Dear Family.
Crazy that Amy's going to BYUH soon. Man I love that place! I got the package the other day, and I was super stoked about it. Thanks for all of the pens, I just ran out! This week has been an interesting one to say the least.
In all missions, there comes a point in time when your investigators straight up drop you. Getting dropped is probably one of the worst feelings ever, but you learn so much from those experiences. So remember that guy M that I was telling you about. Or D. So we had been teaching him every day for 2 weeks. He was coming to church. He's read several of the Books in the Book of Mormon, and he believes that it's true. So we were meeting with him, and one day we decided to watch the Joseph Smith movie with him. He loved it. Actually he loved it one step too far. The next day, we were telling a member about how awesome this guy is and we really wanted him to be friends with him just to get him excited about the ward. So this Brother in our ward wanted to come out to a lesson with us. Half way through our lesson, M told us that "he's decided to do the Joseph Smith thing and start his own religion. One that will contain the 'fulness'". So we asked him what he interpereted the fulness to be, and basically what he was saying is that the perfect religion would be one that had used the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and smoked marajuana in their meetings. It was that moment that we realized he wasn't the golden investigator we thought he was. He was upset about the fact that he couldn't get baptized if he was on probation and he didn't want to wait. I told him all about the people I met in Detroit who have been waiting to be baptized for years but can't yet for different reasons, and this was a trial of his faith and if he endures it, he will see blessings and miracles. But he isn't really listening to us anymore. He's twisting everything we say, and so it's been really hard.
I also found out from Elders who are serving in the area I lived last transfer, and I found out that S_______isn't really progressing anymore. She got offended by one of the elders I think with regards to the Word of Wisdom, so that was sad to hear, but Kasey is really progressing. No baptismal date YET but she's still reading.
But I think I told you about this one kid last week. His name is A____ and he's 17 years old. We talked to him last week, and he believes that he only lives once, and if there is no God after this life, he doesn't want to have wasted his time here. So we just told him, we are just sharing what we believe, and we're not forcing him to do anything. He then said that he really likes talking to us about religion and to keep stopping by and sharing scriptures and prayers with him. So the next time we saw him, he was looking kind of down. We asked him whats up and he just found out that he about to be a daddy. Scary stuff for a 17 year old kid #DetriotMissionProblems. Anyways, we talked to him more about our beliefs, but still was convinced, "I only got one life to live." We prayed with him and went our own merry way. So we went to go visit this one lady in our ward, Michelle, who lives close to A_____ and marquelle, and so as we were driving away from michelles house, we saw A______ outside, so we roll down our window and say hi to him, and he comes running up to us as fast as he can and just starts BAWWLLING. We were like.. whats up, and he told us that he just got back from the doctor, and found out that he has a kidney disease and that his kidneys are failing! And he was just crying and screaming that he didn't want to die yet, and he realized that he needs to find God. And he wanted us to say a prayer with him before we left. So we came by to talk to him the next morning, we had him make some goals with regards to becoming a dad and his health situation. Afterwards, we were giong to teach the plan of salvation, but he got really sick in the middle of our lesson and so we had to leave.
I also went on another exchange this week. I was in Down Town Ann Arbor on Saturday. I met this cool lady. We talked about the atonement and the savior, and the Sister I was with was like.. God is good. The lady just looked at her and was like.. "No. Chicken is good. God is awesome!" I liked that.
We're visiting this lady, Michelle, who was really inactive but we started reading the Book of Mormon with her every few days, and it made her want to become active again, get a calling, and go to the temple! So we're working on those things with her! She's almost reactived which is so cool seeing her go from not remembering why she joined the church, to having that faith and hope she had 10 years ago. One day when we were leaving her house, we saw a man and his kids moving in and carrying in drawers, and beds, and so we asked if we could help, but they said they were okay.. so naturally we went and helped them anyways. After we had moved everything in, the man told us how grateful he was. He was having a really hard time in his life and prayed to god to send people to help him through this hard time, and there were 3 sister missionaries who immediately started unloading their truck and moving their furniture. We told him about the church and he just commented that he was Lutheran and not looking for church, but We gave him our number in case they need help with anything in the future. It's awesome when things like that happen though. I love helping people. More people in the world should do random acts of kindness. The world would be a better place. I was reading in Mosiah and King Benjamin was talking about helping the poor, because we're all beggers. We all beg for the saving power of the atonement, and it's not our place to judge those who don't have a lot. It's really changed my perspective when it comes to helping those in need.
Well, I can't think too much of things to say, but I love you guys a ton. Have a great week!
Love, Sister Marshall
more updates.....
also, my portugues is going as well as it can. I've taught a lesson at least once a week in portuguese in this area to members who served there, members from there, and random people who only speak portugues. I also bought several Portugues Liahonas and the Livro de Mormon CDs which came in last week, and have been awesome study tools. I can read Portugues almost fluently. I can understand a lot of Portugues (I also can now understand spanish) when people speak. I'm still slow when it comes to speaking BUT I can speak with the vocab that I have. It's really cool because I got a blessing before I left the MTC saying I would retain all of my portugues for when I get to Brasil. I know that has been true. I think I actually understand more than when I was in the MTC even without being immersed in the language. It's truly the gift of tongues. I know when I get to Brasil it will be really hard, but I know that I can do it :)