Not Preaching for Money

December 17, 2018

Monday was a pretty normal day for us here in portage, nothing to crazy. We did go have a little meet with our RC Eric and did some stuff with him Monday night, so that was good!

Tuesday was busy. Got my first district council back as DL done, and it went well I'd say. We talked about member missionary work, and how we can better help the members have that drive to share the gospel with others. 

Bro judge gave us a call right as we finished DC wanting our help with changing a light that was in a high spot in his house, so we went over there and helped him with that at about 12.30. Once we got that done and a few other things for him we visited with him about the branch for a bit, then that's when bro Stewart gave us a call with a referral for us! About 1.30, 2.00 we met up with bro Stewart to go see this lady that he had for us, and she was pretty nice! We'll see though if anything comes of it, it would be super nice but she didn't seem too crazy about having us over. Bro Stewart was getting his haircut by her and they got talking about religion, and that's how we came up and he basically said hey I got these guys that would love to help you out with whatever, and answer any questions you have about God. She's when we went over with him didn't seem to have all that much interest far as I could tell, but hey I could be wrong. 

On the way back to town with bro Stewart we saw a lady walking back Portage way so he stopped and asked if she wanted a ride, she of course gladly excepted the offer and got right in with me in the back. 

She was a native lady that was on her way back from a job interview out there in Southport, and her ride that she payed 20$ to take her there and back hadn’t shown up yet so after 30min of waiting she decided she’d best start walking back, and that's when we pulled up! So, she was pretty grateful for us stopping.

Spent the rest of that day pretty well, driving around with bro Stewart stopping by potentials and other people he thought we should get to know around town. Didn't get any new people out of it yet but we thought it was a good thing for bro Stewart to feel like he could take us around like that to see his friends.

Wednesday was spent mostly at the soup kitchen again, helping out there with that. I’ve got a few homeless buddies now so that's always fun! After the kitchen was closed me and John (one of my new buddies) were mopping the floors and he stops me and is like "you'd almost think from how fast and well your doing this you like doing these woman jobs!" ha-ha I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one but I said "yeah you'd almost think!" and then it didn't help the fact when Shelly, an older lady that works with us there comes out and basically says the same thing to me... Guess that's what happens when your surrounded by girls all your life and no boys. 

Thursday, we didn't get to do a whole lot due to us getting ready for exchanges in Winnipeg that night, but we did get some studies done, and we did get to go help bro judge give a blessing to one of the less active ladies in the branch who was in the hospital. 

I’ve decided that Winnipeg is one of the most brutal cities to get around in especially during rush hr... Just imagine two county kids that have known idea where anything is in this big city, and then put in the middle of a thousand cars at rush hr with a map lady on their phone that tells them when to turn after they’ve passed it ha-ha that was us as we tried to find the mission office, and the zls apartment. 

When we switched for exchanges I was more than happy to hand the keys to my car over to elder Sera, and then me not be driving when I was elder Blomfield. 

The exchange with them went well far as we figured. We were there from Thursday night to Friday night.

Me and elder Blomfield went to the mission office first thing on the morning to go get a few things there, and as we were waking in pres. Hitchcock honked at us and waved, but didn't let down his window like he usually does when he honks at us so we thought that kinda awed. A bit after being in the office talking with sister Rudd she let slip that pres. Hitchcock’s dad had passed away the night before last and he just sent sis Hitchcock off to Utah this morning for the funeral... We are assuming that we weren't supposed to know about that, cause when we saw him in the mission office after we found out and he hugged us he didn't put out any signs of him wanting to let us know anything. 

The exchange went pretty smooth, did some tracting, and service so that was nice! Didn't really get to teach anyone, cause our lessons fell through that we did have set up. We did get to kind of teach a super ADHD guy though that’s 34 and loves hockey. Mike when he answered the door was like "oh nope, I got no money for you guys sorry I spent all my money on crap this yr.!" I stopped him and was like hey we aren't selling anything, we're just out with our church talking with people. Oh, okay so are you guys like wanting some money or something? No, we don't want money, we just go around and talk to people about God and who he is. Okay that's good cause I just spent all my money on that dumpy car that's not working and I'm broke, well I'm not broke but I basically am! You guys wanna come in? Don't mind me I just have a serious case of ADHD which makes me seem kinda crazy sometimes, probably kinda like right now! So, I'd total understand if you guys were like weirded out and didn't want to come in. 

