"Of course, there was the time he sold Ogram a horse,
saying that it was six years old, when it was really twelve. But now, it's all
over, and everything is normal again.
"...it was twelve years old."
"It was six!"
Well, it turns out that I am leaving Shelby and getting transferred, while ElderCollinwood
is staying and finishing out his mission here. I'm pretty glad that he got to
stay, because it's no fun to be sent to a new area when you've only got six
weeks left. I'm very glad that I got to be his companion, though, before I got
transferred out. I've learned a lot from him and have had a lot of
good experiences in Shelby ,
and I am looking forward to seeing where the Lord sends me next.
A Few Items of Interest:
1) The last three months or so the birds have been
going INSANE here in North Carolina .
There are birds fighting each other in the sky all over the place. Usually it's
little small birds chasing bigger birds, like hawks or crows, but I've seen all
shapes and sizes duking it out over the last few weeks, and, though I hate to
say it, these battles are quite entertaining to watch. I am really curious
to know what on earth's going on.
2) I received a letter this Friday from the Stevens family,
the couple in Huntersville that Elder Fulton and I had found
and been teaching before we had been transferred out. I had written them a
letter a few weeks before and they responded back, telling me that they
were set to be baptized. (The letter also included a picture drawn by their
little girl Taylor.) At Zone Meeting the Huntersville sisters confirmed
the story, and, if all went as planned, they got baptized July 6th and
confirmed on Sunday. Yet another group of wonderful people who I got to help
into the Church!
They told me that Elder Fulton and I were their
favorite elders. Granted, we were their ONLY elders, but still. :)
3) This Friday we had an appointment to go teach
Charles, a less-active we've been working with. He works at some podunk auto
shop with two coworkers, Scott and Elvis. We taught all three the Plan of
Salvation once, and it was a particularly interesting lesson since Scott is
Jewish. Elvis also has an eye-patch, which led me and Elder Collinwood
to dub him Elvis the One-Eyed Pirate.
Well, apparently on Friday Scott and Elvis got into an
"altercation," and when Charles tried to break it up, Scott
pulled a knife on him. Charles grabbed a shovel and used it to fend off Scott
until a police officer arrived. The officer was a woman, and she went to break
up the fight, first arresting Scott and then going for Elvis the
One-Eyed Pirate, telling him to get down on the ground. When Elvis
resisted arrest, the lady officer threw him through the glass window of
the shop. OWNED.
As a result of this, Scott and Elvis have been erased off
our list of Potential Investigators.
4) My first week here, as we went forth Less-Active Hunting,
we bumped into Arthur, a retired Navy SEAL and Vietnam veteran and one of the
toughest guys that I've ever met. Though he is 70-something and has a Lorenzo
Snow beard, I have no doubt that he could miserably destroy me in three
seconds if he wanted to. He was very friendly to us and open to having us
come back, but we never really managed to get ahold of him for the four or five
weeks afterward and we could tell that there wasn't a whole lot of push from
him to meet again.
This last week, however, things changed in his
life. Arthur's daughter Patty, 8 1/2 months pregnant with twins, was left
by her boyfriend, who also stole all of her money when he left. In one day
Patty was left in a pretty nasty hole. As a former SEAL, Arthur's first
response was to hunt down the boyfriend and kill him -- which would have been a
very bad thing -- but he did not. Since he is going through financial
struggles himself, he felt completely powerless to help his daughter. In
desperation, he pulled his car over to the side of the road, got out, and said
a prayer, asking the Lord for help.
As he opened his eyes, he saw an eagle flying through the
air above him. Twenty minutes later, he got a call from us, the missionaries,
asking if we could stop by and see him.
Miracle? Oh yes.
Arthur came to church on Sunday for the first time in
forever, along with his daughter and her family. We assisted the bishopric
in giving both of them blessings, Patty that she would be
able to give birth without any problems, and Arthur that he would not have
the desire to find the boyfriend and pulverize him. It was a very
spiritual occasion, and Arthur even bore his testimony in Sacrament
Meeting. A wonderful man who would make a good Santa for ward parties.
5) As I was sitting in Zone Meeting on Friday, all of a
sudden it came to me tha tElder Collinwood was an answer to a prayer I had
said about two months ago. I had completely forgotten about that prayer, so
realizing that the Lord had fulfilled it through Elder Collinwood
was a bit of a mind-shock to me. I've loved being his companion and I'm so
grateful for him, and I hope he will have a happy last transfer before he heads
home to Seattle .
All of this has just gone to strengthen my faith that the
Lord really does answer our prayers. I know that no request is too small for
Him.
I really do love you all. I am excited to see where the Lord
sends me next! Hurrah for Israel !
Elder Fisher
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