Baby Chicks (4/9/18)

We finally got all moved into the new apartment and got the old one cleaned out and looking as sparkly as you can get it I suppose. A lot of our time this week was taken up doing that so we didn't get to go out and see as many people as we'd like. But besides that point it was still a pretty good week. We got to go see our man Chris. I can't remember if I talked about Chris or not but he's a boxer who we saw walking around out on the street. We get talking with him and he says he was raised more or less Mormon and everything but hasn't followed it since he was a teenager. But he said that his kids weren't baptized and he wouldn't care if we came by and taught his family a bit. Whenever we've gone over to set that up it's been a "bad time" (haven't heard that one before). This was a similar time, he had some friends over and stuff and was listening to some...interesting jams...but we at least got to talk to him a little bit and he has our phone number now so he said he'd call us. He also gave us some tips on weight lifting which elder Nelson and I will for sure be implementing. Nephi was large in stature. He was a spiritual guy. Coincidence? You decide. Chris was just casually repping around 250lbs  and talking while he was doing it. I got a video of elder Nelson attempting one rep, I can't send videos but I've got a screenshot of it.

We also were FINALLY able to see Brian yesterday! We haven't seen and hardly even heard from Brian since his baptism. He all the sudden just stopped coming to church the week after he was baptized. It's been really discouraging to see that happen but we kept reaching out and asking and we finally got a hold of him and he said he'd be coming this week and we set up a quick lesson after church. We actually saw him that day at the gas station filling up the monster fj. We were driving back from dinner and I saw it and was like "that's brian!!!!" and flipped around (safely of course) and we went back to say hi. It was fast and testimony meeting and just about every testimony was perfect. Long story short just "too many coincidences, if those are even a thing at this point" to quote Brian, happened at church that day. Brian said that he'd been really struggling with opposition and temptation since he was baptized, and he just felt shamed and like he hadn't fully repented and that's part of the reason he just kinda fell off the map. We had our new ward mission leader there who is a convert of about 12 years and he was fantastic. He's kind of a soft hearted soft spoken guy but he's super sincere and he shared his experiences of feeling the same thing after he was baptized. It was just what Brian needed to hear and we were able to help him feel at peace.

The gospel is for everyone and it's not just for the times we're up but much more so for the times we are down and feel inadequate. It's a simple process. Faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost,and enduring, but when you really think about it it all centers around us improving ourselves, getting help where needed, and coming closer to Christ.

Love to all until next week!

Ps we also got to play with some chicks at a members house. The little ones are only three days old, the others are about a week and a half.