Getting Hit On

 It's been a crazy last two weeks, allow me to elaborate. As I mentioned in last email, we are now able to do service at whatever place allows us in. Luckily for us, that's all the places we were doing service at before; Salvation Army, the Waterfront Thrift Store, and the Animal Shelter. But, this week, a member asked if we could mow their lawn. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, we get to this place and it was about a 45 minute drive and it's a beach house. The yard is huge, and they warned us of this bumpy roots that stick out of the ground that screw the lawn mower up. Well these roots were everywhere so we were constantly having to maneuver our way around these things so we don't destroy their beloved mower. They also warned us that on the trees that were all around the yard, they have these caterpillars on them that'll bite you if you tick them off. The way to tick them off is to get too close to the tree. Yeah, I have no idea, it was freaky. Luckily I was not bit. I wonder what that would feel like. 

 Okay, I'll go over what I titled this email. Yes, I got hit on. A member invited us out for dinner at Cracker Barrel. He asked us originally for a suggestion of where to go and we said Lambert's but the wait turned out to be two to three hours so that was a big no. So we compromised for Cracker Barrel. Anyway, we have dinner, its going great, our waiter was kinda chatty, very interested in taking extra time to talk to our table and me specifically. You would think that would be the person who was hitting on me. Boy was I wrong. We walk out of the restaruant after paying and as I'm walking out, a girl who works there hands me a little note and said "I think you dropped this." I read the note and come to find out that the note was from the DUDE that showed us to our table. Yeah, I don't swing that way man. Nor do I swing anyway on my mission. I guess I have to respect the courage. What a weird night. 

 It was also my new companion Elder Daw's birthday on the 20th and as his comp I'm supposed to make his day special or whatever. Luckily Elder Daw's mom hooked me up with some cake making ingredients in the mail, but I've never baked in my life so I was sort of anxious. Fortunate for me, these little cakes were super tiny and required very little effort to put together, and also Elder Moore helped. He actually ended up doing most of it... I may have planned it that way. 🤷‍♂️

 One of our most recent converts, Kristina, actually has hopped on to the Mutual app. You don't know you exciting that is for the missionaries who baptized her. I was ecstatic. It is so dope to see that the people she finds attractive on the app are the usually the ones who have pictures of them with missionaries because she knows that means the guy is a good person a good member. My fricken heart man. She is actually hitting off with one dude and she wants us to call him with her present so we can interrogate the guy. In this situation, we definitely feel like parents in a way, so next week with her is going to be hilarious. 

 I got bible bashed for the first time on my mission the other day, that was interesting? We got a referral from a guy who requested a Book of Mormon, so we were just doing our duty and dropping off the sacred blue book. Well, we go to the wrong house because the lot of houses in that area was a little confusing. The nice couple who answered the door helped us realize where it was and we said goodbye, but as we are walking away, the man comes up to us and says "Actually I got a few things to say to you guys real quick." He just immediately dips right into the most deep doctrine most profound questions in our church and says that it's insane and that we should "really evaluate the church you choose to believe in." What a crazy canoe. I tried to speak and explain ourselves a little bit, but he would just cut me off immediately. Bashers love to just ask a like ten different questions, give you three seconds to respond, and then interrupt you and call it leaving us 'dumbfounded' and stumped. Congrats dude, you won. I should've walked so much sooner, I just never had that before so I tried to cooperate with the uncooperative. Woops.

Alright, that's it for now, til next email. 

Love y'all, 
--
Elder Jackson Batman

The End Of Quarantine

   

I'm sorry for not writing an email last week guys, just completely spaced it. Now that we have officially been let out of quarantine, missionary work as I once knew it is still a lot different. No way in heck will our mission go back to the old fashion door-to-door Book Of Mormon sales pitch and just get an hour of slammed doors in our face. No no, we have grown far from that from this 81 day long quarantine (we had a big tally marking on the chalk board). Facebook is for sure the play now. I don't know if you guys saw, but we try and make little videos now and try to get the social media channels flooded with good stuff, and there is no better good thing than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Also calling people on the phone instead of driving to the end of our area to their home, that is now the play. Moral of the story; tracting is wack and we are not going back. 

   I'm currently sick while writing this email, but that's okay. We went to the beach today for pday and I think I may have had too much sun and not enough water. Also taco bell didn't hit the stomach very well, not our best idea after a lot of activity. I just took a fat 2 hour nap and I'm feeling a little bit better. At least enough to go to the church and go watch a movie. Oh yeah, we can still do that, kinda nice even though quarantine is over. Anyway, we'll see how I am tomorrow after a good night sleep. 

   It crazy how busy we've been as soon as quarantine got lifted from us. We have been able to visit everybody we were teaching in quarantine and bunch of other members that Elder Daw hasn't met yet. We're working on getting this older guy named N on baptismal date, but he's a tough cookie. He plays the organ at a Methodist church and still has an attachment to the place, yet he reads the Book of Mormon everyday and is active in our ward when going to church was a thing. We told him to pray about becoming a member of our church and he said he would, we'll see what happens. 

   I mentioned we went to the beach for pday today, it was super fun. This time around we actually met these two guys in their 20s who saw us playing two hand touch football and wanted to join us. One dude was named R, a tall skinny black guy who informed us that he was a little hungover from liquor the night before. It was pretty apparent because he was dead after the first 4 plays even though he looks in shape and is a gymnastic instructor. The other guy was named J who was super jacked even though he was only 19. He was super nice, he let us play spikeball with his buddies afterwards and spikeball in the sand is just a blast. They asked for our snapchats afterward and we had to inform them who we were and that we don't have that. They gave us their numbers and honestly sounded interested in what we do and what we preach. We'll stay in contact for sure.

   We are also allowed to do service again, so now going to the Salvation Army and the Animal shelter is a weekly thing. I missed the workers and the puppies, good to finally see it all again. Obviously during a time like this, people are still terrified about the whole Corona virus and getting close contact with other people, so we still have to be really careful and wise with what we choose to do. Our mission advised us to not visit people who are 65 or older, and if you know our ward that wipes out a good 85% of the people we can visit. And these old people don't really mend well with technology, Zoom is like a second language even though I think it's the simplest thing ever. Whatever though, we'll still give technology a go with them.

Alright, I'm gonna go back to writing emails every week. Now I got have a lot more to report on so emails won't seem like such a drag to write anymore. But if I forgot, Jesus Christ was the only perfect human being and I am not Him. 

Love y'all,
--
Elder Batman