I want to apologize for all I wrote last week. I know it was largely negative, but it had been a hard week. We had a couple of spiritually strong lessons where the investigators dropped us, knowing very well they might be closing the door on God, followed by a contentious lesson with the husband of one investigator, which had been our only member present lesson in weeks. When the Holy Ghost is sad, you're sad too, and it can be hard to keep going. We were feeling really down, and it was just one of those weeks where there really isn't much good news.
Thanks for offering to send me new stuff, but I think I'll manage. Last week was really cold, didn't get above 10 degrees and one day didn't get above 0, but it's snapped really warm these last few days, 30s and 40s. We're thrilled, because we've wanted to wash the inside of our car windows, and vacuum our floor mats, but that's just impossible in below freezing weather. Just in time too, we have vehicle inspections tomorrow.
This week was good. We're getting new investigators, and dropping some others. Ruben went in for surgery this last week, so we're going to have to re-think when he could get baptized. I think He's worse off than he expected, so maybe he won't be going to Mexico after all.
We've had some interesting knocking moments. People here in Illinois are generally too lazy to yell at us, but one lady gave us a 3-minute discourse. Which is nothing compared to when we knocked into a Jehovah's Witness pastor who sermonized to us for over an hour. He was very polite, and did an excellent job inviting the spirit of contention. He was especially annoyed when I knew what Zion, the kingdom of god, Free agency, and several other things were. The deeper he found my understanding of the bible to be, the more annoyed he became... while continuing to be polite. (My poor companion. This guy had a thick accent, and spoke too fast. He directed several questions at her that she simply could not handle in Spanish, and he kind of scorned her for it.) When he finally realized he could not sway us, he let us go. We bore testimony of the living prophets and apostles, and got out. Gah, I hate those. The Jehovah's Witnesses have contention down to an art.
We also got in with this non-denominational lady who was polite, but not interested, but also deathly afraid for us, walking around at night. We hit up a nice little Buddhist lady, who told me enough that , adding things up, I've realized that most American Buddhists, or at least the ones out here, do not practice anything remotely like Buddhism as it is practiced in Asia. IE, when I asked about sutras and Bodhisattvas, they knew nothing. Shouldn’t surprise me... it makes sense that Buddhism would be as varied as Christianity. Anyway she was thrilled to look at our website.
(BTW, I encourage you all to check out the new Mormon.org, and if you're a member, to consider making a profile. The church is suing it to jump-start online proselytizing techniques.)
The final and best one was this poor guy who was disillusioned with all of Christianity. He started out by trying to give us a donation. We refused it. Confused, he kept on trying, and we repeatedly told him we couldn't take his money. His eyes got really big, and said, "You guys are for real, aren't you?" We replied that we were. We offered to have someone come by and talk to him, and he said he wasn't interested, unless he could teach us. We decided to open the can of worms, and ask him what it was he wanted to teach. He spoke generally of the second coming, (he was very correct, by the way) and then mentioned that the big sign that it was the last days was that the Jews were back in Israel. We solemnly agreed, and his eyes got big again. "You guys believe in that?" We said we believed in the literal gathering of Israel, that it had started and wasn't finished yet. He was surprised again and said most people just looked at him crazy when he said stuff like that. "Us too," we said with a smile. In the end, he still wasn't interested.
That's about it for the moment. Hope things are looking better for you guys too.
Love,
Hermana Maren Jones
