Dear Family and Friends,
This has been a week that I will never forget for quite a few reasons! We had so many different activities this week full of service and service and service and service, oh and some teaching and study! hahaha Mormon Helping hands was this past Saturday and man did we have a job to do! We cleaned up a creek bed that runs through the city of Brentwood. They told us that they just wanted us to clean up the trash and the things that were caught in the weeds and things like that. Didn't sound to hard right? Well when we got there you should have seen the creek bed. It was nasty! The water was green and filthy and honestly we were afraid to even get the water on us for fear of growing a second head! haha But we worked along the bank anyways. As we were walking down we realized that there were quite a few shopping carts that had been pushed into the water. I have such a love for nature and for things like this that it was really hard for me to understand the reasoning or thought process of someone to push a cart into the creek. But anyways, we created human chains, with me on the end of course, dangling over the water with a rake trying to grab hold of the carts and pull them out! We were able to pull about three or four carts out that way, but after almost falling in a few times we decided that that was probably not the best way! Someone in the ward, I think it was Brother Sudweeks, ran home and got a few grappling hooks and we were able to use those to grab onto the carts and other things like spare tires and things and pull them out. It was actually quite a fun time! There is an old Salmon Ladder that was built back when Salmon would run the creek and we were down cleaning that part too with a few of the fish and game guys who were trying to restore the ladder and get it all fixed up. It was actually a really cool job. We were working for a while when one of the guys asked me to come help him out. He was turning this big wheel that was like a boat wheel and as it turned it opened up the walls of the ladder so that the fish could get up. He said that he was tired and couldn't turn it anymore and so he asked us if we would turn it. Well Elder Peralta turned the thing for like 3 minutes and then said forget that your turn! All I could think about was camping as a kid and fighting over who got to turn that crank and lift the trailer. We would all fight till it got hard and then it was dad's turn! hahahaha Well this was the same thing! Thankfully years of trailer lifting experience paid off! haha I turned that wheel non stop for 10 minutes and finally the man told me that we were almost there! My shoulders and arms have never burned so bad!!! hahaha At the end the guy came and told me that I must have worked quite some crazy tough jobs or that I had old farmer arms! I took that as a great compliment, and thought that Grandpa Shelley sure would have been proud! haha I don't know how people work jobs like that 24/7 though its been three days, and I still feel the burn in my shoulders and back! Guess I'm not in as good of shape as I thought!
Well after the helping hands, we jumped in the car and headed over with the Sudweeks and a few other members to help the De La Gardie family move! We had spent two days over there already moving the small stuff and basically everything that they didn't need to live for the next few days, but Saturday was the day to move all the big stuff. We moved the fridge and the beds and the dressers and TVs that I share were from the 1800's, they weighed a ton- it's crazy not having Elder Makaya as a companion anymore! He may have been lazy in the weight room, but when it came time to move someone or to lift a heavy object he was right there with me! Elder Peralta (bless his heart =P) couldn't lift much of anything and so me and the young men's leader were the one to lift all the stuff down and up the stares for three hours! hahaha After it was all said and done we had been working and serving for over 8 hours! crazy stuff!
We also had service for one of the less active people in our ward. They had about 3 thousand bricks in their back yard that they wanted to get rid of, but didn't want to pay anyone to take them out, so they called us! I have come to understand the true meaning of that shirt I used to wear about the elders moving service! It's not the Elders Quorum, its the Elders/Missionaries! haha We have moved and moved and moved. That we did with Travis Cook and the bishops son Max and that took us a good 5 hours too and we didn't even move all the bricks! We had to get to Colby's lesson and shower and all that stuff first! I have earned my keep in this area I think. I am not so sure I am thankful anymore for Elder Nelson's talk "ask the missionaries they can help you" Talk! We can help, but we thought that was going to be helping their friends be baptized! hahaha Just kidding we were glad to help and it got the calluses back on my hands so I was pleased!
