7-19-23
This week God taught me that He is always teaching me. It doesn't matter what I'm doing or what happens, He's always teaching me exactly what I need. I feel like my eyes have been opened and I can see all these amazing lessons- but it is so hard to keep these eyes open!
One lesson came Thursday evening. We have a member in our ward named Nathan. Nathan has Cerebral Palsy and cannot do anything for himself. He loves power rangers and has posters of Jason David Frank all over his room, along with pictures of prophets and apostles. He has a caretaker named Nick who is Persian and speaks a medium amount of English. We visit Nathan every week to help him out and study scriptures with him (he's the only member in his entire family)
Honestly, going to visit Nathan has not always been my most favorite (it's actually never been my favorite.) I would rather spend time with people who are not members and Indians and Deaf people. He's none of those so naturally I feel like I'm wasting time.
Anyways- usually we go at 12 pm but we couldn't make it till 8ish- no big deal(?)
This is when its time for Nathan to go to bed so without really knowing it we witnessed Nick get Nathan ready for bed. He brushed his teeth, took him out of the chair and put him in bed, changed his clothes, adjusted pillows and tucked him in and . . .everything.
I was feeling uncomfortable, thinking maybe I shouldn't be here. Then I was feeling amazed, amazed at the love in every action of Nick. Everything he did for Nathan was just so powerful to me. It taught me about the atonement. Jesus did something for us we can't do for ourselves. Just like Nick lifts Nathan up and carries him to his bed, Jesus always picks us up- something we are not capable of doing on our own.
I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason God allowed CP to exist was for me to have that experience so I can have a better relationship with my Savior.
Then on Sunday we went to teach our friend Bertrum. We met him a while back and were just trying to visit to find out if he's actually interested and if we can teach him. So we park in the visitors parking at his apartments and go to his place. He's home, invites us in and we all sit on his couch. In my mind I think ok, lets share a scripture and get outta here- he's not interested.
I pull out Alma 13:28-29 and I finish and i hear "teach him the restoration"
This scripture doesn't really go with that so somehow I take it and mold it and force it through. Ok- now I'm teaching the restoration. Easy. I finish and hear "invite him to be baptized" so I'm like no it's ok. Then I heard it again. Ok. So I invited him to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by one who holds the proper priesthood authority to do so.
My brother Bertrum hesitates then says
"Believe it or not, I was already baptized in the Mormon Church many years ago" I have no clue how old he is or how long ago 'many years' could have been because you know 'Black don't Crack' brother could be 32 or 75 idk.
So I'm like …….what?
He talks about bishops and wards and all this vernacular you basically only know if you're a member. So that was epic. We're gonna help him come back.
Then we went back to our car except that- all that left was a Pringle I swept out of the car before we got out. The. Car. Is. Not. There.
Some locals yell out to us and explain it was towed literally 1 minute ago.
Why? This is clearly visitor parking! Why did we get towed? Why did I feel to stretch Bertrum's lesson? If we woulda got out earlier we could have prevented it! But no, I was instructed clearly to keep going.
So we lost the car, but we found a sheep.
We called our vehicle coordinator and he was super nice. Then he dropped the oof: it's gonna be a lot of money and we gadda pay.
However- no worries at all because I pay my tithing and I have faith that no matter what happens I'm gonna be ok.
So we walk a bunch and eventually the day is over.
Monday we got the car and Elder Killpack, the vehicle coordinator, helped everything happen.
God used this to teach me alot about "Restitution" in the context of repentance. I have been pondering alot about Restitution. If you steal- you give it back. It makes sense that way but what about other sins? What about addictions like pornography and drugs? How would you practice Restitution with those? That has been the question I want to understand. When we had to pay for the car I felt fine. I actually felt great. On the entire drive back to our area I was learning about Restitution, why God wants us to "restore" what we messed up and what it does for us. Repentance is so much more than praying and asking God to forgive you. The more I learn the more I think really "Repentance" is the "discipleship lifestyle"
I'm still learning from that experience now as I write it. There's only so much that I can express to you through Email but I'm trying my best lol.
Tuesday night we met with a neat indian man named Sunny and the whole time he was saying things like "come on Owens, keep going i wanna hear the rest" and "ok what's next Owens" and at the end "if you say it I'll believe it" it was hilarious and humbling all at once. I realized it was up to me to make sure he learns everything right lol. It's up to me to make sure the spirit is there. I must do all I can to make every lesson the best lesson ever. He also let me practice the first vision in Hindi and said I was doing perfectly! That was not humbling at all- it was the opposite. I'll send a video later of me reading it in the album or something
The next day Elder Holladay and I went on another Hindi Exchange, sadly not as incredible. I think God was teaching us "Ok, you can do this but just to let you know- it will be really hard. You will need to practice every day, you will have to completely reinvent how you find people, it's gonna be hard."
Because essentially nobody was interested in talking to us this time. Usually I can find a few Indians normally- but this was the most equipped missionaries for Indian finding in the mission, maybe in California, maybe in all of America. And we weren't able to do much lol.
We still want to get it going anyways.
Biggest take-away: God is always teaching me. I just need to open my eyes and try hard to learn.
Love you all so very much. I hope you will do all you can to learn from God. I know He's trying to teach you.
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