Once we got in his place he started taking about hockey and if we think it's rigged, and if we think he'd be a good hockey player. He's like yeah, most people think I'm not a good hockey player and that I can't even play, but I CAN! I'm really good, I just haven't played in a while. The other day. Did you see that window on this side if the house when you came up? Well that window I was out in the street where you guys came up from and I was with this stick practicing my shot and I hit this puck right into the window...! But I'm really good! The while time he was telling us this story about him shooting his puck through the window he was demonstrating it right there in the door way, and I thought he was gonna slap shot that puck right there in the house at us. He didn't, so that was lucky!

Eventually we got to sit down in his place and we tried to get him talking about god and the stuff that we came to talk to him about but it was pretty hopeless... He told us about the pills that he takes that for some reason he says make him calm ha-ha he asked hey do you know the guy off Charly brown, the one that has the blanket all the time? Well you know how that’s his like comforter, that makes him comfortable when he goes place? I have one of those that I take to work and wherever I go. He then points to this big Santa cookie jar looking thing on his table and he's like yeah that’s it! I also have a dog one right there, and he points behind us. He told us how sometimes he will be sitting there at watching them and he swears that they talk to him, but then he'll take his pills and they for some reason don't do it anymore. 

It was pretty good. We didn't get to talk much at all but we did our best to try and get something in. Even when we showed him a light the world video he was all over the place as he watched, talkin about the movie by Mel Gibson and if we'd seen it (passion of the Christ) and how crazy it is! By the time we got out of there we just looked at each other and were like what the heck just happened... And we kept on knocking. Made for a good story though.

Saturday nothing special happened, just did studies and catching up on weekly planning since we didn't get to do it Friday with exchanges.

4.00 we went to the co-op and did the salvation army Christmas money jar thing that you see when you go inside all the stores around this time of yr. That was alright, super boring but it was kinda fun to people watch the whole time and watch the air cadets’ kids try and sell jets tickets to everyone. Didn't finish up there till about 6, then we went and did dinner and some stop bys to finish the night off.

Sunday we both gave talks in church, only for 5-10 min along with bro Stoneman from Winnipeg who took up the rest of the time we didn't fill.

Had a potluck after church which was good, even got stuff set up for Christmas and Christmas eve so that was a plus! Now we won't be just sitting around doing nothing for 2 days.

Had dinner with the judges at 3. That was a pretty heated house when we got there and was still pretty hot till about 20min before we left... Bro judge is the cleaning coordinator in the branch and no one will clean the church because so and so won't clean it so why would I clean it kinda thing. So, bro judge, us, and the Borczuchs are the cleaners of the church cause someone's gotta do it. But the reason bro judge was upset was cause bro Stewart the 1st councillor in the branch was telling everyone who was cleaning up after the potluck to stop cause that was bro judges’ job not theirs, no one did stop so that was good but it still got on judges’ nerves. To put this whole story short bro judge had one foot out the door of the church when we showed up for dinner, he was done with all the stuff that goes on in the branch.

The rest of our night after we got done at the judges was spent doing some stop bys. Got a couple lessons at up for next week out of it so that was nice! Ended up teaching a surprise lesson while over at the Borczuchs when bro Borczuchs friend Walter showed up unexpectedly. We taught Walter the middle part of the restoration cause he wanted to know why so many churches, and we answered some other questions he had. Sadly, before we could answer all of them his wife showed up looking for him (she really against the church) so that cut our lesson short. Looks like if we can get Walter to accept Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon he would be gold, but he not too sure about that stuff quite yet.

Hopefully we get to teach him again here soon.

Well that was pretty well our week! Kinda an interesting one but it was good.

Love ya all talk to you next week!