July 29, 2013

Missionary Slim uses the interwebs to help a missionary in Utah 'attend' a baptism. Sweet! (Week 77 in Pennsylvania, Week 1 in Dover, PA)

It's always amazing when weeks like this happen, when everything seems to be so mundane, so ordinary. We taught lessons, we found some interesting people, that sort of thing. But the weekend was something spectacular.
First off, this week we're splitting our area. Sister missionaries are coming in to take over the York half of our area. My companion and I are now officially serving in the Dover area. That means that nearly all of our investigators are being turned over to those sisters, and that means that the coming weeks will be very interesting indeed.
We got a call several weeks ago about a referral - someone had stumbled upon Mormon.org and started chatting with the missionaries there. Those missionaries in turn sent the request to us to stop by and visit this person. After getting in contact with him, we found out that he was going out of town for a long time, and wouldn't be back until this past week. So, I gave him a call, set up a visit, and we went over.
We sat down and started visiting with Kyle, and asked him the usual question: "What possessed you to go and visit Mormon.org?" His is probably the best response I've ever gotten. I'll paraphrase:
"Well, my family is Catholic, but I've never really attended or gone to church at all. I've never read the bible, I've never really prayed or anything. One day, my family was taking a 'What Faith are You?' quiz. All of them ended up being Catholic. When I took it, though, I ended up being Mormon.
"I was curious, so I went to the website and started looking around. Then a chat box popped up, and I started talking with the missionaries. They answered a lot of my questions, and I learned a lot. And ever since then I've just had an incredible desire to learn."
Pretty awesome. He's in the sister's area, so that might make it hard for us to keep tabs on his progress. I'm pretty sure that he'll make great progress though.
This weekend, we had two baptisms. Yes, two. I'm amazed myself. The first was for a sister named Sarah. I've probably talked about her before - she was taught all of the lessons online by a sister missionary in Utah. She's been eluding us the whole time, but when we finally got word that she has a baptism date, we finally got in touch and arranged the whole affair.
The baptism itself was probably the first of it's kind - I'm sure no other missionary would ever try to pull the stunt that I did. Sarah didn't really know a whole lot of people from the ward, so when it came time for her to choose who to give her talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost for her baptismal service, she was at a loss. She knew of one person to give a talk, but she couldn't think of anyone else. We missionaries wanted to stay out of it.
Someone made the suggestion "Why not have Sis. Russel do it?" Yes, a brilliant idea! Have the missionary that taught her give the talk. After a little bit of brainstorming, and talking with Sis. Russel, we decided that it would be possible to do a Skype-in talk on baptism. This was pretty incredible for Sis. Russel too, because she had always been told that as a computer missionary, she would help the people to baptism, but would never actually see the service herself. Well, we did just that. We carted a laptop computer over to the font so she could see the ordinance, and she was 'present' for the entire service. It was pretty unique.


The second baptism was for Juan, a 12 year old who we've been teaching for just a few weeks. His entire family has already been baptized (except the dad) and they are very friendly towards the church. He's your regular, average kid - playing video games and pranks, but usually wanting to do the right thing. Well, he did. 


So, the work is certainly moving forward. I'm glad I was able to play a part in the baptism of these individuals. It's been an incredible experience.
Here's to the future!
Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
Read More

July 22, 2013

Missionary Slim apparently lives his life being 'Prayed Up' and he is very happy about it (Week 76 in Pennsylvania, Week 5 in West York, PA)

Last week, I mentioned a family that we've been teaching. Well, a semi-family. They consist of Rene and Canie (they're together), and Rose and Donald (they're together). They're all living in an apartment together and we've been teaching Rene, Canie, and Rose, and they've been loving it. To me, it seems like one of those situations of someone finding something they've been looking for their entire lives, but not knowing they were looking for it. Donald has been aloof from our visits.

Well, last week, we stopped by unexpectedly. Rose and Donald were there, and we started talking to her about the things we talked about the last time we came by, etc. We've got a pretty good relationship with Donald when we're not teaching lessons, so he came over and we started chatting with him. He opened to us. "Guys, I've gotta tell you. I've been avoiding y'all, coz I'm not really sure who you are anyway. But ya know? I can't deny it anymore." He basically told us that he wants whatever it is that we have. He explained that all his life growing up in the Bronx of New York, he's had a lot of negativity, and it's been really hard for him to look up and keep a positive attitude when there is so much bad stuff going on around him.

"Now, you guys," he said, "I'm sure you guys have a lot of bad stuff going on too. But for some reason, it's like you've just got this positive energy with you all the time. And it's contagious too!" Every time we came over, he noticed this 'positive energy,' and it really intrigued him.
At this point, I was feeling really great. You always hear stories of people actually noticing the Gift of the Holy Ghost which missionaries carry with them, but very rarely does anybody actually tell you "Hey, you've got the Holy Ghost with you right now." Only a very few have ever said anything like that to me during my mission, and usually, they have a hard time describing it: positive energy, looking so happy all the time, being 'prayed up', that sort of thing. This was one of those moments that I do not want to forget.

