June 3, 2013

Missionary Slim has been looking for lost sheep. (Week 69 in Pennsylvania, Week 10 in Somerset, PA)

As I've mentioned in the past, a lot of our work in Somerset has been focused on finding the lost sheep, those members of the church who have simply slipped through the cracks. First and foremost, this work we've done (with the abundant help of Elder and Sister Neuder, two wonderful senior missionaries) has really been a boost to my testimony of the Lords hand in all the work that we do for Him. He knows where His sheep are hiding, and He knows when is best for us to find them.

We spent a day with the Neuders trying to locate these folks. They had a list of addresses which they had gleaned from every resource imaginable - social networks, background check websites, family members, voting records - you name it, they probably tried it. We got to one name of someone Elder Swanson and I have been trying to locate for weeks. The address we had listed in the branch roster simply didn't exist. The Neuders brought us to a different address, and we met the owner. Trying to be friendly, I said "How is everything going?" 

"Rough." Was the response. I asked what was going on? "Well, my dad passed away recently, and I'm really upset about that." Whew. I (thankfully) haven't had the opportunity of enduring the death of a loved one, so I am almost cruelly not empathetic (I neglected to get the date of death when we first talked to him, so Elder Neuder had me get out again and ask. How do you sympathetically say "Hey, what day did your dad die?" and respond to the answer "Two days ago.") I said I'm sorry for his loss, and tried my best, but didn't have a lot of depth of feeling. I asked what was his dad's name, and sure enough, it was the very member we were looking for all these weeks. The person we were talking to happened to be his son, also a missing member, albeit with a different last name. We asked if we could stop by again in the near future, and he agreed. Certainly, the Lord knew this family would need support at this trying time and put us right in the place where we could offer it.

Later during the week we decided to do some work in an area we usually don't frequent. We were on our way to a member's house for dinner and had some spare time, so we stopped in one of the quaint hamlets along the way. These usually consist of a post office, a church, and a couple dozen houses. We started our way down one of the two streets knocking doors. Door one: no answer. Door two: A father came to the door. We asked if he's ever met missionaries before, and he said no. I was just a little surprised, but that didn't stop me from jumping into a brief explanation of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. He told us that he wasn't very interested, but that his wife might be. I asked him why he lacked interest and he told us that he was disillusioned by his own faith - he didn't understand the God he was taught about and never got the answers to his questions, so he just gave up on organized religion entirely. This actually is a very common thing here in PA, maybe in other places as well.

As we testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and of it's power to teach us of Christ, I could see a faint glimmer light up in him. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon when we first started talking to him to which he said he wouldn't read it, but after our brief testimony meeting, he said, "I'll look into this." Suhweet!

Door three: An older woman who was too busy watching TV to talk to us. Door four: A middle-aged woman who was very nervous when we first came to the door. As we explained who we were, the door opened a little bit more, until it was finally fully open and she was listening intently.  As we explained our message, she asked a very good question: "Do you believe that yours is the only true church?" Good question, yes, but tough to answer - for some, it can be a touchy subject. Fortunately, I remembered something one of the apostles said in answer to that question, and paraphrased it to her (among my many faults, I am a master quote plagiarizer). I said, "While other churches have much good and much truth in them, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church which contains the fullness of the gospel." She nodded her head with acceptance of my answer. She also took a Book of Mormon, with a promise to read it with an open mind.

I was expecting to pound on every door on that street, but as it turned out, those two encounters lasted us all of our spare time, and all of the Book of Mormons we had on hand. There are people being prepared every day, for certain. All we have to do is find them.

Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim

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