Let
me just say, that this has been the craziest, most insane, toughest,
most emotionally draining week of my entire life. And the worst part is:
I can't even really tell you much about it. Most of the stories from
this week fall under one of two categories:
1. Stories I've been advised not to tell my parents until after I get home, or (Mom insert here: What????!!! If any of you out there get the details, be sure and comment below.)
2.
Stories the La Verkin police have asked us not to talk about until
after their undercover operation is finished dealing out justice.
So, I tell you
what I can, but be aware, that there are even juicer stories that you're
missing out on. :) I realize that I could have just left that part out,
but I decided it added a nice degree of mystery and excitement to
appearance of my normally boring missionary life. You're welcome.
Let
me seeeeeeee. I guess I can tell you the rest of the story about Mr.
Creeper. After we finished our emails last Monday, we went to the
grocery store. After we checked out, I turned to go out the door we had
come in. Guess who was standing by that door? Yep, Mr. Creeper. So we
not-so-subtly turned completely around (It probably looked like I was
pirouetting in the middle of the store, which would probably have looked
a little less suspicious had I not been doing it with a cart full of
groceries). Anyways. We turn around and go out the door on the other
side of the store. Lovely Mr. Creeper follows us outside and graces us
with a very intense look of disapproval. This considerate attention
continues the entire time we load our groceries and doesn't even stop as
we drive off.
Needless
to say, we found that a little strange. But strange actions are to be
expected from creepers. So on Tuesday we had dinner with a cop and his
family. I stinkin' love this family, but that is besides the point.
Anyway, he informed us as to why Mr. Creeper is so disappointed in us.
So after we saw him creeping, we ran to some members and told them about
it. Brother Cox told Sister Cox, who called the lady (who was out of
town in Texas) who called the police. So, long story short, Mr. Creeper
is fully aware that we are the direct cause of the police interrupting
his pharmaceutical exchange. So that's good. We also found out that Mr.
Creeper is only in his early 50's, even though he looks like he's at
least 75. That's what meth does to you kids, so stay away from it.
So
yeah. That's that. We stay away from him, he apparently stays away from
us. It all works out. Transfers are coming up, and I am going to be SO
SAD if they transfer me! Even though this week has been totally insane,
it's made me love La Verkin so much. Guess it's not the totally boring
two-stoplight town that I thought. It's a slightly more interesting
two-stoplight town. Also they are building a Denny's here, so anything
is possible. This (and the mexican place that's about to reopen) will be
the only restaurants in this whole stinkin' town. Guess I'll learn to
like Denny's.
Another
story. This is a miracle story. There is this member named Katie that
comes out with us sometimes. She's 16, from Arkansas, and has been a
member for about a year. She moved up here a few months ago, and adopted
herself into a friend's family to get away from her sucky life in
Arkansas.
So. We brought
her to an appointment with Amy (one of our investigators) and were
telling her what we wanted her to bear her testimony about, and what we
were going to talk about, and blahblahblah. Right before we pray (we
always pray before we go into a lesson...we usually need a lot of divine
assistance...), I think to ask her if she's allergic to cats. I just
threw it in as a kind of last second question, but she just stared at
me. I was like.....crap....are you allergic to cats? And she was like
"Oh, it's ok, I'll be ok." I'm sitting there like crapcrapcrap. Ummmmm,
how allergic to cats are you? "Oh, I'll be ok." I kid you not, this lady
has like 15 cats. Long story short, she insisted that she had faith she
would be ok. So we had her say the prayer, in it she asked that she
wouldn't get sick, and in we went. The lesson was 30-45 minutes long,
she bore an awesome testimony at the end that had Amy crying because she
was so impressed, and Katie didn't get sick at all. That girl is
amazing. Miracles follow your faith. That's probably why I don't have
many miracles happen directly to me. I'm way too skeptical. BUT, as
Katie has proved, if you have a lot more faith than I do, you can have
amazing miracles in your life. Yeah, we didn't raise anyone from the
dead, but it kept Katie from dying from anaphylactic shock, so I figure
that's just as good.
