I have just realized this week that I am hopeless, that I am powerless, that I am useless without God and I hate to admit that. It is so stupid and irritating but no matter how hard I work I will never succeed without His help. We were basically tracting all week and found no one, absolutley no one, until the very end of the week. Throughout the week I was getting angry cause of this until Saturday we were in Pukete which is the total opposite side of town and no one had shown any interest at all in the 3 1/2 hours we'd been there. Well there had been 1 lady who we had a doorstep lesson with and that we totally could have set up a follow-up appointment with but then her husband came out and said there was no reason for us to come back cause we'd never convince him that Mormonism was true. Crap.
Then while riding my bike this kid beaned me in the head with a lemon. I rode over to chew him out and he asked "Are yous the Mormons?" I was still angry so I said "Yeah that's right, what are you gonna do about it?" Then the kid told us he had been to church with his grandma in Rotorua (about an hour away) and wanted to start coming back to church again. My mood instantly changed but I still wondered why he'd chucked a lemon at me. When I asked him he just shrugged his shoulders like chucking lemons at people's heads was a common way to get their attention. Well then we went to his door to talk to his parents and they told us they weren't interested at all. When my comp tried another approach the kid's dad just said "AT ALL!" and slammed the door. Poor kid.
We were in the area for about a half hour more but nothing happened. After our last door knock we got on our bikes to head home. Buckling my helmet on, I wondered to myself "Why did we even come here? It would take a miracle to find 1 teachable person in Pukete." About 2 seconds later a miracle cruised up on a moped, pulled over and asked "Do yous got any of those pamphlet things? Oh, and could yous come back to my house, I used to be taught and just moved back to Hamilton." The miracle was a 25-ish year old Maori girl with a family. As happy as I was, I was almost hysterically frustrated. Here I had been working for over 3 hours and hadn't found a single new investigator and then when I'm sitting on my butt just thinking about needing God's help someone cruises up and asks us to come teach her and her family. GAAHH!! I still get upset. Maybe it's cause I'm a stubborn fart but it is so hard for me to rely on Him constantly. I need to get better at that, to have greater faith in His guidance than in my own hard work.
Our miracles continued throughout Sunday too. Zhontee, the girl we baptised last week, brought a friend of hers to church and then we went to Zhontee's house to have a lesson. Earlier in the week I had gone to Zhontee's to tell her that we wouldn't be able to meet with her everyday from now on so we could find other people to teach but I guess she took it as we would never come back unless she find someone for us to teach. Honestly I'm kind of happy she took it that way even thought it wasn't the way I had meant it. Zhontee's even got another friend she's brought to church before who we'll probably being teaching soon as well.
Oh! I almost forgot to tell you about the coolest thing that's happened oon my mission so far! So on Wednesday I was on a trade off in Ngarawahia, this country town outside of Hamilton. For luch we went to Poppa's Take-aways which is their ward mission leader's fry shop. Basically he makes fried fish, chicken, candy bars, anything! Not only that but he let us have free reign in the kitchen, he let us eat what ever he wanted. It was like being in a candy shop and being told you could have whatever but instead of candy it was fried food! Oh and I got to make myself like 3 milkshakes and then I had a slushy and then made a toasted sandwich on his grill. It was the freakin best! I got so fat and greasy! I'm sure Hailey will appreciate how attractive I'm getting out here.
Alright, I guess that's everything for this week. I love y'all, keep praying for me!
Elder Keifer/Big Bird
No comments:
Post a Comment