Week 13- Pensacola (E-mail to Barnett's)

Dear Maren,

About the intense missionary, you might want to tell someone. If he is without his companion, that is one of the biggest rules in a mission, unless he was on splits. He needs to be told not, well, I don’t know a good word so I am going to use, bully the investigators. We are here to bring souls unto to Christ, not sell used cars. We don’t want people going around saying the Mormon missionaries were trying to make me get baptized. This is what they told us, your loyalty is first to the Lord; second, to the Mission President; and third, to your companion. So, if there is a problem, you need to speak up. Even if it means firing off a quick e-mail to the ward mission leader. Ok, I just read the paragraph below the one I was just commenting on. Why don’t you just send that e-mail to the President? He can handle it as he sees fit.

So Maren, what you are saying is that you love your Mormon boy? I remember when you and Mallory got back from Girls Camp. You would be singing that song for a week and a half afterwards.

Mike is 48 and retired on disability. By the way he acts, you would think he is much older. He has never lived with his parent since we have been teaching him, but they live about 2 blocks away.
Down here it was 97 degrees with 90% humidity. I will trade weather any day of the week. Plus, our air conditioner broke, so our apartment is blazing hot.
Plus, I spent a hour talking to Jesus this week. No Maren, not Jesus Christ. Say it the Hispanic way. We were tracting and went up to him. He talked our ears off for a hour, literally an hour, but he never said sit down, so we were standing outside his gate listening to him talk. He is Cuban, so I was only able to understand every third word. Not fun!
We were over at the Grilley's house and it came time for the spiritual thought part of the evening. I prepared one on pride. Since it was a long scripture, I asked Elder Packard to read it. I pointed out how it said in the passage that the rich and the learned have the most pride. I was going to say usually, but before I could, Sister Grilley started off on this big lecture about how not all rich people are selfish. Then when I started again, I said, "Well, rich people." Well, I can't remember what I said next. I can only remember what happened next. Sister Grilley pointed out that I said 'which' people, not 'rich' people and she started laughing at me for 2 minutes. Everyone started laughing. So Elder Packard had to take over because I had to fight back tears. After we finished, we left. The hard part is we go over there every week for dinner.
We got three new investigators this week. One stopped us on the street and asked if we worked for the church. We stopped and talked to her for awhile. She came from Egypt. If she is baptised and is deported back to Egypt, she could be killed for converting. That is why she came here. Oh, Islamic people are so crazy sometimes. Anyone that is Islamic has to have their baptismal interview with the Mission President. I learned this last night. She really wants to know more about Jesus Christ. We found one tracting. We have one that has 3 weeks left to live. He is dying of cancer, so our job is to make it easier for him to be accepted on the other side. The West Florida hospital is so nice, it looks like a hotel.
But this really cool thing happened. Fox Run (my area) and Pine Forest went out to lunch at Applebees because we had nothing to do. We ordered our food, but when we got the bill all it said was 'Paid: God Loves You.' Someone paid for our meal. The waitress couldn’t tell us until that person left. It put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.
Yeah, I don’t know a Elder Fawson and neither does Elder Packard. That means he can't be in Tallahassee or Pensacola zones. I will see if I can find him.
Elder Forsberg