Who SENT you anyway?!

What's up!

Oh man. This week.

The week started with a district activity of us carving pumpkins....which shortly turned into Elder F throwing pumpkin seeds at all of us, and all of us (meaning mostly me) attempting to get revenge by throwing seeds back but completely missing him every single time (or accidentally hitting Elder H or J instead) and then giving up and just chucking a huge chunk of pumpkin guts at him.
Then I got a huge chunk of pumpkin guts thrown back at me.
Guess I kind of deserved it.
But it was fun! I attempted to carve Batman. It was the most pathetic looking thing I'd ever seen. I showed it to Mama Cox:
Mama Cox: "What is that?"
Me: "Batman!"
Mama Cox then burst out in laughter and had to turn away.
Guess I wasn't practicing my pumpkin-carving skills in the Pre-Earth life.

The new Elder, Elder Z, also came this week! He saw my pumpkin sitting on the front porch of the Cox's home and said, "What's that?" Then Elder J said, "It's supposed to be Batman."

Yeah.

But Elder Z and I are totes gonna be BFF's.

Tuesday was awesome! We had a good lesson with our first baptism and hopefully she'll come around back to church soon. Hopefully. We also had a lesson with a woman who was a referral from a man in our ward. She's pretty stuck on being Methodist, but while we were teaching her, the Jehovah's Witnesses (who she studies with pretty regularly, too) showed up and she was like, "Hey! I'm studying with the Mormons! Wanna hear a Mormon sermon?"
They didn't.
Ah well.
We've been trying to visit members in our ward, too, to try to get to know them, since we'll be here another six weeks and don't know all of them pretty well. We had some time on Tuesday, so we decided to stop by some members' homes. At one of them, their son, who has a band and has since moved out but was home for the weekend, answered the door. We were talking to him, and he told us he played guitar. My response?
"Hey, I can play the air guitar!"
I then made the most pathetic guitar-playing motion/noise. He kinda stared at me then said, "Yeah...I play that sometimes, too."

We then stopped by another member's house. Only the three youngest kids were home, so they came outside and we were talking to them about missionary work and Six Flags and stuff, then I asked, "Hey, so do you guys have any friends you want us to visit?"
"YEAH!" said like the....9 or 10 year old, "Go to the last house on the left! That's my friend!"
"Okay!"
So we do, and there's this really old guy sitting on the porch. Now, it was the last house on the left, but we were pretty sure it wasn't who she wanted us to visit. But we walk up and start talking to him. Turns out, he's totally a former investigator who took lessons a year ago! In the whole process of changing out missionaries, he kind of got forgotten and stopped getting visited. (Fun fact, we found his record when we first got here. The same day we found our first baptism was the same day we tried his house, but the record had the wrong house number written on it, so the people there, who we THOUGHT was the right one, but wasn't, told us they weren't interested.) But anyway. We sit down with him, and he says, "You know...something that really bothered me about the Mormon views is that...well my daughter died...and the missionaries told me she had to have someone be baptized in her place to get into heaven."
So we explained to him the Spirit World, and how right now she was getting taught about Christ and our gospel, and how - since we need to get baptized to go to the Celestial Kingdom - if she chooses to accept the message, someone can do baptisms for her in the temple and she can choose to accept that baptism. After re-explaining this, he goes, "....well I feel better already!"
It was awesome. He told us we could come back sometime. Also, near the end of our visit, his wife comes out and was like, "Who are you guys?"
"They're descendants from a Native American tribe!" he said.
"No they're not!" she said.
"You're right. Now, Christ sent these two girls to me because he KNOWS I'm not doing what I'm supposed to and they're supposed to be helping me with that!"
That's right, sir. That's right.
After, we ran back to the girl and her siblings who gave us the referral and told her the story.
Her response: "SO IS HE GOING TO COME TO CHURCH?!"
ME: "YES!"
Her response: "IS HE GOING TO GET BAPTIZED?!"
Me: "I HOPE SO!"
We'll see to it, little girl. We'll see to it.

Wednesday we had a....rather odd....lesson with a guy. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and asked him to pray about it last time, so this time we asked him if he did.
"Yeah, I did!" he said.
"Great! How did you feel about it?" we asked.
Basically we gathered that, if you have good luck the next day, then whatever you prayed about was right. So we tried our best to explain that sometimes it's how you FEEL that our prayers were answered. Yeah.

Our most recent baptism is doing well! She didn't come to church this Sunday, but usually she doesn't come because of health reasons. So I'm not too worried about that. We visited her Sunday and she was happy and excited!

Saturday and Sunday were stake conference! SO much fun! We went to Ithaca for the Saturday session. Didn't really get to see much of the city except the WalMart. OH, OH AND RANDOM SUBJECT CHANGE! The girl who I found on exchanges with the Sisters in Vestal? SHE TOTALLY HAS A BAPTISM DATE!! I'm taking part of the credit since I knocked on her door. Ha. I'm super excited.

Pres and Sis Wirthlin also came to our stake conference! So that was fun.

Sunday was also awesome! We were really struggling with coming up with how to keep ourselves busy, so we finally found a less active member whom we had never met before. Well, we show up at his house and ask for him, and this woman comes to the door and was like, "I don't know anyone by that name....he doesn't live HERE anyway. Who are you girls?"
"We're missionaries for--."
"HOLY (long list of expletives). Really?"
"Yes."
"Like really?"
"Yes!"
"I'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT GOD ALL DAY!"
Apparently her daughter just got out of rehab, and recently started going to church and turning her life around.
So then she says, "that's just crazy! out of ALL the days you guys showed up, it's TODAY! I'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT GOD ALL DAY TODAY! You guys Jehovah's Witnesses?"
"No, we're Mormon."
"OH GOOD! So what's your message?"
We told her a little about the restoration, then we were like, "We also believe in the Bible and the Book of Mormon--."
"Do you have a copy?"
"Uh...yeah!"
We gave it to her, and starts explaining it then she says, "Yeah I'd LOVE to read this! oh man. This is CRAZY! I can't believe you girls just showed up! Who SENT you here anyway?! How did you find me??"
The Lord, woman. The Lord sent us here.
She said she has a crazy work schedule, but that we can come back! So HOPEFULLY we'll be able to catch her!
It was a fantastic way to end the evening....and THEN. We stopped by the church to print something off, when a guy from the Vestal ward showed up and said, "Hey! Come here, want to see something cool?"
"Yeah we like cool things!"
So he takes us to the stake president's office, and pulls out the shovel that was used for the Palmyra Temple Dedication! It's just been sitting in our stake building for years! I don't know WHY, but it's engraved and everything and just hanging out in our church building.
President Hinckley used that shovel.
Hey I know how to use a shovel!

Hopefully we can stay busy this week! I like and hate good weeks. It always means the next week is gonna be hard. BUT I WON'T MAKE IT THAT WAY!

Hurrah for Israel!
Sista' Stimpson.