Hey y'all!! K this week was so funny and so boring all at the same time, I'll start the boring first. So Elder Morrell had bronchitis this week so we sat in for a couple days which sucked cuz I got SOOO bored just sitting there all day. So I took all the church magazines in our apartment and cut out all the pictures of Jesus and created "Jesus Wall" haha I filled up a whole wall with pics of Jesus, so that was pretty cool. Oh and they took our car this week cuz some elder broke his ankle and sure enough, the week they take it, it rains ALL WEEK...i love the rain but holy cow when it rains here it pours. for hours. so we try to go sympathy tracting and people just laugh at us half the time. so that's always a good time. hopefully we get another car in a few weeks, but for now we're on bikes...awesome.
Anyways, funny stories! So last P day we went to this less active members house named Manny. Now, Manny is like a gourmet chef and he loves having big lunch parties with all the missionaries. And he's VERY open about how he's attracted to men. and the Elder that converted him is like a huge homophobe and he was there with all us missionaries so manny just kept saying stuff like "Lookin good Elder Whitmarsh!" and then he'd wink hahah it was so funny. I was laughing so hard and was SO glad that wasn't me cuz i'd have been so uncomfortable! but Elder Whitmarsh and him are tight so he was a good sport about it. But Manny made some gumbo, and it was my first gumbo and it was AMAZING. oh my goodness gumbo is the best.
Then later in the week we got bible bashed by a guy named Oscar (the guy who yelled at us from the tub). He went off about how the spirit was telling him to not read the BOM and we were like hmm...really...then we tried to just give him a pass along card with a pic of Jesus on it and he said he couldn't accept it cuz it was a false representation of Christ. I asked him why and he said "Jesus wasn't white! He was a dark skinned man!" He thought Jesus was black?!?! what the...I've never heard that before and literally had to keep myself from laughing.
On a more spiritual note, our only progressing investigator, Xavier, committed to baptism this week!!! We asked him at the beginning of our lesson on Friday if he'd prepare to be baptized on May 2nd and he said "I haven't gotten an answer yet, but i should by then, so ya." Well I wasn't too confident with that so we kept teaching and Elder Morrell had him read 2 Nephi 31 and while he was reading it came to me!! i knew exactly what to say! So when he was done reading, I asked him "When you think about your baptism, being all dressed in white and entering the water, how do you feel?" and he sat there for a sec and then said "I feel really good and peaceful and happy like I finally made it!" I felt the spirit SO strongly and told him, "Xavier, that's your answer you've been looking for! That feeling is the spirit telling you that it's the right thing to do!" He literally lit up and was beaming. Smiling so big. and he practically yelled "lets do it!!" haha i love that guy to death. so hopefully everything works out for him to be baptized in a few weeks!! I'm so pumped.
I just want yall to know how much I love the people here. Even the ones who bash me and yell at me. I love them because Christ loves me unconditionally and ultimately, as missionaries, we're just trying to help people strengthen their relationship with Christ. It's tough sometimes but God's servants are all given strength and are glorious in his eyes (1 Nephi 21:5) I love this gospel and I promise any and all of you that if you just take a few moments to read from the Book of Mormon everyday you will strengthen your relationship with Christ and know of it's truth! I miss and love all yall! Have a great week!!
-Elder Armstrong
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