Hello wall

Tue, Jul 21, 2009
Transfer calls came yesterday: Sister Kleisler and I are staying in Pleasanton.
I got to go to the San Antonio temple for the first time on Tuesday! It was awesome. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Sigh. Wednesday was district meeting and a senior couple paid for us to eat out at a steak buffet. Yum. That night we taught Toby, Mallory, and Billy Boy. We painted prayer rocks and those boys ended up being quite the little Picasso’s…
Thursday: Sister Kleisler’s teeth have been hurting. I inspected her teeth and noticed that part of a filling had chipped off so there was a large hole in her tooth. So arrangements were made for her to go to the dentist. He took one look in her mouth and said, “That’s not a chipped filling, that’s a huge cavity.” Apparently her last dentist didn’t do a very good job so now she’s got a mouth full of cavities. The dentist filled some, and then prescribed her heavy pain pills to ease her mouth pain. The pills did a good job at getting rid of her pain, but she was a zombie. So we did splits with some sisters from the ward. Sister Kleisler laid on Sister Swaim’s couch while I went out with other sisters in the ward. I went with Sister Midget(a sweet 78 year old woman who loves people and loves to share her testimony) for half the day, then the second half of the was spent with Vanessa.
I have to tell you a little about Vanessa because she’s one of my favorite people in whole world. She’s been a member her whole life, but had a rough childhood which led to her falling away from the Church. She had some terrible, terrible things happened to her as a result of the choices she made while she was away from the church. Ten-ish years later she’s got two kids from one marriage and two from her current boyfriend. Last fall, she was in the depths of humility, I suppose, and she was super depressed standing outside her toaster (what she calls the trailer she lives in) when she saw two sister missionaries knocking door across the street. She prayed and reasoned with the Lord that she would go back to church if He would send those two missionaries to her door…So guess what happened??? They never showed up. Bad missionaries? nope. Vanessa’s awesome and she went to church anyways because she knew she was supposed to go and she didn’t need a sign to realize that. She walked into Church with her boyfriend and four kids and the sisters immediately ran over to them because here in Pleasanton new people are gold. So now 9 months later she is very active and her boyfriend wants to get baptized…as soon as they get married which can’t happen because…well that’s an incredibly long story that I won’t go into. I’ve learned a very important lesson from them. Even though they have sincerely repented of their sins and want nothing more than to live righteously now, they still have to suffer the consequences of their decisions. They can’t get out of it—these consequences will be stuck with them for their entire life. However, they are at peace. Vanessa is surrounded by chaos, but she is at peace because she knows now that she is on good terms with God so she can trust that he’ll help her out in the exact way the she and her family need. What's neat now is that we often get promptings to go see Vanessa right when she needs us. Even though the Lord didn't send the missionaries to Vanessa the first time she asked, He has since sent us several times. So she is the awesomest member to take with us to appointments because she has a tough life so she can relate to the people we teach (everyone who listens to us have very difficult lives) and when she bares her testimony you can feel her sincerity and her peace.
So Vanessa and I did splits for part of Thursday and part of Saturday. On Saturday we went knocking. Usually when we’re with members we take them to solid appointments, because finding people to teach is awkward for them, but our teaching pool has dried up so we have to find more people. Plus, the zone leaders wanted all of us to set someone with a baptism date before the 19th. Okay…that probably sounds weird, and it is. How can you have a goal that depends on another person’s agency? Well, the answer is that the “goals” are more like promises to the Lord that we will do everything in our power to bring people to Christ and then we trust that he will lead us to those people who are ready to make that step—cause we don’t know where they are! I wish we had radar that gave us coordinates to all those people who are ready to hear this message…and I guess in a way we do—the Spirit. But I’ve found that if we make no effort, no plans, and no goals, we don’t find anyone. It’s like God wants us to actually put forth as much effort as we can before he’ll help us out…weird. But with that said…sometimes we DO put forth all of our effort and we still don’t find anyone! But such is life—I have a feeling that something greater than my perception detects is going on here, but that’s just me.
