November 11, 2013
Missionary Slim is the Wizard of Wintersville (Week 92 in Pennsylvania, Week 3 in Wintersville, Ohio)
What a weird week...
On Monday, we went out to old man Zook's house. He's a great old guy who's been around for a really long time, and has seen the ward grow from a twig to where it is now. He's got a lot of random tricks up his sleeve too. While we were out there, he pulled out his old 'Water Witching Rods'. You know that thing that they do where they get two 'L' shaped rods, hold them straight out, and find water or treasure or something underground? Well, this guy says that it's legit, that it really works...for water at least.
He brought us out to the front of his house, puts the rods in my hand, and says "Now, walk." And I started walking. The trick is apparently to hold them perfectly straight ahead, but loose so they can turn every which way. So, I held them out and started walking, slowly. As I walked, the rods began to turn inward, completely on their own. Pretty soon, I passed the center point and Whoop! they pointed right at my chest. I reset them, and started walking back. At the exact same point Whoop! the rods turned towards me again. I held them high over my head the next time, and when I passed the point WHOOP! they swung right around and I was a helicopter.
You do some pretty weird things on the mission...
You see some weird things too, like this:
On Monday, we went out to old man Zook's house. He's a great old guy who's been around for a really long time, and has seen the ward grow from a twig to where it is now. He's got a lot of random tricks up his sleeve too. While we were out there, he pulled out his old 'Water Witching Rods'. You know that thing that they do where they get two 'L' shaped rods, hold them straight out, and find water or treasure or something underground? Well, this guy says that it's legit, that it really works...for water at least.
He brought us out to the front of his house, puts the rods in my hand, and says "Now, walk." And I started walking. The trick is apparently to hold them perfectly straight ahead, but loose so they can turn every which way. So, I held them out and started walking, slowly. As I walked, the rods began to turn inward, completely on their own. Pretty soon, I passed the center point and Whoop! they pointed right at my chest. I reset them, and started walking back. At the exact same point Whoop! the rods turned towards me again. I held them high over my head the next time, and when I passed the point WHOOP! they swung right around and I was a helicopter.
You do some pretty weird things on the mission...
You see some weird things too, like this:
I'm not even going to offer comment.
This week has been a great one. We had some awesome visits with some of the less-active and returning members of the church out here. Saturday, we had the Elders Quorum president drive us around for 8 hours during the day, completely on his own accord. Apparently, he was touched by President Monson's comment about now being the time for members and missionaries to work together. We went out to visit some people the Bishop suggested would be good to sit down with.
The first gentleman, Brother Boyd, was pretty dodgy. He let us in, but wasn't very thrilled to talk about the Gospel. He was very friendly, and open about his history in the church, about how he has flitted in and out of activity and eventually was the means for his wife and step-daughter to be baptized, but as of right now, coming back to church isn't a priority, it's only on his mind. It was plain, though, that as we left, he had more thoughts on his mind than when we came.
Another brother we visited, Brother Fray, is preparing to get the Melchizedek priesthood. He's been thinking about it pretty strongly, but after we came and sat down with him, it was plain to see that he knew what a blessing it would be in his life. We three talked about the great blessing it has been in our lives, we showed a quick video, and when the movie was done, the Spirit was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. His 15 year old son was there, and both of them seemed to be very close to tears. It was pretty awesome.
Earlier this week, we were in an area that we don't frequent very often. We looked at our maps and saw that there were a couple of less-active members that we could stop by. Neither of us knew any of the names, so we just picked one and drove over.
The name was Annette, and we had no information about her. When we rolled up, we saw a lady cleaning out her garage. We came up and almost scared her, but after we got introductions out of the way, she warmed up and said "Come on in!"
We sat down and started chatting, and one of the first things that she said was "How do you people keep on finding me?" She was born into the church in Ogden, but the hypocrisy which she saw in the church drove her away from any church at all. She's been all over the place in her life as a military woman, but finally settled down about 5 years ago. This was the first she's been visited by missionaries since then.
Then her Irish husband, Mick, came in, and boy, did we think he was going to come down like his namesake mascot. (Notre Dame Fighting Irish reference there) He took one look at us, with an unsure look on his face, and then started cracking jokes. "Oh! I thought you were INTERPOL coming to get me after all these years!" He sat down and was more than open about his feelings towards the church. Of course he's had some interaction, but has never attended. However, he seemed to be pretty open to the idea, much more than his wife. Both of them, however, were incredibly friendly to us. As we walked out, Elder Almond said "We'll have to come out this way more often." I say yes to that!
In all, a great week. And a great area!
Have a great week, all!
Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
This week has been a great one. We had some awesome visits with some of the less-active and returning members of the church out here. Saturday, we had the Elders Quorum president drive us around for 8 hours during the day, completely on his own accord. Apparently, he was touched by President Monson's comment about now being the time for members and missionaries to work together. We went out to visit some people the Bishop suggested would be good to sit down with.
The first gentleman, Brother Boyd, was pretty dodgy. He let us in, but wasn't very thrilled to talk about the Gospel. He was very friendly, and open about his history in the church, about how he has flitted in and out of activity and eventually was the means for his wife and step-daughter to be baptized, but as of right now, coming back to church isn't a priority, it's only on his mind. It was plain, though, that as we left, he had more thoughts on his mind than when we came.
Another brother we visited, Brother Fray, is preparing to get the Melchizedek priesthood. He's been thinking about it pretty strongly, but after we came and sat down with him, it was plain to see that he knew what a blessing it would be in his life. We three talked about the great blessing it has been in our lives, we showed a quick video, and when the movie was done, the Spirit was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. His 15 year old son was there, and both of them seemed to be very close to tears. It was pretty awesome.
Earlier this week, we were in an area that we don't frequent very often. We looked at our maps and saw that there were a couple of less-active members that we could stop by. Neither of us knew any of the names, so we just picked one and drove over.
The name was Annette, and we had no information about her. When we rolled up, we saw a lady cleaning out her garage. We came up and almost scared her, but after we got introductions out of the way, she warmed up and said "Come on in!"
We sat down and started chatting, and one of the first things that she said was "How do you people keep on finding me?" She was born into the church in Ogden, but the hypocrisy which she saw in the church drove her away from any church at all. She's been all over the place in her life as a military woman, but finally settled down about 5 years ago. This was the first she's been visited by missionaries since then.
Then her Irish husband, Mick, came in, and boy, did we think he was going to come down like his namesake mascot. (Notre Dame Fighting Irish reference there) He took one look at us, with an unsure look on his face, and then started cracking jokes. "Oh! I thought you were INTERPOL coming to get me after all these years!" He sat down and was more than open about his feelings towards the church. Of course he's had some interaction, but has never attended. However, he seemed to be pretty open to the idea, much more than his wife. Both of them, however, were incredibly friendly to us. As we walked out, Elder Almond said "We'll have to come out this way more often." I say yes to that!
In all, a great week. And a great area!
Have a great week, all!
Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
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