We explained what it was, and then asked him "Do you want it?" Of course he said "Yeah, I do." So we've started to teach him too.

We had a really cool lesson with Sarah, the lady who was taught all the lessons over the internet. Yeah, we finally taught her a lesson! We brought her over to our Ward Mission Leaders house and basically just figured out... her. Why she chose to investigate the church, what it was like being taught online ("It was pretty good, and I definitely felt the spirit, but it was weird typing out our prayers. It was good though!"), and where she expects this going ("Well, its going to be REALLY hard to send my boys on missions, but I think I'll be ready to do it by then." For the record, those boys are toddlers. She's REALLY looking to the future.). She'll be all set for her baptism this coming weekend. I'm pretty excited about it - she's super solid.

Same goes for Juan, the 12 year old who is also being baptized at the same time. We taught him about the Sabbath Day this week, and then decided to get really bold with him. He LOVES Poke'mon, the video game. (If you don't know what Poke'mon is, don't bother - it's not worth your time. And I bet I'm going to get flak for that comment...) So, I asked him "Juan, what are some things that you should give up for the Lord on the Sabbath Day?" He pondered it for a little bit, and then it came to him. "My DS." (The DS is a hand-held video game device with dual-screens. Hence DS.) "Okay, Juan." I said, "You know what this means? It means that during the Sabbath Day, you won't be able to use your DS. Will you do that?" He thought about it, and said "Not even for 90 minutes?"

"Nope"

"What about at midnight?"

"That's okay, but you should probably go to bed anyway."

"Okay. I'll do it."

Well, sure enough, we got a text after church. "Hey, this is Juan. Can I play my DS now?"

We left it up to him: "Pray about it, and then do whatever you feel is right.

And as far as I can tell, he chose not to. He's awesome.

That's about all! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
Read More

July 15, 2013

Missionary Slim slips in a reference to " Horton Hears a Who " (Week 75 in Pennsylvania, Week 4 in West York, PA)

I got a call this week from the Referral Secretary. She's in charge of letting us know about people in our area who called Salt Lake City to learn more about the church. This time, she said she had an odd referral. It was for a lady who was investigating the church online with a missionary on Facebook, and had progressed to the point where she has a baptism date... for two weeks from now!
 
Her name is Sarah, and I actually have met her before. We've talked on her porch, but due to the circumstances, she's never been willing to invite us in and we haven't sat down to teach her. Now she has a baptism date! What do you do?
 
Well, fellowship is pretty much the best thing you can do! She came to church at our ward this Sunday, for the first time (she was attending another ward in our building) and after church was over, she was literally bombarded by members of the church (in a good way). People inviting her over for dinner, the bishop giving her a warm hand of welcome. It was great. We don't know a whole lot about her or her situation, but it will be exciting to see what comes of this.
 
Another investigator family lives in downtown York. I'm not sure if I've mentioned them or not - we were just walking by when we needed a garbage can to throw away a banana peel. They were sitting on their porch ("Pennsylvania! We're a porch kind of people!") and we asked if we could use the can. They said sure. Then, they asked that question which always leads to something good: "Why are you guys dressed up so nice?"
 
From that fateful moment, we've been talking to them about the gospel, and a remarkable thing has happened. I've seen it before, but it always amazes me. As we visit with them, a light ignites in their eyes. They find purpose, they find reason for everything. That's happened with them.
 
Something really cool happened yesterday. This family is actually four non-married friends all living together, split into two couples. Because they speak Spanish, we invited them to our Spanish Book of Mormon class, which the two girls came to. It was great! They learned a lot and got to meet a lot of the stellar members of the church. As we were talking after the class, they were telling us about their difficulties in managing their finances, and especially their boyfriends. To that, we said "Well, at our church we sometimes hold a marriage relations class." I don't think I could even describe how much their faces lit up. It was almost funny how excited that made them. I think and hope that will be a turning point for them to realize just how much the church and the gospel can help them with everything in their lives.
 
We've also started teaching an 8 year old girl. She's living with members right now because her parents are both in prison for an undetermined time. You wouldn't be able to tell if you saw her though. In fact, when we went over to teach them, I brought a missionary from another area with me - he didn't even know that the girl we were teaching wasn't part of the member family that she was living with. As we taught her, she actually taught us - a lot of things. She radiated with goodness, she was very innocent with the answers to our questions and said some funny things without realizing it, but was totally open when we gave her the correct answers. She said the prayer at the end, and it was full to the brim with faith and hope.
 
