8/16
Well, today was a..."singular" day. We had two activities planned today: A leadership meeting and a single Appointment. During planning last night I made the call to only schedule this one due to time. It seems like this was a good decision since the guy lives far. We're not sure whose area he's in. We didn't get to teach him, but we did introduce our message to him. We learned about this guy from a referral. Nice guy.
Anyway, nothing else today. The few things we had planned took so long that we couldn't do anything else.
8/17
We had "Mormon" Helping Hands today. (They still haven't told us of an alternative name) It went well, we were just cleaning up trash in an area called Githurai 45. It's where E.Sharp and E.Kasongo work, and their chapel will be built there in a few months. It was fun, I spent the time chatting with E.Cole as I picked up trash. No, the fun part wasn't picking up trash, it was blowing E.Cole's mind with some "Deep" Doctrine that I'd learned (ask my parents if you want an example of what I shared with him). It was just fun talking with him in general.
We came back to the chapel after that, had refreshments, then held the most productive correlation meeting I've ever seen or heard of.
This was the first correlation meeting I've attended that had the Ward Missionaries present. It made a huge difference. It makes me really sad that we'll have to be bugging the Ward to call more Ward Missionaries in three months when all the current ones have left on their missions, but I don't know if I'll be around for that headache, so it's fine. The other Elders can suffer in a few months.
Oh yeah, there was a funny moment today when Eugene pointed at E.Cole and told him to learn from me. I've developed this habit of bugging people half to death if I want something done. It works really well on Kenyans. Eugene told E.Cole to follow that example. I'm over here thinking something along these lines: "Okay, cool. I'm an example now. I'm just doing what works." That was a really humble paraphrase of what I was thinking. It was probably more along the lines of: "Boo-yah! Fear me you foolish mortals and follow the great example set by the wise and all powerful ME..." Okay, jokes aside I was really happy at that moment.
It was a fun day, but not much was done as far as appointments. We just visited Bradley to check in on him.
8/18
Maa, kyou wa osoi desu yo. We had services then we just kinda...didn't have any meetings. It was a weird feeling. We were expecting to be needed for something after church, but it didn't happen. Eventually, we left with a member in tow: B. Kelvin.
We contacted a guy as we were walking and...I'm not even sure what happened. Was it a Bible Bash? E.Tsangu didn't think so, but I lost the spirit, so it felt like one. The guy kept demanding us to show him in the bible where it says "this" or "that" and we did. E.Tsangu knows the New Testament like nobody's business. I kinda saw where things were going at one point and had Hebrews 1:1-4 already pulled up as E.Tsangu brought it up with this guy. He didn't really get it. When I challenged him to show us in the bible where the things he was saying were (turn-about's fair play) he just kinda ignored me - even when my companions echoed me.
Eventually, a combination of the lack of the spirit and a feeling of wasting time led me to try and end the debate. I put my hand on this guy's shoulder and tried to get his attention. He ignored me. I must've called his name six or seven times. Eventually I just asked: "Are you ignoring me?" Without batting an eye he says something to the effect of "I'm still talking, when I'm done I'll listen to you." Well, it took both of my companions asking him to listen to me for him to finally shut it and hear what I had to say. I told him bluntly that I refused to fight. I will not fight to try and convince someone. I've gain wisdom from my previous bible bashes, it's only a waste of time trying to convince someone who has closed their heart. After all, it's my duty to "find those that'll receive [me]" not try and force people to believe. You gain nothing if you try to do that.
Anyway, I told this guy that I wasn't gonna fight with him, that we would be happy to speak to him if he wanted to learn and understand more, and that it was all up to him what would happen.
That pretty much put an end to the conversation. He tried to restart the "discussion" (see "low-key argument" pg.98) but my comps picked up on more or less the same feelings I had, and they supported what I said to put an end to our time with this man. Oh yeah, E.Tsangu was laughing and smiling the whole time, just a fun little tidbit. He did that to keep it from turning into a real bible bash.
We went to see the kids Steve and Vivian after that. The lesson was in Swahili again, so all I know is that I wanted the kid sitting on the couch next to me (one of their friends) to stop shaking the couch. The thing rocked like a boat on the ocean with every motion, and this kid liked to fidget. It was particularly annoying.
We visited S.Linda after that and Discussed chapter 3 of 1 Nephi (which she read on her own, hurray!!!). Everything went well, and her eldest daughter has really started warming up to me. This 3 year old girl has abruptly found the pleasure of hugging my knees. I don't know why, or where this came from, but it's easier for me to be patient with her than the street kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment