Hello everyone!
I hope you had a great week. Things are going super great here! A lot of great stuff happened this week.
For one thing, I made these SUPER delicious nachos. They were way good! I couldn't figure out how to spread the refried beans on top of the layer of tortilla chips, so I made a mat out of tortillas on the bottom of a pan, smothered it with beans, and then put the chips on top of it. Then I spread some chicken and a bunch of shredded pepper-jack/cheddar cheese on it and cooked it. Meanwhile, I diced up a tomato and mixed it up with lime juice, cumin, cayenne pepper, and a little bit of minced garlic. When it was done cooking, I covered it with guacamole and the tomatoes (after I drained off the excess juice) and Voila! you bet it was delicious! Anyway, I was super proud of it! Haha
I also went to see an internal med doctor on Wednesday. I was pretty nervous when I got there because the office was in a trailer, and the windows and door were barred. When I met my doctor (whose name I can't pronounce) it was hard to understand what he was saying because he had a very thick Indian accent. He did a few different things to check my range of motion, breathing, heart, etc. and couldn't find anything wrong, but from my description he seems to suspect ankylosed spondylitis. He ordered another blood test to look for a few other factors, which I had done right after I left. I'm expecting him to call in the next few days to tell me what he thinks. I don't remember what ankylosed spondylitis is from my medical anatomy class in high school, but he seems to know what he's talking about so I'm hopeful that he can find a diagnosis.
As far as the actual pain goes, no difference. And by no difference, I mean that it's slowly but progressively getting worse. Oh, well.
And now, I'll talk about the work! We've continued to see miracles here and I love that. Earlier in the week we set some goals to find 3 new investigators this week. We hadn't found any when Saturday rolled around, so we figured it was pretty much our last chance to reach our goal and that we'd have to find 3 investigators all in one day. And that's definitely not unheard of, but it certainly is challenging. Good thing we were up to the challenge. We taught a few lessons in the morning and they went really well. We also had two back-to-back in the evening with some potential investigators, and we were banking on them becoming the new investigators we had set out to teach.
The first evening lesson we had was with Willie. He is a very simple man. He lives in a group home and we taught him just a very few principles. He had a couple friends that sat in, too, but we could tell that they simply weren't accountable... they just weren't mentally all there. (One of them was telling us he wanted to go back to the place called "The Lands" where he had been before. Apparently in "The Lands" there are several worlds in one blade of grass. By his description, it sounded like a really nice place, and he really wanted us to help him get there. We had no idea what he was talking about, so we agreed to pray for him. He was really happy about that. The other guy just sat in a big armchair smiling from ear to ear the whole time and talked really quietly throughout the lesson.) Willie told us he'd like for us to come back and teach him more about Christ, so we set up a return appointment and went over to our next lesson.
Our next lesson was tucked away in the back of this awesome trailer park. You have to go off-roading on this dirt road that's full of craters and small lakes. It looked like the planes from Pope Airfield over in Fort Bragg dropped some payloads there in the past. Luckily Bro. Potter from the ward was with us and helped us forge our way to the trailer in his Suburban. When we got there, there were 5 women waiting for us there: Conise, Conisha, Shaunda, Kenya, and Octavia. They're all related somehow, and Shaunda is actually a potential investigator in the Lumberton area. Conise is kind of the matron, and most of the rest are younger than 20. Each of the younger women had one or two toddlers, so it was pretty distracting, and we don't know if they're more interested in the message or the missionaries, but you could feel the spirit when we taught them the message of the restoration. Towards the end of the lesson, we extended baptismal invitations and Conise, Conisha, and Octavia each said they would be baptized on July 28th. Shaunda and Kenya said they had already been baptized, so we'll keep working with them. But anyway, we ended up having found 5 new investigators (Shaunda doesn't count because she's not in our area) in two hours time, almost doubling our goal! I really know that the Lord helps us accomplish our righteous goals if we work to do our part.
A few weeks ago we got a church headquarters media referral. It was a guy named Anthony who requested a free Bible on Mormon.org. We called him and set up a time to go over there, give it to him, and teach him a message from it. When we got there at the appointed time, we found out that it was another group home, and as we sat down to teach Anthony, his friend came to join us. His name was John, and he was holding a used copy of the Book of Mormon! As we sat down to teach them, we found out that John had run into missionaries before and was really interested in the Book of Mormon. We taught them both about how the gospel was restored and both of them said they would be baptized on June 21st! Days later John called us and told us that Anthony didn't want to meet with us anymore because his family was opposed to him becoming a Mormon, but John was still really interested. We've taught him a few times since then. He's been completely willing to live the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity now and he's doing a great job! He's on track for his baptism. In fact, he came to church with us yesterday and he loved it. In Gospel Principles, the lesson was on obedience. When the teacher asked for a volunteer from the class (composed of investigators and members) to retell the story of Nephi returning to Jerusalem for the brass plates of Laban, John raised his hand and recited in explicit detail the whole story! It was amazing! Our ward members were really impressed. He loves the story of the Tree of Life and he's applying it.
We're still teaching Robin, and she's doing a great job! She's living all the commandments and she finished the entire Book of Mormon! In 20 days! That completely shatters my record. She's experienced some serious conversion! :)
Sorry... no pictures this go-around due to technical difficulties.
As for my testimony this week, I'll let www.biblevideos.org sum it up for me. I invite you to visit this site and watch one video. I promise that if you do so with faith in Christ, your relationship with Him will strengthen just a little bit. :)
Well, I've gotta run... we're about to go play some mini golf... wish me luck! I love you all so much and hope to hear from you soon!
With love,
Elder Schank
