Monday, April 22

Taking a break while helping someone move

Dear Family,

      Things are still going good, and mom that picture (above) is from a move we were doing for someone (5 missionaries in pday clothes lying on a big bed).  But so this week we had our lesson with the S’s which was awesome.  The father stayed for the first lesson, the Spirit was strong, and he left the room to get something and never came back.  I think he felt really pressured and nervous because I do believe his eyes were opened a lot during the lesson.  After that we stayed for another 30 minutes and discussed reading and praying about the Book of Mormon and other things with life. S and A are going to be working on that.  We committed A to come to church but his mother was kind of hesitant for herself but he talked her into it. He ended up coming but she said she had migraines and didn’t.  But we’ll be back there soon. 

     We’ve met quite a few less active people this week, so that’s fun.  We also got a new investigator, S. Her boyfriend called us to set it up.  He grew up a member but has been in and out of jail and having recently got out, he wants to get structure and all in his life.  He’s like 27.  He doesn’t look like someone who’s been to jail, more than once especially.  He lives all the way in H but for weekends he comes down to stay with and see S.  Neither of them have cars.  So Saturday night we had a member pick them up at 8 to take them to the church building for the lesson.  It went good. He’s finding/remembering his testimony as well.  She has a weird situation though; she’s 26, lives with her grandmother who is opposed to all this so we can’t meet at their place and the only religion she has ever had or seen in her life is through her other grandma who is Jehovah's Witness.  So her understanding and all is a little different I guess, but she’s mostly a clean slate.  She says she’s not really looking for truth but for something that will bring her happiness, so we got to explain how they are the same, about the truth of a perfect, all knowing and loving God…the real truth of happiness.  But so that was good.

     We met with J again Tuesday, and we told him we’d be at his place at 9:50 Sunday morning (church starts at 10:20).  He said that was good, so we did. We waited for him to get dressed and went to church, all 3 hours. It was good.  We went to his classes too.  It’s so annoying when the kids you think would be the best fellowshippers and all are barely in the class above or below for Sunday School and all.  I think our ward is kind of like Gayton’s relationship with the  Henrico Spanish branch, we have a Spanish branch that meets at our building, so the youth are combined, so there were a few of the Spanish kids J recognized from school. It’s amazing how badly I hope they are good examples and all.  After church one guy recognized him because his daughter cheerleads for his school, and so he’d go to watch his daughter and recognized J from always seeing him play, so that’s cool.  But he’s a great kid, I really hope things go well.  He’s moving over to / near the Hillpointe Ward in a month, so he can play basketball for a better school, and I’m excited, the new school has way more members, like a ton and lots play basketball and all of course.  Anyways, those are the main people we’ve been working with. 

     Doing less active visits we met one guy, C.  We had that he and his parents in their 80s lived there and no one really knew who they were.  Turns out the parents are dead but C’s a real neat guy. He swung the door open, said I just finished making brownies, come on in!  He’s like 63, kind of tall, good shape, and a few tattoos.  He had a ton of unique art around his house and I asked him if he was an artist, and he is.  He said his whole life his goal has been to do things the easy / wrong way, i.e. don’t graduate, no paperwork jobs etc, and about 10 years ago he bought a camera, opened it, saw instructions, put it down and never touched it.  Two years ago he came home from a party, something had happened, so he pulled it out, and got into photography, learned how to use a computer for this first time in his life and now just does his art. But only for two years.  I can’t tell if I think he’s good or not, a lot of the things have no balance, and look elementary. It’s not a difficult thing to do at all but some of them I definitely think are good.  Anyways we talked about that, I think the brownies were ok, and then we started talking about church.  He went on for over 30 minutes with all his anti material. He had all these like theses

he had typed and all to bash with some local pastors.  He said most of his life he defended the church,  He spent a year in his youth attending seminary because he lived with his cousin that year.  And never lived the gospel or anything, but thought it was neat and true.  (He was, but is in denial of the fact he was ever baptized) but then 3 years ago was talking to someone in the Smithsonian about it, realized he believed it all false, and for 3 years has had the hobby of disproving Mormonism for one but Christianity overall is the real focus.  He’s a real nice guy, but then he just started printing out all his papers for us. One of his main ideas is that IF Christians believe in the Bible, the Jews are right.  Some of his arguments were very dumb, or not backed properly and like everyone we meet that is like that, they give no room for discussion, so we don’t know if we’ll go back, I think the Bishop wants to meet him after we updated the Bishop on all our less active visits. 

     So we’ve also met with B some recently... looks like his living situation will clear up soon, and he’ll be good for baptism, but he does drink coffee.  He’s a really neat guy... He was born on an Indian reservation, is half white, never knew his white father... traveled the country with several bands, likes talking about zombie apocalypse and stuff, but isn’t like immature with it, he just likes to talk about it when his son brings that type of stuff up.  He’s a very calm, compassionate person, and now works as a nurse. He was saying he’s his hospital’s number one nurse based on the patient reviews.  He’s got long grayish hair, usually in a ponytail and an earring.  He’s almost done with the Book of Mormon for his second time, and takes a ton of notes, and in a very unique manner.  So he’s real neat. 

     Oh, and last time I mentioned the S's, they have permission to stay in our ward, so we get them back and that should be cool.

     Anyways, things are still going good with training and Elder R.  He’s learning things.  I had my first district meeting Tuesday, it went really well, it was about finding with faith, I enjoyed it, even though President Black happened to be there... just happened to on my first one....

     But on P-day my hip/butt and ankle weren’t too bad, I wrapped up my ankle before hand, and surprisingly my hip hardly bothered me even though it does in normal day life.  Our zone is still good for ball.  Today we’re supposed to play crab soccer with another zone, but no one wants to do that so the plan is for it to turn into basketball.

     Hopefully I’ll write or send some things soon, I’m awful, I know.  We’ve been hearing about Boston, crazy.  It’s so weird, 144 injured 3 dead, if that’s right.  It’s cool they caught them, and seems no room for conspiracy or that they didn’t get the right people. 

     Love you all,

     Elder Pyron