"These were days never to be forgotten."
- Oliver Cowdery, JSH.
Every Saturday in our mission is a "car fast."
This is when everyone in the whole mission (except for the Assistants, who are
too important) foregoes using their car for the entire day. The reasoning
behind this was as follows:
1. Missionary work is much more effective when we involve
members.
2. Members, among other things, give missionaries rides to
appointments.
3. Missionaries often don't need rides to appointments when
they have a car to use.
4. Missionaries don't work that hard to call members to help
them when they have a car.
5. Missionaries hate biking and will go to great lengths to
avoid doing it.
Therefore, if missionaries were deprived of their vehicles
on Saturday, which is the day when many members do not have to work, then they
would have a greater incentive to get their help.
...So we were out biking on Saturday, having utterly failed
to get any members whatsoever to help us, and went to go see our investigator
Jeremy for our appointment. He had been enlisted to be chef for a neighborhood
birthday party and sadly couldn't meet with us, but he encouraged us to go to
the party and ask for something to drink due to the heat. So we went, and one
of the guys there kindly offered us some nice cold beer to cool us off.
"Sorry," we said. "We don't need a BUI today.
We don't like biking under the influence."
***
One advantage of having a tripanionship is that, if you get
the members out to help you, you can cover three different appointments at
once. This makes us in high demand, now. On Sunday we taught Gospel Principles
second hour because the teacher was sick, and then I taught sharing time in
senior primary, afterwards being the pianist, while ElderArnold and Mastin
taught the Young Men.
It was a crazy Sunday anyway. One of the speakers had been
asked to speak on both the life of Christ and Independence Day. Instead of
somehow meshing the two topics together like a lot of people would have done,
this brother gave a talk on the Savior, closed "In the name of Jesus
Christ, amen" and then started into his second talk on July 4th.
Interesting technique.
Just the night before we had committed Allen, the man who I
met in the rain many months ago, to come to church, and when sacrament meeting
had rolled around he had not shown up. He had missed the week before, granted
for a very justifiable reason, but if he didn't come to church this Sunday he
would not make his baptism date for July 6th and we probably would have to drop
him.
So I sat there with my eyes closed in sacrament meeting,
very unhappy, playing in my head the "drop talk" we would undoubtedly
have with him in the near future and honestly not focusing all that much on the
Savior. I was quite sad, because I loved Allen and I was disappointed that he
had failed to come. I then felt a hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and
looked up and there was Allen, a big crooked smile on his scruffy face.
Elder Mastin, from where he was sitting up at the
sacrament table helping the priests, noticed my expression when I looked up and
saw Allen there. He told me later that it was quite hilarious.
It turns out that poor Allen had run out of gas, so he got
the gasoline out of his lawnmower and used that so he could come to church. What
a guy! We are hoping to see his baptism this Sunday, on the 6th.
I will never forget the joy I felt seeing Allen standing
there on that Sunday. These truly are days never to be forgotten. Blessings
unmeasured, a fullness of joy. This work most certainly is true. Hurrah for
Israel!
Elder Fisher
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