Well I know that everyone is going to want to know how Jon is doing, so here we go... I don' t want to go into much detail about it because it was not a very enjoyable experience but I will give the overview of it all. On Friday afternoon at Colby's lesson we were told by Sister Kurtz that Jon had called them and had told them that he had gained his testimony and had received his answer about the church! He was very excited but also very nervous and so he asked them if it would be ok if he came over and shared it with them before he shared it with us as missionaries. They were honored and excited that he felt so comfortable to ask them that. So we were so excited for him We wanted nothing more then to be there as he shared it, but knew that that was not an option. That night though we got a call from Sister Kurtz at 930 that Jon had gotten there at 630 and did not leave until 845! His "Testimony" was about how the church was false and that Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were the Devils Tool of leading people astray. He tried to convince Colby that I and all the other missionaries in the world were liars and deceivers and that she had made a horrible mistake by joining a church that he claimed she knew nothing about. We went over Saturday night to his house with him not knowing that we knew about it. He did the same thing to us but went very in depth about how we had tricked Colby and Tyler into the church by only teaching them the simple things so that they couldn't know the whole truth. He ripped into me as a missionary very personally and told me that I was very good at what I did and that I was full of the devil and that I had lost my Salvation because of the things that I was teaching people. He questioned me in who I was as a person and told me that the person I am is exactly who Satan wants me to be. I was full of the spirit as he was talking and looked him in the eye and told him that I would put my salvation on the line for the things that I am teaching people! He had nothing to say to it other then he hopes that I haven't gone all in without knowing what I was doing. We told him that he was always welcome at church if he needed to feel the spirit, or ever realized how big of a mistake he had just made. This is where the situation gets really complicated... He told us that he still planned on going to church every week! I asked him why he would go to a church that he feels so strongly about in a negative way!? He told me that he is going because its a larger congregation of people that he feels he needs to save! I was so upset with him and so hurt that he had used us the way that he did and that he had lied and played us that we had a really quick closing prayer and we left! I called President after we dropped off Travis and discussed it with him. He counseled me to call the stake president and the bishop because Jon has threatened us that he is going to be getting up next week to bare his testimony over the pulpit to the ward. He has been dropped by the entire mission as an investigator and will no longer be able to meet with missionaries. The ward priesthood leaders were so upset about it all because of how he had lied to everyone and had only come so that he could learn how the church ran and operated so that he could do what he could to bring it down! He was pulled in with the bishop and told that the church allows visitors and will not kick anyone out, but if he spreads ANY false doctrine or tries to get people to listen to him he will be asked to leave. Sure enough though right after church in the hall he had gotten the attention of a less active by telling them he was an investigator and that he had found out that the book of Mormon was false. Thinking he was helping the less active guy wanted to go to lunch to try to help him. Me and Brother Sudweeks had been trying to get the bishop out of a meeting to get Jon out of the church but couldn't get to him. So finally Brother Sudweeks took our member and I went and talked to Jon- I told him that he needed to get out of the church and to not come back. He had over stayed his welcome and had done exactly what he had been told not to. Of course he twisted what bishop had told him trying to make what he was doing ok. He went to the bishops office and had a half hour talk with him. Bishop is a really nice guy and told him that if he ever comes back he is to keep his mouth shut and to not say a word. If he speaks to a single person he will be asked to leave and if he doesn't leave the police will be called... It was a really hard end to something that we had spent so many months and so many prayers and fasting experiences to help this poor lost man! In the Philippines I have felt the presence of Satan through the black magic and the crap out there by some people, but I never thought that I would feel this close to him in the states. After our lesson on Saturday, I was so full of a spirit that was not our own, that I came home and just hit my knees. I prayed and prayed just begging for the spirit to come back into my body and to be able to feel peace and happiness again! It was a really weird experience, and when I finally could feel the spirit again I stood up and it had almost been an hour! Elder was already in bed, and was asleep. But I felt better! I felt stronger from it and I felt like this was something that I was meant to go through! I am not happy that I had to go through it and even more unhappy that it is FAR from over, but this has been such a learning experience. The Priesthood leaders have been proud of the way we have handled it and have told us that they have our backs at any point in the day if anything happens and we need help or support. They love us out here and it has been great! I am so thankful that I have a strong testimony of this Gospel!!! I am so glad that I could honestly tell him that I would gamble my salvation on what I am out here teaching! I meant it too! A few years ago... maybe I would not have been able to say that, but I said it and I stand by it! I know that this church is true! I felt a spirit in that lesson that was not the spirit that I had felt in lessons in the past! This gospel is so true, that Satan is putting wolves in sheep's clothing. Like Brother Sudweeks told me as I was able to talk to him about all this last night; "we have terrorists all over this world right now, why wouldn't we have spiritual terrorists also!?" It is so true! These are the final days! We are going to be put in situations where we have to stand up for who we are and who we represent! I am so thankful that Grandma reminds me of that every single week! It seems like a small thing to jot down, but I have remembered that and because of it, have been able to stand for who I represent at times when it was hard! But I give my testimony to all of you at this one of my most challenging points in my life, that I KNOW Jesus is the Christ! I KNOW that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God! I KNOW that the Book of Mormon is the word of God along side the Bible! I KNOW that Thomas S. Monson is Gods Prophet today and that he guides our church and that with out him, we would be in a world of lies and contention and wolves in sheep's clothing and have to try to deal with it all alone! I LOVE this church! I LOVE my Savior and I will stand next to him through the thick and thin! This I bare in my savior's name, even Jesus the Christ! amen.
Love,
Elder Shelley
pictures: 1. pull up contest with Brayden Sudweeks
2 & 3. moving bricks
4. sign that Mackay felt described him! (not true, but funny)
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