Hello Everyone!
It was a good week. I'm going to try not to talk about my investigators so much in my letters. I just get so excited about them, and well... to be honestly my day is filled with nothing but teaching, so I really don't have much else to talk about.
Well.. firstly, we had zone conference this week. There was a pumpkin carving contest and sister lieber and I didn't win. I was not happy. haha. I'll send pictures of our pumpkins. Someone carved the prophet and won. How is that Halloween related? It's not. In my opinion, they should have been disqualified. But anyway. Zone conference was good. I love love love our mission president and his wife.
I found a homeless guy sleeping in our apt building a few days ago. I love Baltimore.
Well yesterday while we were out knocking I got into my first bible bash. If you can even call it that, we didn't bash, we left after just a few minutes. So.. we knocked on a door this woman let us in, and immediately this guy comes out and asks " so tell me what you believe." I think they were mennonite, but I'm not sure. But this guy obviously takes every opportunity he can to get missionaries into his house and rip them to pieces. We started a little bit of the lesson of the restoration, talking about how parts of the bible have been changed or taken away. He started going on about the dead sea scrolls, and how the bible is still in it's perfect form, blah blah blah. He went on asking about other things I don't have time to write about. He was just incredibly rude, told us we were part of a cult ( Betty, I don't want your opinion on that) He also thinks that we believe that we are buying our salvation by knocking on doors? That we think by being missionaries it ensures our salvation? I have nooo idea what he was talking about. I just told him the spirit wasn't there and so we needed to leave. He got REALLY mad about that. He just screamed at us "Don't let them fool you!" as we were leaving. The whole thing ruined my day yesterday, but when I think about it, it's really funny to me now. He was CRAZY. I was reminded of Christ's words to Joseph Smith about the different sects of religion. " they draw near unto me with their lips , but their hearts are far from me." That pretty much sums up this guy entirely. He thinks he is close to Christ. But no one who truly understood their savior would EVER do something like that to another christian. I may not believe what other's believe, but I know many people believe in the same savior that I do, and I respect that. I wouldn't ever try to demolish someone's belief in Christ. It was a reallly good learning experience for me. There were so many things I wanted to say to him, but I just tried to be kind. I'm don't have the right to speak my mind when I'm wearing the Savior's name.
I had another really cool experience with this less active woman we visit, Sister Broussard. She's in her late 70's I think, her husband died about a year ago after a 50 some year marriage. She's really been stuggling to understand why God would leave her alone and put her through all the hard things she's been through. She dosn't think that God loves her. I guess the missionaries here have been working with her for a long time, trying to get her to understand that God does love her. We had a lesson with her last week. We just read the BOM with her, somewhere in first nephi. During this lesson she just started crying and told us her prayers had been answered. We stopped by to check on her yesterday, and she told me that I had said one thing in which her prayer was answered. She couldn't remember what it was exactly a week later and neither could I. But It helps me to understand just a little bit of why I was sent here. The Lord can use us as instruments to bless the lives of all his children when we are following the spirit. There are things that one person can say that will touch us in ways that no one else can.
Well I'm running short on time... We never have much time to email. I'm really beginning to love it here and love the people, and love what I do! Serving a mission is definitely the oddest experiences I've had in my life so far, but in the best way possible.
Til next week!
Love
Carly
Oh, btw, I bought a card reader so I will slowly start sending pictures home every week! This week is sister lieber and I carving pumpkins...
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