An Undercover Missionary

 

 The oddest, funniest thing happened to me Wednesday evening. To give you the context of this funny situation I found myself in, I have to tell you about an experience we had at the beginning of last transfer. 

 We spent the Saturday evening with a mini missionary traversing one of the apartment complexes we cover. While we were there, we tried to talk to this guy who was walking into his apartment. He walked right by us and grumbled about how he really wasn't interested. (Happens. Frequently.)

 We've seen this same guy around a few times. He wanders around shirtless, with his beer in hand. He's kind of hard to miss that way. 

I've always felt like at some point we needed to try to talk to him again. But every time we saw him, he was awkwardly far away, and we were distracted by appointments or other strangers. 

 Fast forward to this previous Thursday evening when I was backing Sister Hatchett out of her parking space. I saw him, so I waved and we exchanged the normal greetings. As I was about to get in the car, he started walking towards us. 

 Yeah, you heard me. HE started walking TOWARDS us. 

 THAT NEVER HAPPENS. People walk right past us; they turn around, they go the opposite direction, HECK, they'll climb trees to avoid us!!

 But he started talking to me! Which was doubly weird, as I'm used to having a companion involved in all my of conversations. Sister Hatchett was just chillin' in the car, and our car was awkwardly chillin' in the middle of the driving lane of the parking lot, and I was just chillin' with my new homie.

 He started the conversation by inquiring after our bikes and congratulating us on our acquisition of a car. Then he asked me my name, then shook my hand and told me his name. Then he asked me where I was from, told me where he was from, and cracked a joke about the dang AZ heat. He ended the conversation by telling me that if we ever needed any help, we could just flag him down and he'd be happy to help us out. (That's supposed to be my line!) And then he was gone. 

 It was so weird. It was like we switched roles or something. Maybe he was wearing an invisible nametag on his nonexistent shirt. 

 His name is Michael, and now we're friends. Soon enough, he'll be baptized. It'll be great!

 Thursday we tried our hand at baking bread and uh.... It didn't work out for us. It took us seven centuries to make it, and then we burnt it. Oh well. 

 

Saturday was a busy day as we went to the temple with some of Sister Hatchett's friends she taught, then helped out a lady we know with hanging her jasmine plant, and had dinner with BECCA WOOLF. Becca was one of my youth leaders growing up. She was in town visiting her in-laws, so we got to have dinner and catch up! It was awesome, and so is she. 😉

At some point this week we were anti-d by this lady for 40 minutes. She was super polite and slightly demeaning in her speech. She told us she didn't like a single thing about our church (she must not know how much humanitarian aid we supply, the reality of the priesthood, or the mass community of honest to goodness, striving saints we are) and raved about this anti Mormon book she read. Sometimes she takes a  vacation to attend anti Mormon conferences.  The lengths people go. 

 Yesterday we met this lady in a park who very recently (the beginning of this year) started developing a relationship with God. She loves the story of Paul, as she too did a 180 flip by the grace of God. Somehow we ended up talking about prophets, and she was thrilled to hear the doctrine of a modern day prophet. She said she'd look into it. The conversation didn't go further than that as she connected the dots and realized we were Mormons. She's heard a lot about how Mormons are "no good." Sad stuff.

 We also talked with one a girl in our ward who really likes to work out (she can squat 360 pounds, and she's only 17). She gave us a work out to do, and I don't understand half of what she said. We might start working out with her on Mondays, and if we do, I might become the hulk. 

 Unfortunately, the people we've been teaching have all stalled for the time being. Schedules aren't lining up, they won't text us back, and they're all going out of town. I hate it when this happens. But I've been pondering a lot about patience and will strive to be exactly that. Preach My Gospel defines patience as "cheerfully waiting on the Lord for a promised blessing to be fulfilled." Sometimes it's really really really hard to have faith that anything concrete will come from our efforts. But so goes life. In times like this, I think we just have to go to work and watch what happens. 

So off to work, I go.

Love you!