political without the tickle

Reality check…again. Sigh. You’d think I’d get used to this, but it’s still hard. Each day is a rollercoaster. We had some investigators fall through this week. We found a ton of new investigators the week before which is awesome. As the number of investigators increase the number of potential baptisms increases as well, however this increase also leads to an increase of the number of people we teach who will not be baptized. We knew some would fall off the map and we expected it, but we also lost two this week that we weren’t expecting to lose at all.
We met Janie doing drive-by EBP which is our mission lingo meaning that we pull our car over and get out anytime we see people outside. It’s quite annoying and probably very weird for the innocent by-stander, but not as weird as you would expect. Anyways, we met her and she said she could come back because she had a hunger to find answers to gospel questions. We came back and then met her son, Andrew. They are awesome. They told us that they’d been feeling like something great was coming, and then we showed up. They truly believed we were an answer to their prayers and they loved the Book of Mormon and decided they wanted to be baptized. So then it was time to get them to church. Usually that comes before the decision of baptism but not in this case. To make a long story short…her ex-husband doesn’t want her or his son to go to our church. Ugh. Why does an ex-husband have that kind of control over his ex-wife and his 20 year old son? That is also a long story, but the point is I’m mad. It’s one thing if our investigators drop us because they don’t want the gospel, but it’s is a much more difficult thing for me to deal with when the investigators want the gospel but can’t have it because of a chauvinistic and controlling male. Frustration!
Anyways, there’s nothing we can do about it so we have to walk away and pray that the ex-husband’s heart will be softened, but we know that’s not going to happen and in reality that’s not the biggest problem. Janie has the power to take control of her situation, but she doesn’t feel like she has control; she feels helpless even though she could easily have the upper hand if she wanted. We have to pray that Janie will find the strength to stand up for herself and her kids and kick this guy out of the picture…way easier said than done.
Other drama happened this week and I’m not sure how we get involved in it, because really we’re not supposed to be involved in drama at all, but we sure run into doosies as missionaries. I remember at the beginning of my mission I said that I liked a little drama in my life. I take it back. I don’t want any more drama! It’s not fun at all; it’s awful.!
On a good note, we had four people come to church! President Cutler (mission prez) spoke in our ward which was awesome possum. Rebecca came and she liked it, of course. However, she was quite interested to learn that only those who are married will enter the highest degree of the celestial kingdom (gospel principles class…sigh). Her philosophy on marriage is “I’ve been divorced twice, I’m not getting married ever again, so help me_____.” So Sister Dodge explained it a little more and assured her that she would not have to get married in this life if she didn’t want to and she for sure didn’t need to get married to be baptized.
Betty and Joe (names have been changed) came to church. Here’s the story: Joe’s oldest son was in the military and he became a member of the church. Then the son had cancer and he passed away. Joe and his other children were very sad obviously and Joe was looking for something to relieve his sorrow. He randomly ran into Elders and they taught the family and all the kids were baptized, but Joe was not because…well I’m not sure why he didn’t get baptized that first time. Anyways, they moved to Texas two weeks after the baptisms and went less active because they didn’t know where church was. Well, the Lord loves this family, so Joe randomly ran into missionaries again and they called the sisters and the sisters arranged to have his kids go to church. So for the past year the kids have been going to church by themselves with help from the members. The girls are 15 and 13 and the boys are 12 and 10. Sweetest kids ever! When the sisters first met the family Joe told them he wanted to be baptized, but he couldn’t because he was living with his girlfriend, but couldn’t get married because he hadn’t divorced his previous wife. They’d been separated for years and years and years. We run into this all the time. Very common problem. Divorce with kids is expensive and he’s not super rich. Plus his girlfriend, Betty, was not one bit interested in the church. Well, about three weeks ago Joe randomly calls us and asks if we could teach his girlfriend about the Book of Mormon. “Yes, yes we can,” we responded and then when we hung up the phone we jumped around our apartment in joy. So we’ve been teaching the two of them now and he knows it’s true and has already read the entire triple combination and Betty is reading the Book of Mormon and is growing in her testimony. Good news, but there’s still the divorce so marriage and baptism are not going to happen anytime soon. They have a child together and our Mission President has told us that if the parents want to be married and they have kids, it’s better to keep the family together and work towards marriage instead of splitting them up just so they can get baptized. Good counsel.
Anyways, I love being a missionary even though things aren’t always a fairytale. We met a little old man this week from South Africa with the coolest accent ever and he said his name was Polit: political without the tickle. That made the whole week worth it :)
I love you all!
Sister johnson