Im on the ball! Todays letter from Matt: What a heaven of a week (har har har, good joke, right?). I dont really know where to begin other a stream of conscious. Well see how much I can fit in. So yesterday, for P-day, we went to Nauvoo with a man named Joseph Johnstun. Hes a bit of an expert in the field of Nauvoo period lds history, with a a thorough background in anything else dealing with lds history. Hes in our branch and it all started out with me just wanting to ask him a few questions at Nauvoo, next thing I knew, the other missionaries and zls were coming along with us. It turned into an over all tour of Nauvoo and we ended up spending the majority of our time in the Community of Christ exhibits and site. I definitely have a lot better perspective and better opinion of the Community now. I learned a ton. Only for missionaries, would a tour of Nauvoo with the chance to ask Bro Johnstun as many questions as we could possibly think of (doctrinal and historical), would be an exhilarating experience and privilege. Definitely, the highlights were standing where the Prophet gave the King Follett sermon, seeing the graves of the whole Smith family, being in the Mansion home and in the red brick store... I could go on, it was awesome though. What a treat. Oh, and well be helping the Community  with some archaeological digging to try and find some other historical sites that havent been uncovered yet. Not sure when yet, but well be there. Thats a once in a lifetime experience, for sure. We had zone conference on Thursday. I gave my going home testimony (last zone conference = giving your last testimony to the mission). I realized, in that instant I was up there, that everything Ive heard missionaries say when theyve given their going home testimonies is the cream of what theyve learned as a missionary and it truly does come from the heart. I wish I had tried to pay a little more attention earlier in my mission when people gave their going home testimonies. One of the biggest things Ive learned, and want other missionaries to understand, is that if you are hearing someone bear witness of a specific principle and it doesnt hold any significance (say, genealogy), it means you dont have a testimony of that, or you arent converted to that yet. Thats been a rule that Ive used for my whole mission and any time I hear some one talk about something that doesnt mean anything deeper than surface level to me, I go out of my way to try and change that. The fruits are really quite beautiful. Elder Bankhead and I got permission to go on an exchange after zone conference and try and see old less actives, recent converts, and investigators we taught while we were together in davenport. The zone conference was in davenport. We got to see a bunch of old friends and it really was a spiritual high light of my mission. To be with an old companion in an old area, while we are both still missionaries, Ill never get a chance like that again. What a privilege. Seeing the dukes and the Petriceks was great. The Dukes were in the middle and still are in the middle of the hardest trial of the their lives. Seeing them was a pick me up for them and us. The Petriceks (Davids active again, Stephanie is a recent convert) are moving to Wisconsin. This would have been the only time for me to realistically see them before they moved, and I dont know if Ill ever be up in wisconsin, so this might have been the last time ever. Wow. And it was great to share old memories with elder Bankhead.  We were cleaning out a chicken coop for some members because they wanted the wood chips and crap (pun intended) for their garden. Well, chicken coop poop (call me dr seuss) breeds and festers ammonia. Ammonia isnt very good for your mucus membranes as it turns out. I was trying to spend as little time in that stall as possible, but elder Houston was doing all he could to knock it out asap. Well, he ended up having a pretty terrible nose bleed later in the day and we both woke up with the feelings of The Rock hitting us over the head with a baseball bat. We called the mission nurse and she really wanted E Houston to get into an ER asap. Turns out he was ok, but it makes for an interesting story. Oh, and more animal stories actually. We were over at Cheryls, our recent convert thats adopted us as grand children. She had a BIG brown bat in her bedroom. I took a video of us catching it and letting it go, so I wont explain how it all went down. Youll just have to wait for the video. There may or may not have been high pitch screaming... from us haha. We have a really interesting situation going on with one investigator family. Her name is Ms. Fearhammer. Truly. Anyway, her son, Blake, has been investigating the church for a while now. Well, not really, hes just been coming to wednesday night activities with another member. Anyway, we ran into his family whilst trying to find some less actives in that area. One thing led to another and we had a return appointment to meet with his Mom next thursday. As it happened to work out, the family in the branch thats great friends with the entire fearhammer family was feeding us that night. As soon as we ended our lesson, brother Billings knocked on the door the pick us up and invited her to come out the bbq with us. They came! So we had an awesome first lesson and right after got to play and get to know the fearhammers on a super casual level. That NEVER happens, especially naturally. I have a strong suspicion that were going to be helping with a conversion that has almost nothing to do with elder Houston and myself. There are a lot of forces here at work I suspect. We found a potential named Gunther that has a billion questions that can really only be answered by the LDS church. The more answers we could give him, the more intrigued he became. Hopefully his name comes up again. I hope it does. Hes super intellectual, yet humble. Kellie is progressing well. We found she finally has a reason to really want to know if the church is true. The doctrine of what we believe about children that die in youth was very very interesting to her. She loves it. It was a really good lesson too, that doctrine came up without us planning on it. It was really interesting to see that unfold so naturally, how it came up and how we discussed it. Oh, last thing. We have a less active fisher man with a huge beard that we brought along with us to see a really less active fisher man with a huge beard. They hit it right off and are planning on coming back to church this coming sunday as a result of that visit. Fish of a scale swim together I suppose... Geez louise I am funny today. Love you guys, Elder Dyer.
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 05:14:45 +0000
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