Hey Everyone!
This week was great! We FINALLY had a teaching appointment with Anatole! Then on top of that we had an amazing lesson with one of the members! Then on top of THAT, we had the ward Valentine's party that ended with a blizzard that we walked home in! It was crazy!
We were so excited this week to finally meet with Anatole! We hadn't been able to meet with him for like two or three weeks because his manager went on a super long vacation. Anatole had to pick up the hours, so he was pretty much working every single day. Finally his boss came back, so now his Fridays are free again and we can come over and meet with him.
If you remember a few letters ago, I mention that we were having some problems with the French Elders because they thought that they should be teaching him. On top of that the Zone Leader said "It would be good for them (the French Elders) to have somebody to teach". Well we decided that we would pass the reference over to the French Elders, but not for either of those reasons. We decided that because Anatole speaks French, we wouldn't be able to find people to fellowship him as well as they could in the French group that is a part of their ward. So, for this lesson we brought Elder Winn with us. Elder Winn is one of the two French elders that are in our ward for the French group. His companion is from the Ivory Coast had to go back due to some passport problems. So Elder Winn has just been floating around from companionship to companionship while mostly staying with the ZL's. We decided to bring him along so we could introduce him to Anatole.
In the lesson we read from Alma 32, which talks about faith. The whole point behind us sharing this particular scripture with him was so that way he could see how being humble brings blessings and opens your heart more to the gospel. We were trying to help him understand what faith is so that he might apply it when asking his boss to have Sundays off. We felt like he was still extremely hesitant to ask his boss. For some reason that he won't express to us, he just won't talk to his boss about having Sundays off. Elder Winn brought up the fact that we have an Employment Specialist that he could talk to about getting a new job. Anatole liked that idea, but told us that he was on a contract with the people he works for and that at the end of the year, if he did well, he would get a bonus. So I honestly have no idea what's going to end up happening with Anatole. If he's going to have to stick with this job until the end of the year, and then on top of that he's not willing to ask his boss for Sunday's off, then he will never be able to make it to church and thus he won't be able to get baptized. It stinks that I have so little time left because I would love to see what happens with Anatole.
Also this week we met with Sister B! She such a wonderful lady! Sister B is an African-American sister who joined the church back in the early 2000s. She has had a lot of struggles in her life and still continues to deal with them today. We shared with her a Mormon message called "The will of God". For those of you who haven't seen it, D. Todd Christofferson narrates this message. He speaks about overcoming trials and why trials have a place in our life. It's really a wonderful Mormon message and I highly encourage you to watch it when you have the time.
Anyway! Back to Sister B. We shared that message with her and Elder Humphrey also read the scripture in Ether 12 that talks about how when we come unto God, he will show us our weakness and help us to become strong. Then I shared a scripture in D&C 122 about when Joseph Smith was in liberty jail and he asked God where God was in all of this pain and suffering. The Lord's response is basically something to the effect of "no matter what happens to you know that everything is happening for purpose and it will be for your good". All of this was done with Elderr Humphrey and I bearing strong testimony in between and asking her questions that really made her think about the hard times that she's been going through. During and after the movie she was crying and you can just tell how strong she felt the spirit. It was really an amazing lesson. I was really glad that we are able to help her.
Then this past Saturday we had our Ward's Valentine's Day party! It was super fun! There was food, music, dancing, and just tons of fun! It was a great missionary opportunity because there were a lot of non-members there. We were able to walk throughout the party, mingle and get to know everybody. Elder Humphrey and I made red velvet, cream cheese brownies for the party. They were.... interesting...Haha. The cream cheese sauce on the top came from a packet that was in the box. It had kind of a weird flavor to it. I mean it had the cream cheese flavor, but you could tell there was just a little tinge of something else in it. All in all though the party was awesome, the people were awesome, and the night was awesome! Especially with the storm!
The same night as the party, Elder Humphrey had the phone, which is key to the story I am going to share in a second. I had just gotten done talking to a table of people and I noticed that Elder Humphrey, and pretty much the rest of the missionaries, weren't in the gym anymore. I remembered that the ZL's were upstairs in one of the clerk's office doing numbers for the Stake, so I figured the other missionaries went up there to see them. Now depending on what exit out of the Cultural Hall take you don't pass by any doors or windows, so you never see outside when you're going upstairs. When I got up there and saw that they were all gathered around looking like they're already to go. I asked "where's everybody going?". They all kind of answered me at once, but I understood that we had gotten a call out from the AP's that had told everybody to go home because there was a snow storm outside. I didn't have the phone, so I didn't believe them at first. I ran downstairs really quick and looked out the window of the double doors that lead outside. When I did look outside, I saw nothing but a white-out blizzard! It was so crazy! We had been expecting a snow storm, but it ended up being a blizzard.
Like I mentioned the AP's had sent out a voicemail telling everybody to go home. All of the missionaries grabbed their stuff and left. Unfortunately we didn't have a ride back to our apartment. The East and the South Elders were able to take the bus, but us (the North) and the West had to walk home in the Blizzard. When we first started walking home it was still super crazy outside. The wind was mostly blowing the snow in one direction, so half of my head turned white because of the snow! I hadn't brought a beanie with me because I wasn't expecting it to snow and I thought the person who gave us a ride to the party would be giving us a ride home. By the time we got home we were all covered in snow. It snowed the entire time we were walking, but the first five or 10 minutes that we were walking it was a blizzard. After 10 minutes of walking, the snow started to slowly fade away until it wasn't snowing at all anymore. It was still super fun, but it was still also extremely windy. Huge gusts of wind hit us as we walked. After we got home Elder Crandall and Elder Squire took their bikes and went skidding in the snow. We all went out there shortly (some of us with our bikes and some without), and everyone played in the snow. We were tackling each other, "whitewashing" each other, and just having fun! After that we went inside and had some hot chocolate :) It was great :).
The next day, Sunday, we get another call out from the AP's. This time, even though it wasn't snowing, they told us that President Cooke wanted everybody to stay inside until further notice. I think it was because of a few things. Probably the biggest one was the fact that the roads were still really icy. Then the other things was it was still extremely windy and temperatures were in the low teens. We went to church and then came straight home. Then about 5:30-ish we got another call out saying that it was okay for us to go out to do missionary work but to not use our cars if we don't have to. Well we don't have a car. number one and number two, it was still extremely windy with freezing temperatures. So we decided to still stay inside, but to update records, our map, and do online time. That way we wouldn't get frost bite biking around :).
Well that's been our week! I hope you enjoyed reading and that you have as great of a week as we did. I love you all!
Love,
Elder Gold
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