Crazy to think that we were talking on the phone only last week. Time seems to go by so fast, but at the same time, it just crawls along at whatever pace it sees fit.
We got a new family this past week; Reggae and Charlotte, and they have a 1 yr old named Jade. Reggae has been a less active member for the past seventeen years. Last he was in, he was ordained a teacher, then just bounced I guess. Interesting how many people we run into that left while they were in their youth. Usually because they didn't feel welcomed or it wasn't as much fun as their last group in the last ward they were in. Makes me wonder how much impact I did or didn't have on others while I was in the youth program. Kinda scares me a little bit, in fact. I imagine I'll have to account for the one way or the other once I'm on the other side. Charlotte is a non-member, but was apparently raised with LDS values. Talk about the Lord preparing those that we teach. None of her family are members, but she just found out from her mother that when she was little, the missionaries used to come around, so the children were all raised according to what they learned from the missionaries. They're an awesome little family, and Reggae even came to church this past Sunday. What a stud. It got me a little worried in priesthood though; the lesson started out on temple marriages, and somehow ended up going to a whole lot of stuff that seemed pretty shaky. Lots of stuff where I would like to see the resource page, you know? Thankfully, Reggae didn't walk out of there thinking we were all a bunch of quacks. To sum it up, they're very receptive, are basically living the values already, and we're planning on setting Charlotte for baptism coming up here. How awesome it'd be to see them one day become an eternal family!
Kind of along the topic of what I was saying about youth, there are loads of people that we meet that are less active all because they got offended at church. It always surprises me that people are so cavalier with their eternal salvation. They'll say that they know the church is true, but that they were just too offended, and so they won't come back. For one man that we talked to, all that happened was that he was visiting a ward one week, and nobody came over to where he was sitting and greeted him. So he got up once church started, walked across the street to a pub and had himself a drink. Hasn't been back since, and that was in 1982! How can people be so easily offended? Instances such as that make absolutely no sense to me.
Something else cool happened this past week too.. One of the less active members that we've been working with got his KX450F brought down from Auckland. So I told him for P-day I'd come help him bleed his brakes and replace his fork seals. I'm stoked! I can't ride em, but at least I can still work on em, right? Funny how every other missionary wants to go play BBall, and all I want to do is tear into a dirtbike. Apparently it's just been sitting in a shed up in Auckland for about a year now.. Maybe I'll be able to talk him into letting me clean the carb or something. There's a whole world of possibilities.
Well, that'll about do it.
Love you all
Elder O'Neal
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