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| Elder Morales, Elder Hernandez, and Elder Lofthouse |
Fist of all, I did get to go to Elder Hernandez's farewell. I'll send some pictures. I got to see a bunch of members from Atwater, including D! She's doing so great! She's a primary teacher now, and she got a spiritual confirmation that she needs to serve a mission and is planning on doing so in a year and a half. Woohoo!!
I got up the next morning and finished packing the few little things I had left to pack. I got a call from the zone leaders. They asked about the farewell, how it was, and then asked if President or the Assistants had talked to me before we left. I said no. Then they told me that I was going up to Madera to be with Elder Crawford instead of going to Tulare and that I would be getting a ride with Elder Peltzer and Elder Morales (who are training) to a stake center in Fresno, where I'd get a ride the rest of the way. A few minutes later the assistants called and said, "Actually we need you to camp out at the mission office. We have an unexpected missionary coming in, and a few transportation things to work out, and we still aren't quite sure who's going to be who's companion. Elder Crawford will be there too."
So, Elder Crawford and I got to hang out at the Mission Office all day and watch all the new missionaries come in and do there paperwork and things like we did on our first day. But we were super bored just sitting there for hours and hours, because President and the assistants were too busy to talk to us. Finally, at about 5:30 they decided that we were going up to Madera together. Why couldn't they have just stuck with that decision in the morning? Oh well. We still got to teach two lessons that day, and one of them was one of the most memorable lessons I'll ever have. Lets just say that the person we were teaching drinks quite a bit.
Anyway, I love my new area. We have six missionaries in our all-Spanish ward! And the ward here is so great!! The members are so focused on other people and are so willing to help out. It's no wonder they've been growing so much and they have six missionaries now. They just opened up a new area last transfer and our goal is to get yet another set of missionaries in the ward. And guess who opened up that new area? Sister Poston! Yet again, we're in the same district! And it is so much fun to have dinner with six missionaries every day. This is going to be a great transfer!
My companion is Elder Crawford. He's from Virginia, played lacrosse, went to BYU-Idaho, and is just awesome. He's 6' 4" and I feel super short next to him. He works really hard, wants to be obedient, and he is a lot of fun to be with.
One more interesting experience: Our most promising investigator was named R. He really wanted to get baptized, and all we really needed to do was get approval from the bishop to baptize him. Because he was living with a woman, but they weren't a couple, she was basically his caretaker (he had diabetes, was missing a leg, and had other health problems) and President said we could go ahead and baptize him if the bishop was okay with it, because they weren't really breaking the law of chastity. Well, we got a call Friday morning that Roman was in the hospital. We borrowed the sisters' car and drove over there to see him. We got into ICU, and he wasn't looking too good. He had a lot of machines hooked up to him and he wasn't responding to anything. We said a prayer (because we were pretty sure they would have gotten super mad at us if we'd tried to put our hands on his head) and left. Our first stop afterward was at his roommate/caretaker's house, Er. She had just barely gotten off the phone with the hospital. They said that his brain was dead and that all that was keeping him alive was life support and that his doctor from Fresno was coming up to confer with the doctor at the hospital and pretty much just make the decision to pull the machines. It was super sad. He didn't have any family, just E. She said that the best part of his day was when the missionaries would come over and his greatest desire was to get baptized before he died. She now wants to get baptized too, because she knows that's what he would have wanted, and so we've started teaching her. It was a really interesting day.
Oh, and the 4th of July was fun! We weren't allowed to be out after 6:30 unless we were with an investigator or member, and we could stay out late, but had to be in bed by 10:30. We went to a member's house, ate hamburgers and hotdogs and watched fireworks. I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures. Sorry.
All in all, it was a pretty crazy week. A lot of things happened. And my e-mail is already so long, but I wanted to share a thought real quick. I was reading in Mormon 2 today. In verse 18, Mormon says that "A continual scene of wickedness and abominations has been before min e eyes ever since I have been sufficient to behold the ways of man." In verse 15 he says, "I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually." That was in 345 A.D. In that year the Nephites were already clearly pretty wicked and "thousands of them [had been] hewn down in open rebellion against their God." In verses 21 and 22, the Lamanites again come upon them and Mormon knows that they are on the verge of destruction. But they fortify the city of Shem, "that perhaps we might save them from destruction." Well, guess what?
They did.
The Nephites had been so wicked at that time, that Mormon had been forbidden to preach repentance to them. 10 years after the above victory, God calls Mormon to finally cry repentance unto the people (Mormon 3:2). And it wasn't for another 30 years after that that the Nephites were finally destroyed. To me, this shows just how much God wants His children to repent. He waited and waited and waited and gave them chance after chance after chance, even after Mormon judged them passed the day of grace, God gave them another 40 years. Only Satan will ever tell you that it's too late for you to repent. Heavenly Father wants you back. He's patient and loving. Don't be afraid to turn to Him and find forgiveness.
I love you all!
Elder Lofthouse
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