Oh
yeah, and that appointment we had last Monday? The one that made it
necessary for me to rush through my emails? We showed up and they
weren't even there. Not a happy camper.
OH YEAH! I had forgotten about
this one guy! We knock on his door, he comes to the door, and Sister
Gregory starts talking. He interrupts her, yelling at us and is like
"Will you people get a message?! We don't want any of your junk!" And
slams the door.
These
are the experiences that bring to light the differences between Sister
Gregory and I. She's like "Oh...sorry we didn't know...." (Which was
said in a soft voice to an already closed door) Me I'm like Eh. As
we're walking away I'm like "Hey! Don't walk away like your ashamed!
He's just a jerk." And she's like "Well, how were we supposed to know he
didn't want to talk to us?"
I'm
still trying to decided if this is showing a positive side of me or a
negative side of me. I get a door slammed in my face and I'm just like
"Ok, screw you, you're a jerk", and I move along with my business. Maybe
I should be a little more concerned with the fact that this guy's
eternal salvation is at stake, and all that. But I'm not. He clearly
doesn't want to talk to us, and I, quite frankly, have no desire to talk
to him while he's being a jerk. :) We had just come from a house that
was politely disinterested, and that was just fine. You don't have to be
rude....
So
Sister Gregory has decided that she finds my soft spot for old men
quite amusing. Last night she used the term "fetish", which is
completely inaccurate. It's not weird like that. I just think that
they're adorable. Unless they're mean and yell at you....then they're
less adorable. In one of the sacrament meetings we went to yesterday,
there was a guy giving his mission homecoming talk (we would pick the
ward that's having a stupid homecoming), and they had all the priesthood
do a musical number of "Called to Serve". They all got up there, and
all the adorable old men were singing up there so enthusiastically and
it was just like "They went on missions, and even thought that was like
500 years ago they're still so enthusiastic about it." It was the most
adorable thing ever; I thought I was going to start crying.
I've
also realized that I get kind of protective of these adorable old men.
For example, this former investigator we have "accidentally sprayed
himself in the face with oven cleaner, called 911, and slipped and hit
his elbow when he went to let the EMTs in." In the end he came out of
the hospital with a burned face and a prescription for some painkillers.
This whole story would be a lot more believable if 1: this guy were the
kind of guy who would clean his oven, and 2: he wasn't already a
prescription drug addict. He ended up having this member guy buy his
prescription for him, and I was like "whatever, at least that guy gets
blessings for trying to help."
But
THEN, last night we went over and met that member (and his wife) and
they were so sweet, and old, and nice! Even though this prescription
business was a few weeks ago, I got so mad at our former investigator
for clearly manipulating this poor guy into buying his prescription. I
wanted to march right over to his run-down trailer and punch him in the
face. Unfortunately, it was time to go home, and Sister Gregory would
not have condoned such violence, so we went home. I had to content
myself with yelling all about how terrible of a person our former
investigator is, and that that poor family can't afford to be financing
his drug habit because they have their own mountain of medical bills. I
have to keep telling myself that they'll get the blessings for
innocently trying to help out, and that we'll go help them with their
garden. They were so excited that we came to visit them, since they
never get any company, and they didn't believe it when we said we'd come
back. We promised we'd come and help her with her garden but she said
"Well, that's what the boy scouts say, but then they never actually do
it." I whipped out my planner right there to schedule a time, but she
said they were busy for the next few days. So we'll just have to go
back. They had better not transfer both of us, because if they don't
leave at least one of us here, then no one will go back and visit them
again.
Anyways.
That was a really long, rambling, pointless story. We've been getting
some rain here, so that's good. Except one time we got caught in a
ridiculous downpour so then we were going around looking like poor,
half-drowned rats. When I got to a mirror I had mascara literally
covering half of my face, and I hardly looked like a distinguished
representative of the Church. Missionary fail of the week. :)
Anyways,
I gotta get going. That cop we had dinner with (and his wife, don't
worry) are going to start giving us self-defense lessons on p-days, so
we have to get all our stuff done before that. :) It'll be fun.
Have a good week!
Sister Peart
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