The Fellowship of the Ring

Frodo and Sam having dinner at the Bishop's house.

This past week pretty much ALL of our appointments cancelled.  Usually when that happens another miracle shows itself but nothing really happened all week. Sometimes  it seems that the Lord has this time table that is so far from my own... But, His time table is sure and always perfect.  I know that He is not only wise, but loving.  These things all happen for a reason.  We met new people this week that needed a visit.  A dog followed us all day tracting, someone paid for our dinner and a pie to take home, we are developing some serious patience and I am getting some pretty toned calves.  We have been struggling to work with the ward around here.  It feels like we are The Fellowship of the Ring.  Me and my companion being Frodo and Sam.  The ward being the rest of the fellowship.   Both of us striving for the same cause, but not really any communication.  Luckily, the brains inside our heads turned on this week.  We opened up with our concerns to the ward mission leader and had a really productive conversation.  Now we are a united fellowship like in the first episode of  Lord Of The Rings.  We face balrogs, but overcome them now.  We asked the Relief Society president for advice on teaching one of our recent converts.  She recommended we go to a member named  Sister Olsen’s home and have the lesson there.  (We had no idea who she was before this).  The lesson started out as most do, with us trying to get to know this random ward member  that we do not know.   30 minutes later, Sister Olsen ended up connecting with Shelly, our convert,  on a level we couldn't have ourselves.  Members are SO VERY IMPORTANT.  Plus, they always feed us really good food.  Just yesterday, we tracted most of the day and did all the visits we could.  No luck, until about 8:58 p.m. when we found Brady who had quite the story to tell us.  He was quite open to taking a BOM and quite friendly all at the same time.  We have big hopes for teaching him the gospel.  Again and again we realize nothing really happens immediately.  All the prophets and apostles have life experiences that have shaped them into the people they are today. "Ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith" the scriptures tell us.   Luke Skywalker faced Darth Vader twice before defeating him.  He trained with Yoda for a way long time.  Joseph Smith made a whole lot of mistakes and some pretty great and important things happened through him.  If you're going through a trial, just remember,  it will get better.  Okay, enough of the soap box, this week our power went off for a day, we hiked the ape caves again, Elder Brown ate 15+ peanut butter sandwiches, we ate at Red Lobster (best day of the week) went on exchanges and saw a plethora of miracles.  It rained like hurricane Katrina only one day this week, and we have been plagued by a flea infestation in our apartment and in our car.  We have “bug bombed” the place and the Relief Society president has been helping us to clean everything that we own.   Funny story… as we tracted this week, one man said "Does the BOM contain crime and debauchery?  If it doesn't I want nothing to do with it".   He was sad to hear that there is not a lot of debauchery in the BOM.  I am thoroughly enjoying this Metropolis of Kelso.  The folks are very  interesting, the food is good, the work is better.