North Carolina Charlotte Mission

Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are your brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee. -Alma 31:35

Monday, July 22, 2013

715/13 "The path that rocks"

"Don't listen to that guy. He's trying to lead you down the path of righteousness. I'm going to lead you down the path that rocks!"


Alright! I have been transferred to the Monroe Ward, in the Charlotte South Stake. I am paired up with Elder Schauerhamer, who has been out for 19 months. We live right across the street from the church and we share the ward, but not our apartment, with the local Spanish missionaries, Elder Ovalle and Elder Oviatt (who came out with me.)  Neither of us know the area, so we have a bit of work ahead of us.

Monroe is a lot like Shelby, except that there are a lot of Hispanics here, hence the presence of Spanish missionaries.

It is a good ward, though, and I am glad to be here. It's ironic that I got paired up with Elder Schauerhamer, because, believe it or not, I mentioned him in my second email in the field (entitled "They WANT you to eat the rolls," for those of you with a good memory). Almost a year later, I am companions with him. Crazy, huh? I now can relate to John Bytheway. ("What kind of name is 'Bytheway?' " "You're one to talk, Mr. Bathroom Tool!")

It was very interesting for me -- immediately after we were assigned as companions at transfer meeting and sat down together, I had this wonderful feeling of rightness from the Spirit, and that's never happened before. I wonder why Heavenly Father found that necessary to do this time around.

Anyway, we've been getting along well together. Elder Schauerhamer is a very humble, down-to-earth missionary with a good heart. He has a great desire to be exactly obedient and work hard -- two VERY good qualities to have as a missionary. He always has this cheerful smile on his face and is unfazed by rain or bad weather.

On Sunday a member invited us over for dinner. They were giving us barbecued chicken legs. As a joke, the husband referred to them as frog legs, and apparentlyElder Schauerhamer believed him. For the rest of the meal we played along, getting him to believe that they really were frog legs that we were eating. I'm pretty certain he still honestly thinks he had frog legs for dinner.

This whole week has been a big game of Find the Less-Active at Home, except this time around, we are on bikes. We met with a particular recently activated sister on Saturday. She's getting her patriarchal blessing on Wednesday, and she was a bit nervous about it because of several events in her past. What a great blessing it was for me to be able to share my testimony on that one! I was particularly hesistant to get my own patriarchal blessing myself. I kept thinking to myself, "What if there's something important in my life that he doesn't mention? Or what if he says something that I know is way out there?" And I fretted and fretted and stalled. When I finally got my blessing, though, I knew it was true, every word of it, and that it had to come from Heavenly Father. So many parts of that blessing have come true in beautiful and unexpected ways.

I actually shared my blessing with this sister, which is highly unusual but I felt okay with doing it.

I testify that Patriarchal Blessings are true inspiration from our Heavenly Father, and I would encourage each of you to read yours and study it this week. They truly are wonderful.

Well, due to a variety of factors I am sadly out of time, but I will have more to report next week. I love you all and I'm glad to be here. The Church is true. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher


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