Elder Brett

Hola familia,

Otra semana, Ay carumba.

I thought I would share a couple cool stories from the last week or so. They might get a little spiritual, ¡cuidado!

1) It was one of those days where we didn't have a lot of scheduled appointments but we had a lot of people that we wanted to go by so we planned our day accordingly. We did a lot of riding around during the day and didn't have a whole bunch of success. Most people weren't home. In Preach My Gospel, we learn about something called "Hable con todos" or "Speak with everyone" and it's geared to help us Missionaries learn to open our mouths and really share the gospel at every opportunity possible (and appropriate). Being on bike makes it easier because we are always outside amongst the people but it is often difficult as well because sometimes we are heading to another appointment and we don't want to be late. On days where we don't have many scheduled appointments, we try to talk to everyone that we see as we are riding.

On this particular day, we were heading to someone that we planned to go by but it wasn't a set appointment, and we had stopped and talked to quite a few people already, so we both just wanted to get this persons house. I was riding in front and we were pedaling at a pretty good pace, enjoying the wonderful exercise, and as we made a turn I noticed a young looking guy walking on the sidewalk; he was wearing gym clothes, had a duffel bag in hand, and was listening to his ipod. I smiled and gave him a wave, and he smiled, gave me a head-nod, and waved back. I thought apprehensively, hmmm should we stop?, but kept pedaling. After several moments I looked back at Elder Arens and said "Should we turn around and talk to him?" but he didn't know who I was talking about so it turns out that he didn't see him. I figured "eh, it's alright. We'll just keep going. After all, he's got his ipod in. He probably wouldn't be interested anyway."

We kept on going down the long, windy street and the only thought occupying my mind was "hable con todos". Instead of being obedient to the spirit like I immediately should have, I started making up excuses in my mind. (Looking back on it, I notice here the adversary's cunning and deceiving methods) I was thinking to myself, "Man I've worked really hard this past week. I've done a great job. In fact, I've done a great job my entire mission so far. I just need to keep it up. I've been 100% obedient. 100% diligent. I'm doing awesome." Inbetween these stupid thoughts, I kept seeing the page in Preach My Gospel where it instructs us to talk with everybody. At this point, Elder Arens and I were both still riding down the street and we had gotten pretty far. Finally, and so grateful I was, the spirit won the battle I was having and told me distinctly and directly that I need to turn around. I turned around and said "Hey Elder, we gotta turn around." Even though he didn't know who I saw, he said "Of course" and turned around as well. I pedaled quickly in the direction we came from and saw him just barely turning down a different street. We screeched to a halt and I tried my best not to worry that we both probably looked a little goofy on our bikes, with helmets on, in white shirts and ties, and sweating.

I shook his hand and introduced ourselves as missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and he said "Mormons right?" We responded "You bet." And then he told us how he had a friend and co-worker who's a mormon. Turns out it is Jamie, one of the counselors in the singles branch here in Corpus. Jamie was the one who introduced Tabby to the singles branch and invited her to the FHE's on monday. We were pretty stoked to hear that he knew Jamie.

To make the rest of the story short, we have had a couple awesome lessons with him and he is preparing to be baptized in November. Hopefully everything continues to go well. Either way, I learned a great lesson that day.

Well, I had a couple more that I wanted to share but I'm running out of time. Next week!

Love you all,
Elder Brett