Hey all,
I feel like
sometimes my emails home are kind of sucky and lack feeling and are just
more like minutes. I'll try to share some interesting things today.
First pre-planned point: as a missionary you do so many random and
ridiculous things and then every Pday I forget about them all so I will
now list some of the crazy stuff that happens.
1.
Went with a lady in the branch to her son's elementary school to
translate for a parent conference in the principals office. Her kid has
been hitting all the other kids so they had to have a meeting and I was
right in the middle of it translating back and forth. It was out of
control hilarious. It was Principal guidance counselor vice principal
and teacher (all older black ladies that kept calling everybody
sugar) on one side of the table with Mom and third grader on lap on the
other side with me in the middle translating and Elder Hernandez
standing behind me. They were using lots of educator language luckily I
can interpret that too thanks to mother and I was having to
circumlocution it all into Spanish. Elder Hernandez I guess had been in
the third graders situation a few times prior in his life (according to
him) so he was whispering the answers to Oscar (the 3rd grader)
everytime the educators would question him on how he was going to change
his behavior.
2. Went with a member to get his car "de-impounded"
They took it because he had no license no registration and no insurance.
I guess theyd tried to get it earlier in the day with his cousin who
has a license (because they cant give the car to someone without a
license") and they wouldn't give it to them because they needed the
person who the cars name was in (who was there but because of language
barrier and miscommunication was unable to declare themselves) so
basically they bring us there because we are white I guess that builds
their rapport or something. Basically I translated the exchange which
turned into a heated argument which turned into the member saying
"digale que es una racista" (TELL HIM HES A RACIST) which causes me to
be like well umm he says he feels like there may be some racism involved
sir. Which offended the car guy super bad. Eventually we got it all
worked out and I just went around and told everyone I could tell they
were very nice people to make them all feel better.
3 Spent one day with Little Rock English missionaries
while I was wating for Hernandez to come over from Memphis. They had a
media referral for a girl at the university of Arkansas at little rock
who had requested a bible online. But theyd been one time to contact the
referral and been rejected by the front desk because I guess you have
to get signed in go into the dorms to be permitted in. Not a problem
instead we just snuck into the all girls dorm really quickly without the
front desk seeing us so we could bring this girl a bible. We get to the
third floor and the first girl we see is like "oh hello what are you
handsome men doing here?" We didn't say anything and just kept walking
hahaha The referral wasn't home .....
4. Ate at a members home this past week and tried so
hard to eat the huge amount of food they gave us when I wasn't hungry to
begin with. I was so full I was gagging on the food and it was
delicious. I thought I was going to be able to hold it all but then I
started getting light headed and as my companion started to share the
spiritual thought I just booked it out the front door of their trailer
and tossed my dinner off the front porch of their trailer. Thankfuly I'd
had some milk that was expired with my cereal that morning so I just
blamed it on that and nobody was offended.
Hopefully that gives you a small taste of how awesome
my life is. I honestly love it. Especially the crazy stuff. It's way
more fun when things are out of control.
Probably
funniest moment of the whole week was the day that I threw up dinnerThat
day was out of control. Get up in the morning eat cereal and realize
while I am eating my milk was a couple days expired finish the cereal
anyways. I had my first district meeting that morning then we went out
and got Pizza afterwards (paid for by the member whose car we got out
the night before who wanted to take us for dinner after but couldn't
because we had an appointment so he gave us some cash and told us hed
get really offended if we refused to take it) We went home and right as
we went to go out teaching Elder Hernandez realizes he lost the phone.
We assumed we left it up at the other missionaries' apartment its the
last day of the month and even though we have been smart with our miles
we don't have enough to go up and get the phone. We're supposed to meet
Little Rock English at walmart so they can come to our dinner
appointment because its with single ladies and we cant go in with just
two. We teach a little bit in the afternoon go to walmart and go in
because elder Hernandez needs to use the bathroom and buy some sheet
protectors. We come out of walmart somehow we luckily found the other
missionaries parked in the huge walmart parking lot even though we
didn't have our phonewe all get in our car and drive a few miles to the
dinner appointment. I stuff myself and throw up dinner outside. I feel
pretty crappy afterwards and don't really want to drive. Elder Hernandez
doesn't have a license and one of the little rock elders cant drive
either. So we are down to one driver and two cars hahaha. So they drop
us off at home and then go leave our car at walmart and take their car
out to work the rest of the night while I slept off the stomach
sickness. And then they get home too late for us to pick up our car
(they live in the same apt complex as us) So our car has to spend the
night at walmart end of the night elder hernandez finds our phone in the
couch where it fell out of his pocket. 10:28 ish we both kneel down to
pray before we go to sleep for the night and I say " today was a pretty
weird day. I wonder what the Lord wanted us to learn today" and elder
Hernandez being completely serious goes "well, probably that like we
shouldn't drink expired milk" I just straight lost it for a couple solid
minutes. It was sooo funny
Anyways, I didn't really like memorizing scriptures at
first all that much I just like knowing what they said and where they
were but in the past two weeks its become my obsession. And you get
better at it the more you do it. So I have just been memorizing lots of
scriptures and its really fun. Then I just say them all in my head all
day and brain doesn't have time to get distracted and think about
useless junk or home or college or Frisbee or whatever else.
So CHALLENGE of the week is for whoever wants to accept
is to start memorizing scriptures. Maybe do one verse a week or ever
two weeks or whatever you have time for. They can be long or short and
then test each other on them and stuff. It's super fun. You can accept
if you want just let me know what you decided to memorize if you decide
to do it and I'll memorize it too or something. I promise you'll be
surprised how frequently you'll later be doing something and that verse
will come back into your mind and teach you a principle or help you make
a decision.
On a spiritual note this week and I don't really know
why but my testimony was tried harder that it has ever been. We met a
really sincere lady that had studied with the missionaries and read most
of the book of Mormon and never really felt like she got ant was kind
answer about it. I felt sad it was kind of hard. But after a little
prayer and scripture memorizing and probably more importantly obedience
to the commandments in the moments of most difficult temptation I feel
that I now know more than I ever have that it's true. It is all true.
Jesus is the Christ, Joseph is his prophet, the Book of Mormon contains
God's very words. It's not something that just makes sense or sounds
nice. It is something I know. I've never seen Jesus I've never had a
vision, and I cant even think of a time I have had a crazy spiritual
prompting but I have felt the still small voice that speaks to me not
with words but with feelings. So I bear you my witness that I know and
that it's true.
I love you all and hope your weeks are wonderful.
Elder Davidson
PS
Listened to an eight lecture series by Truman G Madsen on the prophet
Joseph Smith. If you ever get a chance to listen to it do it. It was
awesome. I think its published by deseret or something.
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