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

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

7/29/13 "The same thing we do every night"

"What're we doin' tonight, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky: TRY TO CONVERT THE WORLD!!!"

The above exchange is essentially the conversation Elder Schauerhamer and I have had every day of this week. At the moment we don't have any investigators to teach, which means we must go and find them, which means that we have to knock doors much of the time.

As we were going about one day, Elder Schauerhamer all of a sudden stopped on a doorstep and said, with the tone of someone who's just had an enormous epiphany: "You know, Elder, door contacting is a lot like street contacting. Except there's a door in the way. And the people own the street."

And I turned and looked at him, and he turned and looked at me, and we both looked at each other for a moment, and then we kept walking.

A few other events of interest which occurred this week:

1) I had my first beer can thrown at me -- a man in a car tossed it at me as we were biking home one evening. It passed safely in front of my face by about five inches. I was so ecstatic that it finally happened

2) After we had finished our weekly Book of Mormon class, which we hold at the Church on Wednesdays for any investigators who will come, one of the members who had attended asked me to play "something cool" on the piano for her, since apparently she had heard that I could play. I mentally reviewed the songs I can play on the piano. I eventually decided upon "Saturday's Warrior" after a long and hard struggle choosing that song over "Orc Theme 1 from Warcraft 2." (As you might guess by its title, I favor that second piece for its spiritual and reverent nature.)

I played and sang Saturday's Warrior for Sister Johnson and the other members present. Well, apparently Sister Johnson recorded the whole performance on her phone and promptly posted it on Facebook without telling me, where a lot of other ward members have since watched it. At first I was mortified that someone would post a video of me, a missionary, playing something, but I am resigned to the fact now. And, I guess, if any of you wanted to look up her Facebook page you could probably find the video on there, if you really want to see it. I hope it hasn't hit YouTube.    (Paula's note - I've been trying to find this . . . but do you know how many Johnsons are on Facebook - even in Monroe, NC?)

3) We were teaching a lesson after dinner with the Cranes, a member family with 7 young children. We were talking about the importance of opposition, how we need to have bad to help us appreciate the good, so we talked about how Heavenly Father and Jesus and the Holy Ghost are all the good things. At this point, Brother Crane says to one of his younger sons, "So if Heavenly Father is the good, who's the opposition?"

And his 7-year old son immediately responds: "Lakeview Baptist!"

Bwahahahaha.

Well, I'd had this long spiritual thought planned out to share, but it doesn't feel the right time to do so. I'll save it for later.

I instead want to take a moment and mention my dear friend Elder Stephen Ward. I do not have much time to write out all a want to say about him, but I do want to shout out about his great character. While I dodged beer cans this week, he was surviving the terrible train crash in Spain. (Really puts things in perspective, doesn't it?) I am so glad that he was protected and in good condition. He is a person of incredible faith and testimony, and he will work wonders on his mission. I admire him and am so glad that I know him. Everyone, please keep him in your prayers.

I am so grateful to be here on my mission. I love my companion, and I love you all. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher


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