Yes, the Aristocats has been stuck in my head for some odd reason the last couple weeks, especially "Everybody wants to be a cat." It's all good! Sister K. knows and loves all my favorite movies; on the off chance that either of us actually quotes a move, the other knows the quote and can finish it.
This past week was awesome! A little bit slow, but awesome. The adversary was fighting against us because he knows we're taking down his kingdom in the P-ville area!
First things first, Fearless Youth of Zion will be up and running as of this coming Sunday. We're putting together a training session for the youth who want to learn/practice sharing the gospel. We're going to study Preach My Gospel and practice teaching, like in the MTC. There are two sides of it, really, the training side and the fellow shipping side. We'll have the training meetings, but the youth will also plan and run good fellow shipping activities for their friends. It all comes down to this: We will all learn the true Gospel of Jesus or Christ sooner or later, whether it be in this life or in the spirit world. So we're all on that path. Some are further along than others. So every person has a "next step" that will bring them closer to accepting the gospel. Members tend to think that next step is reading the Book or Mormon or meeting with the missionaries. That fact is that most people aren't at that step for a long while. So what are some smaller steps? Going ice skating with a group of youth who just want to have some good, clean fun? A quick explanation/testimony of a gospel principle? A mormon.org card? Viewing your personal mormon.org profile? Knowing a Mormon, period, and having a good opinion of them? There are so many smaller steps! Well, the youth in our ward are super excited! Our long term goal is to prepare them to be member missionaries; in the process they will be preparing themselves for their full-time missions. The coolest thing is that we want this to be run by the youth. We don't want this to fizzle and die when we leave. This is going to be a P-ville ward legacy!
One of the many hilarious stories of the week. While we were tracting, a man opened up his front door in only his boxers. Thought one: "Why on earth would you open the door if you weren't wearing any clothes?" Thought two: "It's freezing outside -- are you crazy?" He told us he was sick, but he still talked to us on his doorstep in his boxers for 45 minutes.
Anyway, this guy was like, "I know all about your church already! I know all about John Smith." I thought, "Nope, that's Pocahontas." We had a really great discussion, though, and taught him the Restoration. We actually intrigued him on this one point. We were talking about the Priesthood and he asked very condescendingly, "Well tell me this, then -- where did Joseph Smith get his priesthood?" I said John the Baptist at the same time Sister K. said Peter, James and John. He was really taken aback, even unsettled. He said, "Like the Mount of Transfiguration?" It was awesome! That man is going to join the Church someday.
One of our investigators, A, is having a hard time with the thee-thou language of the Book of Mormon because he reads one of those modern versions of the Bible. Okay, my little soap box for just a minute. All these "Jesus is my Man" and "I can't wait to hang with Jesus" people can stop giving us that whole Book of Revelations crud! It's so obnoxious for people to tell me that the Book of Mormon can't be scripture because of what it says at the end of Revelations, but yet their modern (what I like to call "groovified") versions of the Bible have taken away and added to the Bible thousands of times. The end. Sorry, but I feel strongly about that!
One last super cool story. Around mid-November we got a referral from some members for a waitress they'd met while out for dinner. Turns out the waitress is a less-active member who wants to have her 9-year-old son baptized. We called and left a message. No response. Then we called her the day after Thanksgiving and she was hysterical. Her best friend had just died out of the blue -- no apparent cause. She still wouldn't allow us to come and see her, though. Months passed. A few days ago the phone rang and it was her! She came to church, met us, and met with the bishop. She told us, "I think I've actually seen you before." It turns out that, when the bishop took us to dinner that one night we didn't have an apartment yet, he took us to her restaurant and she noticed us. Crazy! I love seeing the Lord's hand!
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