Gerald Ford didn't do anything for me

February 29, 2016

Hello everyone! As you can tell it's been another week since it's
Monday again and yes my week was full of missionary work so it looks
like it's time for me to write it all down again!!

Monday was pretty much full of nothing because we don't have the miles
or money to go do anything fun so we just relax while our laundry gets
washed at Bro Massimini's. Usually we just email but I hit the 6 month
wall where you start to get forgotten about so we are trying to think
of ways to make pday more fun. We had dinner with Jennifer and Geraldo
and their family, they are so awesome!! I'm lucky I get to teach them.
We went to Corbin's but his family wasn't there so we decided to put
off the basic lessons and we gave him a Book of Mormon and chatted
with him.

Tuesday started with a good lesson with Carla. She's progressing
really well, but each time she gets set with a baptismal date she gets
sick so we are going to teach her consistently before we set her with
another date. We had some good ole cancelations and it was a downpour
so we decided to go walk around to find some people and stuff. We did
go to this guy named Matt who said we could come back next week so
that's cool!! The sister's recent convert Mardi wanted us to come over
to teach her son, Stephen. Well let me tell ya, Stephen did not know
we were coming and he wasn't too happy. He's got some anger problems,
so he ran upstairs and started cussing and slamming doors hahaha, but
to make it worse he calmed down and came down and Mardi started
calling him a 2 year old which made him mad and he ran back upstairs.
The whole situation made me kinda mad. You don't force the gospel on
anyone. Anyways she's a little nuts and she made us stay to listen to
her problems so we were way late to our dinner appointment. The good
news is we had dinner with the Asay's and they are the happiest people
ever so it made it all better!!!

Wednesday we taught Joshua and set him with a baptismal date! We are
stupid and set it for April 2nd so we realized after we'd have to
change it, but he was super stoked!!! He's the best. We visited Bill,
and he told us all about his new girlfriend, who turns out to be his
new doctor! He talked about marriage and her kids and then we asked
when he'd be seeing her next and he said "two weeks when I go for my
appointment!" Oh Bill!!! We taught Maurice, and he hasn't been at
church for forever so we are putting a big focus on the sabbath day,
and sacrament. We decided we will keep teaching it until he shows up
to church. Sometime during the day Sis Patton called us and she always
calls us about the strangest things and I love it!! This time she said
"ya know what I want to tell ya? I've been thinking about this for a
while, Gerald Ford never did anything for me!" She went off on it for
a solid 20 minutes, so I agreed with her and said he never did
anything for me either, probably because I wasn't alive yet, but all
in all Gerald Ford didn't do anything for me or Sis Patton!!! We
visited we Geraldo to follow up on the quit smoking program. The
program claims if you follow it to a point for 7 days you will quit.
Well Geraldo followed it for 2 days and then just decided he was done
smoking and hasn't smoked since hahaha he's a boss! He asked me to
baptize him too!!

Thursday Elder Johnson was feeling really sick with some sort of
Migraine and he didn't have anything prepared for district meeting so
we did a co-district training on the Book of Mormon. After District
meeting we were walking around our apartment complex and a guy says
"hey can I ask you a question?" Well you just did so sure man. He
asked us if we lived around here and stuff and we introduced
ourselves. He got super confused why both our first names were Elder.
So we explained that Elder was a title and he was like "no way I used
to see things like monks and elders on tv! I didn't know they were
real!" So I think he thinks we are some sort of Shaolin monk or
something. His name is Phoenix by the way. He said we should hangout
sometime and Elder Johnson was like well here's our business card
thinking he'd call us in the future when Elder Johnson was gone, but
no he called us no less than 5 minutes later to set up an appointment
that night!! We taught Jennifer about Temples and she had a ton of
questions, but she so excited to go. We visited with Sister Benfield,
then Sister Patton! Our last appointment cancelled so we could fit
Phoenix in. He lives in our apartment complex. So we walked over and
knocked on his door. We heard a little running around and then all the
sudden music started blaring!! We went on in and he had all this
incense burning and whatnot. We ended up teaching him the plan of
salvation while he was vaping and he loved it and thought it was
awesome! The only thing is he told us he's bisexual so we've got a few
tough lessons ahead of us haha. We rewarded ourselves with some
chicken wings from Tony's afterwards haha

Friday was less eventful, we visited Bro Benkert and watched him
paint. He's actually a pretty well known painter and no one knows how
to paint like he does, which he thinks is ridiculous because his
method is not hard at all!! We had a nice Book of Mormon study with
Nyema which talked all about repentance and baptism, but we can't get
him to understand that baptism needs to have the right authority. We
snagged some food at Wawa after, and for all of you who don't know
what Wawa is, it's pretty much a very nice gas station that sells
awesome sandwiches! The best part is you order it from a touch screen
so you can make it how you want it! Anyways we went to teach Corbin,
but his family wasn't there again. He said forgiveness is really hard
for him, so we told him to read 1 Nephi 7 when we leave, when Lamen
and Lemuel tie up Nephi on the boat. He also asked if we believe God
answers our prayers and we both bore testimony that he does. Corbin's
the best haha we invited him to church, he said he'd think about it
and right after we left he called us and said he'd go!

Saturday started off with a short notice baptismal interview down in
Pennypack, another lesson with Maurice about the sacrament and he said
he really wanted to be at church. One of our investigators Orin had us
over for dinner around 3:30, but the food wasn't even ready until
4:30ish. It's funny because Orin's parents were members and he loves
the ward and the people so he makes threats all the time about
becoming a Mormon. And he also thinks me and Elder Johnson are the
coolest people alive hahaha. We went straight from there to another
dinner appointment with a member. She was running late too so we got
there around the same time and she picked up pizza and I was stuffed
by the end of the night!!

Sunday was just great!! Corbin and Carla both came to church, along
with Jennifer and Geraldo, but they come every week hahaha. I never
realized how much I know about this church until I listened to the
sacrament talks with Corbin in mind. We haven't even taught the
restoration and the speakers in sacrament mentioned the temple
multiple times. He had a few questions for us haha. We walked into
gospel principles and the subject for the week was "Sacrifice" and I
just prayed Corbin didn't think we literally did sacrifice hahaha
Luckily Bro Massimini always teaches well, and Corbin had some great
input. Priesthood was great and Corbin said he loved it. So many
people talked to him and he was asked if he had a family, he said he
did and they would be coming with him next week!!! Man it was awesome.
Later that night we ate dinner with the Dyott's and we took a plate
over to their neighbor whose wife recently passed away and he told us
we could come back this week to visit him!! At Book of Mormon study we
got to finish the good ole blue book. Moroni 9 is a huge bummer, but
each time I read Moroni 10 I just feel like my life is on track ya
know???

Overall a good week!! It's been a blast and things are goin here. The
only bad news is Joshua texted us and said him and his wife separated
and she told him to leave so he doesn't know when he will be back:(
keep him and his wife in your prayers!!! Sorry I don't have pictures
this week, but it is what it is ya know! Hope you all have a great
week!!!

Elder Dylan Smith