Wow, today’s the letter of tangents. Anyways, on Saturday we weren’t teaching anyone who was ready to set a date to get baptized. But the zone leaders were praying, Sister Kleisler was praying, and I…well I was skeptical because we had three hours and I wasn’t in the mood to convince someone to get baptized just so I could turn in pretty numbers. So we were knocking and an older woman opened the door. She invited us to sit down on her front porch and we asked if she was interested in our message (after explaining for a couple minutes) and she said, “I have different beliefs than you.” She said she had been studying with the Jehova’s witnesses for several years which to us is a big red flag that she likes to learn, but doesn’t like to commit. At this point I normally would have said “thanks for your time” and then would take off down the road to find someone else, but for whatever reason, I decided to read out of the Book of Mormon. Partly because I can tell if people are ready by how strong the Spirit comes while we read from it. Well it came strong. Holy Moly. Wasn’t prepared for that at all—neither was she. Vanessa bore her testimony about the Book of Mormon and about the church and as she did so I got the impression to set her with a baptismal date. Of course I talked back to the thought in my mind, “Are you serious?” “Yes.” Well, I couldn’t argue with that. So I asked her if she wanted to be baptized. “You mean I can be baptized again?” So I explained priesthood and as I did she said, “I keep getting goose bumps while y’all are talking.” So were we. Anyways, we explained that we had a lot to teach her before she was baptized, and that we wouldn’t baptize her until she understood more of what she was getting into, but the feeling that she was getting right now was the Lord telling her that this road was good. Okay, disclosure: we didn’t push her, we didn’t manipulate…she wants to be a part of Christ’s Church—all we did was read from the Book of Mormon and she knew. I love that Book! Our meeting was 25 minutes long. We sat down, felt the spirit, and then we were gone. Sister Kleisler cam with me the next day to visit her to make sure she was legitimately interested and she agreed that Melrose (that’s the woman’s name) was ready to set a baptism date. She had already read 16 chapters in the Book of Mormon and told the Jehova’s Witnesses that she was going to try something new. So her baptisms set for Aug 30th. Whoa.
At church I walked in and saw a woman sitting by herself who I didn’t recognize. I figured out that she was a Methodist who just wanted to come to our church meeting. I asked her if she attended other religious meetings frequently and she said “No, just this one.” She said, “I came here a couple of weeks ago for a funeral (Brother Bishop had died) and the meeting truly touched me. You go to all these different place and don’t feel anything, I feel something when I am here. So I wanted to come again. I came last Sunday, but showed up at the wrong time, so I came again this Sunday.” …Well, I rambled off something like, “Yeah…cool.” But inside I was like, “Um….am I trapped inside an Ensign-Magazine-vortex or is this reality?” So I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but it was cool.
Okay one more story. A lady in our ward was telling us how her father would sometimes punish her and her siblings. I guess he would use the belt often (in a non-abusive way I’m assuming??), but on special occasions when the kids were being extra bad, he would make them talk to the wall. She said it happened when the other siblings were around so they could watch. He would start, “Alright…go to the wall.” “Daaaaaad…noooooo (said in a very whiney teenager voice)” “It’s the wall or the belt.” They shot to the wall.
“Repeat after me”
“Oh my gosh (rolled eyes)”
He starts in a deep, provoking voice, “Hello wall.”
“Hello wall,” the punished kid would say in a small, embarrassed voice.
He would then say, “It’s me again.”
“It’s me again” Meanwhile the other siblings are rolling around on the floor laughing.
Gruff-father-whose-having-way-too-much-fun voice: “I’m back…”
I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this voice:“I’m back”
Then the climax “Cause I’ve been Bad!!!”
Kid would sigh and in a little bitty itty voice, “Cause I’ve been bad…” Other kids would erupt into more laughter. He did it to them well into their teens, but she said they have a recording of her when she was only three.
“Hello Wall.”
“He-woa wah” (in a cute little guilty voice).
“It’s me again.” “It me again.”
“I’m back.”
“I back.”
“Cause I’ve been bad.”
“Cause I be bad.”
Well I love you all! Hope your having a fabulous day. Thanks for your prayers and support! Until next week.
sj