I've gotta scramble this week! It's been a crazy one for sure.
Monday, we had a good P-day. Elder Sanders and I had a practice for our song for Hawaiian
night, maybe you saw it on Facebook! It was funny, because the reason we posted was to promote the activity for the
people in nearby cities.. but it turns out that almost 50% of the views came from Oregon
and Idaho, our home states!
We had a little miracle on Monday too. For FHE at
the Bontsov family's house, we were in charge of buying drinks. We were early and had about 30 minutes before we were supposed to be there. Elder Lukach wanted to just walk there slowly and take our time. But I have found out on my mission that walking slow is almost worse than
driving slow. For anyone who's seen me on the road, that's a big statement.
haha. I said we should just walk to the church and wait for a few, then walk the rest of the way to the Bontsov's. So we did. Turns out that when we got to the church, there was
an elderly lady who was crying a ton. We tried to talk to her, but she didn't want to talk to us. All that we got was that her son was in some trouble with the bank,
and we spotted him at the other corner of the church. We went and talked to
him, and he is in some pretty deep loan trouble. He has had a lot of recent
problems. We got to
teach him and comfort him and try to make things just a little better. Turned out he
was super interested in meeting with us, and set up a future meeting with us,
and asked if he could come to church, even though he didn't have a lot of
nice clothes. This is surprising because almost no one ever wants to talk to
us, let alone ask us if they can meet and come to church! What a humbling
experience this was. So
happy we had those few extra minutes. He was a super cool guy and we're
looking forward to helping him in any way we can.
English practice this week hit some high numbers! We had 52
show up. We are going to have the opportunity these coming weeks to hold an English speaking club at 2 universities here! We went around to a couple of classes to talk to them and hype them up about it. It was SUPER fun. We're expecting about 200 people. We're growing!!!
We had the opportunity to do some service for a single mother in
our branch. We went to the market and helped her buy all her groceries for this
month. We took huge sacks of potatoes, onions, carrots, and other things from
the store to her apartment. I wasn't too happy to be there, because all she
seemed to be doing was roasting me and Americans in general. About everything! How they don't know the language, their culture and everything. Inside, I was feeling angry and also super prideful, thinking things like, "Why
are you saying all this while I'm here spending MY
time helping you?" Can you just see Heavenly Father winding up the
humble stick here?? We got to her apartment and dropped everything off. This
apartment was one room. The size of just the bedroom Elder Lukach and I share. In this room was a washer, sink, fridge, shower, pantry..a
whole apartment in one tiny room for 2 people. As I looked around I noticed that
everything she had was for her daughter. Toys, books, stuffed animals. Then I realized that she didn't even have a
bed for herself. Her daughter had a very small one, but that was it. There was
no room in there for a bed for the mom. Probably the most humbling experience on my
mission, maybe among the most humbling of my life. I tried not to tear up but
it was almost impossible. I prayed so hard, asking for forgiveness for my hard
heartedness towards this lady who needed more help than I could comprehend. While we had been waiting in the market, I was talking to Elder Lukach about
how hard it is to serve here. He said "Man, I really can't understand how
hard it must be to serve here as an American." But then I almost heard a voice in my head saying, "It would be
harder to BE the people that you serve than to simply serve the people that you
do". I don't know if I wrote that right or if it makes sense..but hopefully you get it. I will be trying my hardest to be as loving and Christlike as possible.
Judging is the last thing we should do, no matter what the situation is.
Elder Abraham came to visit this week! He was in my district
the first transfer. It's always so good to be with him and work together!
Here's a random picture of us holding (very expensive) cans of pineapple for
our Hawaiian night. It was super fun. But really stressful as
we had poorly planned for this activity. But it all good. Elder Sanders and I sang
our song. I was SO nervous and my face was SO red. There was about 55 people there and
it was my first time singing for that many people. I think it turned out okay. Hopefully we will have the chance to do
more music things. They are super fun.
This is a clip of the last minute of our song:
On Saturday we went SHROOM HUNTING. We went to the middle of freaking NO WHERE out in Ctari Lisetz, the same village where we farmed potatoes. This is Brat Lance. He is from Canada. He's a super interesting fellow. It's always so fun to talk with him. He has some crazy stories and loves to share. Anyways, almost every mushroom I saw was poisonous but we still got a couple. He really loves mushrooms. We almost got lost in the forest but then he whipped out this super huge map and was just like, "Lets go this way. I think there's probably a road or something that we can follow." I was kinda scared on the inside. But he does these adventures all the time and somehow ends up at church on Sundays, alive, so I wasn't really that worried. Mushrooms are still nasty. Cool looking, but nasty. It was a really fun trip.
President Rizley came to visit on Sunday! He gave an awesome
talk at church. It's always good to receive guidance from him. He gave us and
me specifically a lot of things to work on. I hope to be able to truly apply
what he taught me and become a better missionary and better person!!
Have a good week everyone!!
Elder Stott - The Cockroach-Exterminating, Mushroom-Hunting, Hawaiian-Singer Missionary
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