No tie burning for this missionary! haha As missionaries we are supposed to be as "wise and mature" as our 18-21 year old minds can handle. Dumb things still happen but not if we have any say in it. As far as a celebration goes I think I'll celebrate with an awesome day of teaching. Honestly though the further into the mission I get I learn more and more how impossible it is to be happy in this work unless you are dedicating yourself to it. Once you lose yourself and stop worrying about the little things of life is when you really begin to have fun.
So, quick story. We just got back from the laundromat and there a group of missionaries got hustled hard core! it was kinda comical so here it is! So we are sitting at a wifi table just waiting for our laundry and this old lady comes up to us who is deaf. She communicates with us that she would like to sit where we were and charge her phone. So one of the missionaries kindly gets up and lets her have his seat. So, we keep talking with her and she says that she was just baptized last week in the deaf branch. Meanwhile, Elder Reece (my companion) and I started to try and remember how to sign the alphabet. But we keep talking with her and she eventually gathers her stuff and is getting ready to go when she pulls out all these cards and gives a card to each of the 8 missionaries there. The card had the alphabet with the pictures showing how to sign the alphabet. and we are all looking at the card when she says, "No, flip it over!" and so we do. When we flip it over it says, "Hello! I am a deaf person. I am selling this Deaf Education System card to make my living. Will you kindly buy one? Pay any price you wish!" Thus the inner struggle begins! What do we do? this supposed Recent Convert basically starts panhandling us for money. I go through my mental note of what cash I have in my wallet... a 10 and two 5s... So I get the bright Idea to pull out my laundry money. I had just counted out that after next weeks loads I would have 2 extra quarters after. Perfect! so I go and take my offering to her and OH! did that make her mad! She threw a fit explaining that, "she isn't cheap!" but if we remember, this Deaf Education System was a printed on a tan index card from the 90s that just said pay any price! So all the missionaries pull out their dollar bills for this lady! One of them gave a ten dollar bill! Once she got her money she peaced out and got the heck out of there with 20 bucks from the missionaries, never to be seen again. goooooooood times! haha but we all learned a valuable lesson today... Don't trust everybody. Even if they are a nice old deaf lady posing as a Recent Convert! hahaha but hey, now I know how to sign the alphabet in sign!
This past week has been full of miracles! Last Tuesday we met this guy named Christopher and he is really cool! His story is that he wanted to be closer to God this year as part of his New Year resolutions. The missionaries met him the next day on the bus and taught him a little bit before giving him to us. At the end of our lesson with us, we invited him to be baptized and he was all sorts of excited about it! haha It was almost too good to be true! haha We set his baptismal date for the same day as Juan's which also happens to be Elder Reece's Birthday!
This past week we had a really cool "Regional Stake Conference" which basically means that we had Stake conference transmitted to all the Stakes in Southern California and we all had stake conference at the same time! With it being broadcast from Salt Lake we were able to have some amazing speakers including Elder Neil A Anderson and President Eyring! And what made it even better was that it was all about missionary work! Something that stood out to me actually came from the Adult Session the night before. A sister missionary from the stake was speaking and she said, "As members, it is not your role to convert. The Spirit is the one that does that. Rather, our role is to invite those around us to come closer to Christ." I thought she was so right with that! No where in our missionary purpose does it say that our role is to convert. It says that we are to invite.
I realized that I haven't sent many pictures recently so I will be sure to send some this time! I love you and can't wait to hear about what is going on with you next week!
Love,
Elder Ethan John Rowbury
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