Great and Spacious

Yesterday (Saturday) was the start of our Ward's turn to clean the building. Felicia had Tennis so I rode my motorbike down. I was  mopping the kitchen and Heidi Crosby came in to clean the countertops. There were Halloween candy crumbs and wrappers all over. I mentioned that we hadn't had as many teenagers trick-or-treating this year. She asked if I thought that was because their house didn't do the Tunnel-of-Doom like Larry Andrews did. I told her that I thought that was exactly the reason. She said the first Halloween after they moved in, their babysitter had overheard people giving out the Crosby's address (formerly the Andrew's address) in the halls of the High School and telling people to go there. Heidi decided she needed to let people know things had changed so she got a sheet and wrote "He Moved" on the sheet and hung it on the garage door. Some people thought that the message was funny and others swore and said, "How rude!" it is hard to predict people's reactions.

Investigators are especially hard to predict. They may want to follow and know the truth but the "Great and Spacious Building" is , well, great and spacious. It seems there is almost always some external unexpected challenge a person studying the church runs into that they must overcome in order to get baptized.

Mission Memories

Elder Nguyen and I were both only 3 months in the field and weren't very good with the language when first made companions. We tracted for 2 weeks straight all day and didn't get a single person to let us in...and then we met Frau Brotzer. She was  a relatively young woman. We told her of the restoration and sold her a Book of Mormon then made an appointment to come back and teach her and her husband. When we came back, we taught the rest of the C discussion about prophets and apostles and then asked them if they had any questions. She said, "Yes. What is this tingly feeling I get when I read the Book of Mormon?" Elder Nguyen and I looked at each other and told her it was the Holy Ghost testifying of the truthfulness of the book. We had a prayer and made an appointment to return. 

When we came back, she had read half of the Book of Mormon and Herr Brotzer hadn't read anything. He was willing to listen to us though. It was clear she was making big spiritual progress and he was being dragged along...but he was coming along. We had a young member couple come teach with us who had been baptized about a year. They made a big impact on the husband but we still couldn't get him to read. To be honest, he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. We challenged them to set a baptism date. They agreed.

One of the cigarettes taken from Frau Brotzer

Many things happened after that. They had been trying to move to a new apartment and it came available on the date we set for baptism, so instead of having a baptism we spent the day helping them move. Then they had Catholic family members from Italy come to stay with them. We tried to teach them while their visitors were there and it did not go well. The visitors were dead set against us. In the end, Herr Brotzer backed out of being baptized but said his wife could do it if she wanted. We took away her cigarettes (see picture) and we had her interviewed (she had to interview with our mission President because she had had an abortion) and the day before her set baptism time, her husband refused to give permission. The last we visited her before I was transferred, she bore testimony of the Book of Mormon. I don't know what has happened to her since then but I have never seen any investigator gain a testimony faster than Frau Brotzer in St Gallen, Switzerland.

Tucson

I rode over Gate's Pass after cleaning the building last Friday (while your mom was at tennis). That area including the Saguaro National Park has a unique beauty.