Missionaries sometimes give other missionaries a hard time when they teach 8 and 9 year olds. I don't agree with that. A person's a person, no matter how small, and like the Master said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not. For of such is the Kingdom of God." This little one has such a strong desire to learn the truth and follow the Savior, and that, to me, is an incredible example.
 
Our lives are about to be flipped upside-down. We had interviews with the mission president this week, and he informed me that sisters were going to be moving into the area - that our area would be split and the sisters would be working in the York area. It's going to be tough - York is our most productive area right now. But, there is a purpose in everything. It will all work out great.
 
Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
Read More

July 8, 2013

Missionary Slim and the Chocolate Factory or Elder Ramos and the chocolate bar (Week 74 in Pennsylvania, Week 3 in West York, PA)

We had a bit of excitement this week. We were out on foot, looking for the home of a less-active member who the Bishop wanted us to go and visit. We went back and forth, trying to find it, but the house numbers seemed to jump right when we came to where the house we were looking for would be. After knocking a few doors, we found that the house was actually behind all the other ones. You had to walk through an alley and there they were. We knocked on a house that we thought was the one when a guy yelled to us "Yo!" He was standing on his balcony waving down at us. We went over to him. "I need some Word." That was good enough for me. We went up to his house and sat down.

His name is George. He's a big guy, pretty burly, and had stitches on a cut right above his eyebrow. He brought us in, sat us down, and told us "Look, I've been in York for about two weeks. Two days ago, we got robbed." Some guys broke into their house, stole the jewelry, electronics, and keys to the car. They were without hope for a little bit. So, we cheered him up. We gave some scriptures, some comfort, etc. Just as we started explaining the Book of Mormon, his wife came out.

"Ooh!" she said, "I've always wanted to read it." Then she told us her background. "I'm into hermeneutics and exegesis, oh, and apologetics too!" Yeah. Good thing I've looked up those words before (Thank you, Elder Christofferson, for using them in one of your talks!) To put it simply, she's REALLY into reading old scriptural documents. We were thrilled to give her a copy.

That was pretty fantastic.

Just a few hours later, though, disaster struck.

A member gave us candy bars for dessert after dinner one time. Well, we really weren't in the mood to eat them right then, so we just brought them out to the car and left them there... for several hot days. On this particular day, Elder Ramos got a little hungry. That candy bar was waiting for him (calling his name, I'm sure). He pulled it out, grabbed the end, and the rest is history.



Poor guy.

I'll close with a scripture which has had an impact on me this past week, being the Independence day of my country and all.

Ether 2:12 - "Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written. "

Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
Read More

July 1, 2013

Missionary Slim rediscovers that he is truly on the Lord's errand (Week 73 in Pennsylvania, Week 2 in West York, PA)

What a week. All things considered, it's been one of the best I've had in a long time. For some reason, the Lord chose to bless us in the very best ways. 

Last Monday, we went shopping and my companion was very carefully choosing between which honey he should purchase. A gentleman who was selecting pop-tarts overheard us and made a comment which just launched us into a conversation about how honey isn't really what it used to be. When I explained that my parents keep bees, he asked a little bit more and found out that I am from Utah. Naturally, he was surprised, found out that we were missionaries (it wasn't obvious before?) and told us he's met with missionaries before. We got his contact info and got another appointment scheduled. 

It was pretty incredible. That was just another testament to me that you can find people who the Lord has prepared anytime anywhere in any situation - you just have to be ready to talk about the Gospel. 

One of the families which have been taught live downtown, right in the heart of York. Their names are Jamie and Theresa and they've been through a lot. Jamie very recently got off house arrest and both of them are now ready to jump with both feet into the Gospel. They love the scriptures, they love the Lord, and they really want to make permanent changes to their lives for the better. It amazes me how far these two have come, considering their background. The atonement is real, and it really does pull people out of their circumstances of difficulty. 

We got a call from some sister missionaries in a neighboring area. They told us that someone gave them a referral for a person who lives in our area. Incidentally, we happened to be in the very neighborhood of the person who they wanted us to visit so we went over and introduced ourselves. This wonderful lady named Ferne came to the door and sat down with us right then and there. Like most people we teach, she's been to church before, but didn't have a lot of her questions answered. She was concerned about her sister who is dying of cancer, so we started talking about why bad things like that exist, who we really are as children of God, and what the true purpose of life is. The expressions on her face told us these were things that she had never before heard, but the feeling we all had was evidence that she felt they were true. She was more than happy to schedule us to come back. 

The longer I'm a missionary, the more I realize how much of this work really isn't mine - it's all His. I do the best I can to do all that I can do, and even then it doesn't even compare to how much the Lord is doing for me. Take a look at the things you all are doing in your life. Look very carefully, and I'm sure you'll be able to notice those tender mercies which seem to make everything you are trying to do for yourself fall into place. It's fascinating and inspiring how much He cares about us. 

That's about all! 

Love, Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
Read More
Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )

Popular Posts