Wow, what a good week. I don't have a whole lot of time to write today, got some house keeping things to do but I'll tell you some high lights. And I apologize in advance. I have a bunch of pictures I need to send and I forgot my camera today. I'll repent and get those sent next week.
So earlier this week Elder Fisher and I almost became students to a dying ninja in a trailer park. Almost. Here's how the story went. We decided to go and tract at this trailer park we found north out of town that we'd never seen before. We pull up to the park and we quickly realize this place is sketchy. Most of the trailers there are run down and abandon and the ones that are not have no trespassing signs and are gated up with shoty bed frames and whatever these people could find honestly. But we decided since we were out here we might as well knock a door. So we go to the closest (and nicest) trailer we saw and knock. Long story short the trailer we knock is inhabited by this man and his care taker, and we find ourselves being directed to the back of this trailer to meet this man. His name is Dave. We walk in to this room and we see a super sick man lying on his bed. Bone thin, hardly any hair, tired eyes, open sores on his neck, can hardly breathe. This man is in bad shape. We talk to him and apparently he had been diagnosed with chest and throat cancer a few years ago and it's taken a huge toll on him. He told us there are several reasons why he should not be alive right now. He has a punctured lung that is full of a liter of fluid but miraculously the lung hasn't collapsed. He has to have someone with him whenever he eats because he runs the risk on choking whenever he eats anything. Those sores on his neck are apparently tumors as well and normally when people get those it overtakes then and they are dead within a week or two but he's miraculously been going on for over a month. But as we are talking with him he tells us that all these problems have increased his faith in God. He said that doctors are still trying to figure out why he's alive, but he said he knows. "God's timing is not ours. He's got something for me down here so he keeps me here." We asked him if there was anything we could do for him. He said that since he won't be around much longer all he wanted us to do was share his story because he can't get out to share it himself. He was said that he was really thankful (and we think inspired) that we came to see him because he hoped that sharing his story with others will help increase their faith as well. Dave also before he got sick was trained to be a ninja, he showed us a bunch of his swords and weapons and tons of guns and things, and with whatever strength he had got up and even showed us the proper way to use a sword and asked us if we'd be interested in learning because he wanted to keep his ninja blood line going. After some serious consideration Elder Fisher and I decided it was best not to do that BUT we'd happily share his story. So here I am passing along the story and the faith of Dave: a ninja master, gunslinging, guitar shredding son of a gun, and a really kind man who hopes that someone will benefit from his hardships.
We also have a pretty solid investigator on our hands! There's a super cool missionary who just got back from his mission in Arkansas a few weeks ago and he invited us over for dinner and to teach one of his friends named Jacob. We watched the missionary (Austin) cut off some deer back strap steaks and fried those up and had a solid dinner and then had a lesson with Jacob which went pretty well! He accepted a Book of Mormon and even wanted a few more to give to a friend of his! Jacob also came to all three hours of church yesterday and also came to watch the Christmas Devotional at a members house! Definitely more to come with Jacob. Our mission is hoping to get one baptism per ward by the end of the year and we're praying that we could get ours for Chewelah.
Elder Herd
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