On other news, we basically have almost no one to teach. It's been a rough week of finding people, except that we found someone through media referrals on Saturday. His name is Bobo (and since that is a nickname I'll use it, since I'm still not giving out his real name:) and he is awesome! The thing that he wrote on his Mormon.org application thing is "I love the Lord with all my heart." and he really does! We taught him the other day and the Spirit was super strong. Bobo is the epitome of ghetto black and we were teaching about the Spirit and he wasn't catching on, so I was prompted to say this, "the spirit is like your conscience but on steroids." As soon as I said that I was like, "seriously Spencer, that was one of the weirdest analogies you've ever made." while my comp and the 2nd counselor in the bishopric(who came with us) gave me the weirdest look, Bobo said "ahh, now that makes sense!" Yeah! The Spirit is the best teacher.
Random insert, I think that Satan really knows my weaknesses. This last week I saw 6 long boarders, and I suddenly started to have withdrawals from long boarding. I hadn't seen 1 long board the whole time I've been here until last week! It just caused me to unfocus from the work, Satan is evil, and he knows how to distract us.
When you teach doctrine, the Spirit testifies the truth of it unto you. And it brings personal experiences that you forgot about to share during lessons. We were teaching N___ the Word of Wisdom last week and I was prompted to share a story about one of my best friends growing up. We had been really good friends all through junior high and half of high school, we had talked about going on missions and I knew that he had a testimony of the Gospel. We had shared our testimonies on multiple occasions with each other while on scouting excursions and in fast and testimony meeting. I told N___ that because of drugs he is now in Colorado smoking weed, most likely. I shared the hurt that it caused me and my other friends and the hurt it still causes us. N___ saw how my friends decisions had hurt so many people, (and I may or may not have been brushing away a few tears) and after that N___ committed that he would never do drugs, it was really powerful. Personal experiences can change the whole lesson around.
For some reason this week, we have run across a lot of asians, that for some reason think we speak chinese. We knocked on an old Chinese woman's door and she started speaking Chinese and I'm used to running into Spanish people so I said, "No hablo espanol." Then she stopped and looked at me for a second, then started speaking Chinese again! What the heck?!? didn't she understand that I dont speak spanish;) so we gave her a Jesus card and she started pointing up to the sky and babbling on in Chinese again, then we waved goodbye and walked off, as she was still trying to talk to us in Chinese, weird experience to say the least.
Now on to the good stuff! N___ has a girlfriend that is a J-dub (or Jehovah Witness) and she wanted to have a friendly chat about religion (yeah right, she set me up for a bible bash). So I called her up the other night, and she just started going at it, it probably looked pretty funny from my comps point of view, because I was sitting at my desk with the phone a foot away from my ear and you could still hear her perfectly. She asked me what I believed, so I started bearing my testimony and she interrupted me. Now, I don't like being interrupted, so I said "*insert name here* I'm trying to tell you what I believe in so listen up for a second. How about we make a deal?" she says, "ok", then I say "you let me talk for 1 minute and I'll tell you everything I know about the Gospel, sound fair?" She said "I 'spose so" So I started bearing my testimony again (and I had a timer out) and after 20 seconds she interrupts me again. so I said, " *insert name here* I thought we had a deal! You just broke it! I still have 40 seconds!" she said, "you were timing it?" I said, "of course, so that something like this wouldn't happen." So she reluctantly let me continue, and I bore my testimony for 40 more seconds. that's a cool thing to do, to share all of your beliefs in a minute, it's a challenge! then she started yelling at me again, so I started writing in my journal as the phone lay on the desk, when it went silent, I picked it back up and said, "awesome, well now that we know more about each others religions, lets call it a night" Then she started yelling again so I just hung up. Shortly after N___ called me up to apologize for his girlfriends reaction, and how he was thinking she wasn't right for him. N___ is super dedicated, he was willing to break up with his girlfriend so that he could become a member of this church, and he did! So it all worked out:)
This is a long letter so I'll wrap up now. One more quick story. Yesterday I sat through what was probably the best, and most energetic, primary program ever! We had a lot of investigators there and non-members. After a kid would bear their testimony, the investigators and non-members would clap and cheer! It was hilarious and the kids were doing fist pumps and waving at the audience, It was so funny! Even a midst all this, the Spirit was still really strong and people pointed that out after. So it was all good!
Well, I love you guys! thanks for your prayers and emails, and letters! Have a fantastic week!
Love, Elder Spencer Bailey
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