God loves you. 6-19-2023

 Exactly one week ago I went shopping and bought Spider-Man shorts. Then immediately afterwards the entire district pulled up to the institute building and we all (except for one, she called her boyfriend on the messenger app, which is disobedient) played chair soccer for 2 hours. The AC was broken so it was toasty as heck in there! After the sisters left the rest of us elders played a game called unstable unicorns, pretty fun game for real. I was able to call family and my brother and his new wife and my aunt and uncle Mike and Charity were all there in Arkansas, what a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed catching up with all them.

On the day of Tuesday we did service for our friend Scott in the trailer park. He told us a funny story of how he got a felony back in California. He poured 2 bags of concrete mix in his tube bumper on his old jeep and he went to a grocery store parking lot and ran over dozens of shopping carts. He was gangsta, now he's got the gospel of Jesus Christ. This day was pretty chill, not much else happened.

On Wednesday we did service for a buddy by the name of Jack Johnson (and unfortunately it wasn't the banana pancakes guy) he wanted us to throw an old box TV and recliner off his balcony porch, like why? We did as he requested and then he offered us a picture of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis in a car getting pulled over by police. He was kinda goofily not all there so we left after we threw away 3 bags of cat feces. We had a delicious meal with a hippie vegan military family, the wife was a recent convert and she told us her conversion story. The church is true. Whilst walking the streets we found our buddy Tyler (crackhead whom we found trying to steal TV's from the recycling center my second day in Moscow) and we started talking to him. He immediately opened up about allll his trials and temptations. So I briefly shared the word of wisdom and law of chastity with him. He seemed to understand, we tried visiting him twice in later days but he wasn't home.

Thursday was a great day. The scriptures Alma 23: 6-8 stood out to me, spirit was there for sure. I drew a picture of Jesus while listening to a really good BYU devotional (I forgot the name of it) We went and helped a lady by the name of Jackie Coleman plant flowers for her garden. We also sprayed her porch to clean off all the dirt and cobwebs. She kinda reminded me of my grandmother, in a good way of course. With the time we had left for service I made some cookie dough so we could bake cookies later for our friend Maria (a few days later on exchanges my companion burnt the cookies, a few days after that I used the remaining dough to make good cookies which later got snatched out of my pocket by a dog, oops) We had a lesson set up with a friend named Terra, my companion found her while split contacting an apartment complex. I was tied up talking to 2 schizophrenics and he found Terra, we had our first lesson with her today and that was the best Restoration I personally ever taught (credit goes to the spirit) she whispered "thank you" after we explained the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I truly am humbled to be in the position I am teaching the doctrine of Christ. After the lesson we went to Jimmie Johns, munched the "beach club" then found a complete inactive member of the Church. His reasoning for leaving was invalid. Had a lesson with Chris Falgiani, he's changed his baptismal date for July 1st, pray for him. He's trying so hard to quit smoking. We were walking the streets and saw some guy in his yard so we said "what's up" he said "come inside we're doing a book study" my companion and I looked at each other and said "bet." We went inside and got made fun, anti-ed, lowkey bullied by a bunch of 18-20 year old boys and their Protestant pastor leader. "You're going to hell" etc etc. The leader was in his 40s and he had a mouth full of orthopedic equipment, every time he slandered us, spittle flew everywhere and his goons were howling laughing. We left after doing some Facebook work in their kitchen, and listening to their book club discussion "using the Bible to be masculine " or something like that. Upon leaving that house I got anti-ed twice more, I was in a pretty bad mood. With the remaining hour of the day we headed to Berman Creek Park, I was able to talk about the Book of Mormon and the nature of God to Refon, a Chinese lady on the trail. My companion split contacted a catholic while Refon and I discussed on the grass. She said she'd read the Book of Mormon and bid us farewell, it was a good ending to a high and low day spiritually. 

Friday was district council like every Friday has been for the last 7 months of my life. I gave a training on extending bold baptismal invitations, it went fairly well. For lunch I had a half bag of popcorn and every other missionaries leftovers. We exchanged with the other elders immediately after. I was privileged to listen in on a call with all the district leaders in the mission. Even though I am not a district leader I was called to repentance. I will be a better missionary, follow up with me next week please. We had some pretty sweet street contacts, we were actually able to change an atheists mind, heck yeah! We also talked to some swaggy moms (who had lululemon fanny packs) we immediately had common ground. Elder Stringham conducted a baptismal interview for 2 friends the sisters in Troy are baptizing over zoom and it was so cool. Kinda goofy responses, but they came from the heart. Ended the day playing a game called black magic as we all tried to sleep. 

I woke up and it was Saturday. We de-exchanged and went home to finish our morning schedule. For our service we helped a trailer park couple clean put their shed. The wife told us "quick throw everything away before he gets back" and he meandered off with his walker to go check the mail. I equipped myself with hornet spray and committed genocide in the deteriorating shed. Afterwards we went to another trailer park to do more service. We met Daniel (hardcore Baptist) and we discussed theology. After explaining our beliefs of the fall of Adam and Eve was necessary and also a good thing. We shared the Corinthians scripture on baptisms for the dead and talked about the temple. We testified of the Book of Mormon and he agreed to read it. Twas hype. Had dinner with an awkward old couple. We ate breakfast casserole and burnt brownies.

Then came yesterday, Sunday. We went to church and sat in on an awesome lesson about the Atonement with the youth of the ward. We also talked to an inactive lady about coming back to church, she committed to coming after it's been 6 years. We then went to the trailer park and talked to a crazy Jason (my true friends know about the real crazy Jason) this trailer park guy went on for 40 minutes about 5-G killing people, the feds being taken over by foreign operatives, Venom being real and inhabiting Tesla neurolink vaccines, Hollywood being ran by Satan (Travis Scott concert devil theory) , giants and UFO's being covered up by CIA, the Earth actually being flat, multiple God's (quoted the eternals marvel movie) and all kinds of off the wall stuff.