Catfishing On Facebook

 

 Our last two weeks have been pretty dang action packed. I gotta tell ya, we set a plan for Facebook Finding and had a little training about it and it is really working. No we aren't catfishing people, that's just a joke we say for Facebook Finding. As a Cullman area, we've contacted over 400 people over Facebook and it's paying off. We found 2 people to teach this last week! One is a girl who is 14 years old. I don't know if I've ever met a more solid person besides maybe my first convert. She literally does everything we ask her and has great spiritual experiences because of it. After her first prayer to pray if our message was true, she said that in her prayer that she felt like someone was there with her. Obviously we pointed out that it's the Holy Ghost. She now knows our message is right. Then, the next lesson we got her to download a Book of Mormon app and invited her to start reading and pray if it is true. The next day, she said she had already read 7 pages and had that same Holy Ghost feeling from her  first prayer. Insane. This doesn't happen very often where people listen to you the first time, trust me. I guess it's because she's young and innocent? I have no fricken idea. Oh, I forgot to mention. We have been teaching her over text and it's honestly so relieving because you can't really screw it up. You have time to think about what you are going to say, type it all out so it looks all beautiful and then hit that send button. It's working wonders right now. We're working on getting her to come to church, that's the main goal at the moment.

Remember how I said we could potentially put 2 people on date within the next 2 weeks? Yeah, that didn't happen. One of the guys we were teaching, I think I called him John even though that's not his real name, we had to drop him. Completely opposite of this 14 year old girl we are teaching, John would not do anything that we asked him today. He's got a lot of problems from his past that has completely closed him off from even trying to talk to God and have experiences with him. So, we kinda just told him we can't continue to work with you if you aren't willing to have spiritual experiences. D&C 4:4 says that the "field is white and already to harvest", this guy was not ready to be harvested. But, according to this scripture, there are others who are. We aren't giving up on him but we are putting him on pause. He did mention he wanted to come to church so we'll see what happens. 

We had Thanksgiving this last week! 2 members teamed up and cooked us soooo much stuff. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting what we got. There's a picture down below of what I am talking about. There was a moment during dinner that was probably one of the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life. Allow me to explain; one of the members has her best friend that lives in one of the other Cullman Elder's old areas. They ended up talking about this best friend for a little bit and the Cullman Elder ends up saying "I was completely shocked to hear that he passed away from the CoronaVirus." That member didn't know that. She burst into tears and none of us knew what to say. What are you supposed to say? The Elder just assumed she knew. Well, now she had an answer why this best friend hadn't called her in a while. Extremely awkward. She perked up after a little bit, but the moral of the story is don't bring up death during Thanksgiving dinner.

There's a few extra things, I'll link a video of my greenie losing a "what are the odds" game making him have to jump in a bush. We are really idiots out here but it was really funny. I'm just a bad dad, what can I say. 

Have a blessed week guys, that's all I got!
Elder Jackson Batman 

The Wonders Of Training

 

You know guys, I think I'm starting to figure out this whole "white wash" thing. After a couple weeks of stress and pleading prays, we actually found some rhythm. 

Nah, it's not as bad as I'm making it sound. I'm kinda just taking it one step at a time and hoping God pulls through. I say it all the time, but if God is going to trust 18-20 year old boys and girls to run this huge responsibility and we haven't completely ruined everything? Yeah, the church must be true. There's exhibit A for ya. 

But yeah, we found some footing. We came to realize pretty dang fast that this area hasn't had much work done in a while regarding investigators in the church. You can probably a test that to the 3 consecutive whitewashes that have taken place in Cullman each only lasting 1 transfer. It can be real difficult to keep an area going when it keeps changing like that. Anyway, we found a few people to teach! How about that? I'll let you in on one of the guys we taught this past week; we'll call him John. John randomly hit us up through Facebook Messenger without even being our friend on Facebook. He said that a friend of his, who is a member, said that the church is awesome and he wanted to hear if that's really true or not. We ended up teaching him that day and man was it a great lesson. Since I am training, I gotta give my son some opportunities to shine and polish some skills so I would just give him a look at random times throughout the lesson to let him know "Your turn to speak buddy." I guess it actually worked, the lesson went really well. Spirit was strong, dude started tearing up, greenie couldn't stop smiling. Just perfect. He wants to come to church next week so that's lit. We'll give him a good time. Definitely shattered his testimony of his old church. 💔 

Okay, let's talk about my son. Training is definitely different. It makes you realize some faults that you have since you're supposed to set a great example of what a missionary looks like and you may not fully know what that looks like yourself. You'll find yourself asking yourself "Why am I telling him to not do this when I'm doing it right now." 😶 Yeah, gut punch. You then proceed to repent and hope he listens to the original advice. It's actually quite a beautiful process; not being a hypocrite. By training another missionary you slowly become a better missionary because you don't wanna corrupt the little guy. Weird how that works sometimes. 

