......... GRR.
I set the camera to shoot RAW images just for a little experiment and forgot to set it back so I can't upload the last 25 pictures I've taken. >:( great. Well... I was GOING to post a picture of a wolf spider the size of my hand but it's a 28MB picture and I can only do 25MB pictures on myldsmail.net. That spider was the largest spider I've ever seen in person and the largest my companion has ever seen in a building. You get even larger ones if you go near the forests.
Crazy! This place is FLAT. I hate it -_-' I like to see MOUNTAINS! I'm DEFINITELY enjoying the heat but I'm ALWAYS cold! What's up with that?! I was so cold last night I got out of the shower and was shivering SO. BAD! for the next 30 minutes! I saw my first super drunk person :P they're my neighbors. We talked to her and she was slurring her words and looking at us all weird-like and kind of stumbling as she walked. It was 2 PM :/
So I'm not actually into this stuff, but we met Chase Hendrix. He's in our ward and was a professional skater for quite some time. He got his first sponsor when he was 11!
My companion's name is Elder Erickson, he is TOTALLY Booth's doppelganger (the main character in Bones)! He also only has 6 weeks left so he can't train me for the full 12 weeks. Okay! I've had so many people tell me I look just like James Franco :P a couple people in the MTC were calling me Elder Franco occasionally and someone out here called me Elder Spider-man haha yeah.. But my companion and I are brand new to the area and mission work has been SO SLOW out here! It's AWFUL! So we've done nothing but tract and meet with the less actives and other members of the ward.
We have a car so I'm very happy about that! But we're in a car SHARE so we only get it every other week... We'll be on bikes the rest of the time so I'm gonna borrow one of the other elder's bikes for that.
I SUCK at talking to strangers! SERIOUSLY! ugh! I knock on someone's door and if they don't straight away say "I'm not interested" I have no idea how to continue! Everyone out here is familiar with the missionaries so we don't need to introduce ourselves but everyone out here also believes in Jesus Christ and has their own church so it's super difficult to get them to listen to OUR message.
We've only gotten 2 investigators and we're not sure if they'll progress at all. One is a single mom with two little girls. Her name is Teaira. She's black and super spiritual but doesn't have any church she attends regularly. The other is an older white lady named Lisa. She has several teeth missing so it's distracting watching her speak :P haha I guess missing teeth is super common down here. They don't bother with dentures. There are some people that don't have ANY teeth and some that you could grab any of their remaining teeth and just pull em right out because they're so loose! Thankfully I haven't seen any of those yet!
Anyway, final thoughts!
So we were at the ward mission leaders house doing yard work. We found this spider a little larger than a half dollar coin at the center of this massive web! The spider was BEAUTIFUL! It had black, white, red, yellow all in a mesmerizing pattern throughout its body! It's web covered about 6 or 7 square feet. We tossed some small leaves into its web to see what it would do and it was AWESOME! The spider left the center of the web and went to the leaves. But quite to my surprise, it started cutting the leaves out of the web! It would actually pick up the leaf (several times larger than its body) and begin cutting all the threads that kept it attached to the web. It continued to do this until the web was once again free of any debris and thus made it nearly invisible.
I was thinking about this and then realized it makes a wonderful gospel analogy! :P As disciples of Jesus Christ we are commanded to keep ourselves "unspotted from the world", to be "in the world, but not of the world". How do we do that? We rid ourselves of worldly behaviors and fill that space with wholesome activities that bring us closer to Christ. That does not necessarily mean missionary work or going to the temple. You can become more spiritually in tune simply by being kind and friendly to others. Not using sarcasm or gossiping. Exercising and taking good care of our bodies is yet another way to purify our lives. And as we continue to do these things that draw us closer to God we are slowly cutting out the leaves that are corrupting our lives. As we receive the Holy Ghost in our lives we learn of its sanctifying effect and discover that it is only through Christ that we can make our garments white.
Farewell y'all ;)
Sincerely,
Elder Russell
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