them home.
That night Joe and Sally had actually called the Family History Center attached
to the church building in search of the missionaries when to their surprise
they knocked on the door. After that the rest is history.
Now flash forward to3 weeks ago when I show up. We had set the date of the 17th for the baptism and
all was on track for that until we came to the interview. For one reason or
another, the interview kept getting postponed later and later and so we
thought we were going to have to postpone the baptism and disappoint the whole
ward but late Tuesday night we got a call from the person that performed the
interview giving the go-ahead. "And there was much rejoicing." Monty Python
references aside, there was a lot of celebrating that night. Everything got set
into motion and the baptism went off with few problems (there can never be a
problem-free baptismal service) and ended up being a great night. One of the
neatest parts about the baptism is that a man who had been baptized in November
and was part of the teaching process was able to perform the baptism and be a
part of that moment with them. They came to church the next day and were able
to be confirmed which was especially miraculous since they had to go to the ER
immediately after Sacrament Meeting. The Lord really does have His hand in all
things. Even though I hopped on the train at the tail end of the journey it was
still a great experience to work with them and see the change that the Gospel has brought
into their lives.
So with that in mind, let me
set the stage for Thursday night and the quote of the week. The area my
companion and I are in is a particularly challenging area due to the rather
affluent nature of the community so we don't teach a lot of lessons but the
lessons we do have are super solid. As of that night we hadn't taught a lesson
since Sunday night and had had doors slammed (like actually slammed on several
occasions, I'm not being melodramatic on this one) for four days straight and
so in a bit of a sarcastic rage this conversation went down:
Elder 1: "Elder what am I even doing with my life?"
Elder 2: "You're finding, teaching, and baptizing."
Elder 1: "Well I feel like we are doing lots of baptizing, but
not so much finding and teaching."
Elder 2: "Elder, that's a good problem to have."
If you don't find that funny, then just chalk it up to a had-to-be-there kind of moment because we thought it
was hilarious.
And with that, adios.
Elder Kupferer
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