Alright before I go any further, I'm not a bad missionary. Just a few kinks to work out here and there that become obvious in this situation specifically, okay? 🤷‍♂️

Ohhhh here's something sick that happened. My greenie lost a "what are the odds" game and had to eat like 10 Domino's brownies in 10 minutes. Elder Hays, he's kind of a skinny guy. Quite a delicate fella. To be honest, I had no faith he'd finish the challenge. Boy was I wrong. He channeled some sort of inner demon and destroyed that whole cardboard box of brownies. I mean, he did about puke his guts out afterwards, but it made for a good video amiright. 

We also had an in-person meeting with our zone. We were having a discussion, something about missionary work, and the cutest thing happened. My son raises his hand to answer a question and goes "I know I'm just a greeny so this may not mean much.." Oh honey. If you only you knew that your opinion is more valid than mine. The zone hyped him up so much after he said that. Needless to say, he definitely felt like his voice was heard after that little exchange. 

Mkay well, I don't really have much else to say. We may or may not be able to put 2 people on date for baptism this week. 👀 I guess you'll just have to wait and see. 

Have a super blessed day y'all, 

Elder Jackson Batman 🦇 

Whitewash Training Carshare

 

  What a craaaaazy week it has been. A little overwhelming for sure, but that's missionary work at times. I guess this doesn't make sense until I tell you what happened, so here it goes: 

- I got transferred after 2 transfers in Northport and only 1 transfer with Elder Rasmussen. I loved that guy, he's super sick. We got along great and I was honestly hoping we could stay together so you can imagine the disappointment that followed when I got the transfer call from President.  It was mostly because the work in Northport was moving. We had 2 on baptismal date and I was hoping to see those finish out. But hey, duty calls, duty calls. Elder Rasmussen is a super solid missionary, he'll knock those out regardless.

- My new area is Cullman, Alabama. It's real interesting. I've heard many things about this place. One being the KKK had a huge connection with this area. That being said, you don't see a lot of African Americans around here. So many white people. Anyway, I am training. I have a son guys, his name is Elder Hayes. He grew up in Provo, Utah and now lives in Idaho Falls. He's a very creative guy, loves art and drawing. A little bit of the shy type, but hey, that's usually every greenie when they first come out. Since I'm training in a new area, that also means I am white washing which means that a whole new companionship gets put into an area. White washing is pretty confusing to begin with, but then you add another set of Elders who also have a trainee, who share the area with us, and we share a car?! Oh, and our apartments are 7 minutes apart. Just gets better and better, right? I'll hit you with one more thing; this has been a Sisters' area for 6 years. Guys and girls do missionary work soooo differently. I'm sorry but I will not heart attack a dang door (heart attack means to put a bunch of heart shaped notes on someone's door that have inspiring messages on them). That's just not what guys do, but the Sisters did A LOT of that when they were here. Super weird scenario to follow after. But you know, we improvise and adapt. Safe to say, I was mad stressed the first day in, I just didn't understand who thought this would be a good idea. It's working out though, piece by piece. But a lot of problem solving is needing to happen. 

- On a brighter note, the members in this area are phenomenal. We get fed like every fricken night and I can't complain, I really can't. Such a blessing. They come to love missionaries very quickly and they constantly offer up people for us to go and visit. They were super stoked to hear that 2 sets of Elders are coming in after so long. So, when we went to in-person church on Sunday, you can imagine the amount of people that came up and talked to us. And of course, we were asked to speak on the 22nd. All 4 of us. Kinda weird, but okay. This ward is just very involved and shows much love to anybody new who comes in. Heck, they even have a non-member running our missionary meal calendar. I don't know how they pulled that, but that's so sick. I know that as soon as we get all the kinks worked out with blind dating an area, we'll be really busy. 

- Oh yeah, You know like inbreeding? I thought that was just a joke that people say when they talk about Alabama, but nah. That's like a real thing here. This old lady we did service for the other day just started spitting facts about how a lot of people in the southern part of Cullman are all a part of the same family, and not the way you'd want. What a weird use of agency. 

- All in all, what a solid area. I know I'm cracking jokes at it, but I'm super excited to get this place rolling once again. It'll take a lot of prayers and patience, but we'll make it happen. I mean, this is the Lord's work, right? That must mean He will help us out, and I know He will. 

That's all I got guys, I'll let you know how it's all working out in the next email. Definitely being tried and tested, but I'm gonna learn to love it.

Have a blessed day, 

Elder Jackson Batman