Week 56 Email

Still in Corona for another six weeks

(Email: June 29, 2013)

All:

So this week was the end of the transfer. I'm staying in Corona to finish training elder Blackburn. However, they realigned the districts so that it's now just Blackburn and I and two sister companionships, which makes me the "relief society president" as the missionary parlance goes. It should be interesting getting used to the new dynamic. (I decided to go with a positive remark rather than the one I originally wrote out...)

On the subject of women. We were riding our bikes near a shopping center and rode past a woman who was obviously not very happy to be walking...
I asked her how she was doing,
"Not good!" she snapped.
"Can we help with anything?"
"NO!"
We rode on a bit and saw a car parked right in the middle of a right hand turn with it's hazard lights on. It was one of those yielded intersections where the right turn flows into the other street like a "Y". A very dangerous place to be stopped.
 We realized that the car must be the lady who was walking. we parked our bikes and waited for her to get back.
"hey, drop it into neutral and we can get it out of the intersection"
"I don't think I can do that..."
"why not?"
she went into this long winded explanation about how the engine was "revving" when she wasn't hitting the gas, so she didn't want to turn the car on.
"you can drop it into neutral without turning the car on" (in my experience anyway)
she tried, and couldn't figure it out. 
Her friend and another car showed up and they all said "drop it into neutral and we'll push it out of the intersection"
But this lady was adamant that she couldn't turn the car on, because the car could jump and crash into something... (that wasn't what was happening before she turned the car off, and there wasn't anything to crash into for 60 feet in any direction)
Finally the AAA guy showed up and we left.

There's no helping some people. There's probably a metaphor/life lesson in there somewhere. I'll let you figure it out.

So finally the story I've been hinting at for three weeks. I'm writing it first so I don't run out of time.

So we've been working with sister D'Amore for awhile, helping her to come back after years of inactivity.  We had a loose plan for our lesson, depending on whether or not her non-member husband was there. We show up and her non-member sister, Carla, is there, along with a member of the ward. And then the Spirit took over. It was awesome. We shared a Mormon message (And None Were With Him, youtube it) and had an amazing lesson on repentance and the atonement, Elder Blackburn bore super strong testimony, and we committed all of them to read Alma 36 and ponder about what things that they need to repent of.

A few days later we got a text from Sister D'Amore asking us to give her sister a blessing, it was an emergency. So we bike there as fast as we could. Sister D'Amore started by telling us about how hard Carla's life has been, especially recently. I wont go into detail, but nothing good. They had started reading Alma 36 but had trouble with the scriptural language. We opened up the scriptures and explained Alma 36, the joy of repentance, and then turned to Alma 7 and talked about the infinite nature of the atonement, and then helaman 5: 12, discussing the importance of having your foundation built on Christ. The Spirit was there overpoweringly strong. Something about the Holy Ghost, when he touches you he leaves an indelible mark that cannot be denied. Carla had hit rock bottom in her life and was looking for a way out, a way to change. Christ has that way, and wanted her to know it. We invited her to baptism and she said yes, because she realized that that ordinance was what she needed in her life to bring her closer to the savior. After the lesson, Elder Blackburn gave her amazing blessing. It was an awesome experience for everyone involved.

However, the catch is that Carla lives in Ramona, several hours away. Even though we wont be able to continue teaching her ourselves. It was amazing to see the Lord's hand move all the dominoes in place for her to be there at the same time we were. So, moral of the story: God's amazing.