Gilbert Arizona Temple until Phoenix Temple is built

Gilbert Arizona Temple until Phoenix Temple is built
Wherefore, Be of good cheer and do not fear, for I the lord am with you, and will stand by you, and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the son of the living God, that I was, that I am and that I am to come. D&C 68.6

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Hey Fam!

This week has been pretty good. Not the best but not the worst as far as teaching. We don't have many people to teach right now and the investigators we do have, have been flaking on us or have been a bit disappointing. John Penrose, he is the one we are trying to get to have faith in God, we were supposed to have two lessons with him this week and both times he didn't answer when we tried to confirm appointments and then we would get to his home and he wasn't there. Last we heard of him, he was doing well though. Then we have had some referrals that we went to visit and when we got there, they just wanted welfare from the church. When we told them that we couldn't help them with that but that they could come to church on Sunday and talk to Bishop, they got super upset with us haha. That seems to be how this week has gone. Some people getting upset with us, and then we went to visit less active families and some of those were pretty interesting as always.

On Thursday, we took the bus to the North side of North Mountain and we spent the whole day up there. We went to visit a family that wanted us to come over. When we got there, they were super nice and even had cookies and stuff for us, but then all they wanted to do was Bible Bash. Bible bashing really is pretty dumb haha. I had never done it until last week and then another 3 times this week. It seems like all people want to do is argue. I thought to myself, "Taylor is the one that served in Nashville." There is a church here called Christs Church of the Valley and its a huge church that everyone goes to. They have a big influence in the community but they teach Anti Mormon stuff. So everyone loves coming for us. These people we met with were from a different church and they thought they knew a ton of the Bible. they know a lot of the principles but not the actual doctrine of it. But as most bashers go, they just ask you questions and don't give you time to respond and then make it seem like you don't have an answer to give them. So after about 20 minutes of endless ranting about stuff that wasn't even applicable doctrine, i told them we had places to be, and if they weren't going to let us talk then we were going to leave so we could catch the bus back. They gave us a chance to talk and Elder Longhurst and i actually threw down pretty well haha. Everybody in my apartment has bashed quite a bit so i am learning the ropes but its not good. nothing good comes from it and the Spirit isn't there anyway. I got super upset though because the guy told us that he prayed and the Mormon church wasn't for him. Then he asked, "You guys are pretty young, you don't know everything yet anyways." And I said "Sir, do you think i am stupid enough to come out for two years doing something i don't know is true?" And he just sat there. It was tense and then Elder Longhurst left them with a verse that went against what they had said to us and we left haha. And then we had two more run ins but not quite as bad haha.

We had some great meetings this week. We learned a lot about new finding techniques which was helpful because it was a lot of stuff that i hadn't even really thought about. I am finally comfortable with talking to everyone on the streets. I had an exchange and i went into another area one day this past week and it was a good exchange. One thing that is crazy about our areas as a District is that on one street there is super ghetto apartment complexes and stuff and then five minutes away there are million dollar homes. So it is cool to work with all kinds of people. The cops here love us and they ask us what we see and they tell us what areas we should stay away from on the weekends and stuff. Some of them are even members and are way cool to us.

I knew we were the very southern edge of our mission but i didn't know that my area has two borders. To the South is the Tempe Mission and then to the East we border the Scottsdale Mission as well. We were at the corner earlier this week but i didn't have my camera, we will be back there later this week so i will get a picture! We had a Ward Christmas Party on Saturday and we were able to get some Inactive families there so that was good!

Elder Longhurst and i still have our differences and there are times when things get tense but for the most part, we get along quite a bit. It is crazy to see Elder Cordero getting close to leaving soon. He only has two weeks left and you can tell he is trying not to think about it. I am glad i have so much time ahead of me, even though i know i got a long ways to go!

Sorry my letters are short, we have been having slow work lately and not much to write about!

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