Wow! I would start off by saying the things that have happened since last week, but I think the better statement is what HASN’T happened since last week.
5: Who egged our house? We came home to our apartment after going out for a bit and saw a pigeon perched upon our porch light. Later after we came back from tracting, we saw that this bird had laid an egg, and there was quite a splatter and mess made on our porch. Stupid bird.
4: Elder Line, you better stop that coughing or I’m calling the police! Elder Line started to not feel good, so we chalked it up to a regular old cold. Well, he still wasn’t feeling the best by the next day. Starting to get worried, we called our mission nurse, and she said to get some rest and take some medicine. Problem is, all the shelves are clear of medicine as well as toilet paper. After a couple of days though, he was fine. It really was just a cold.
3: It’s not like we infected anyone, we haven’t seen anyone! On Wednesday we were instructed that we should not go tracting. Okay, that’s cool, we just had a good conversation with this guy named Billy earlier that day, so we got to do some missionary work. We then came to the church and did some stuff with the bishop, so that was a pretty good day. Well, as the week progressed, we were told that we couldn’t go to investigator’s homes, and then members homes. Yeah. It’s starting to get wack. We can still leave the apartment, and go shopping, but for the most part the only face to face contact we have with people is by walking around. You know, with everyone staying home from work, people have decided that it’s really nice to go on walks, and enjoy the early spring air. So we see lots more people out and about than we did previously. That’s good, plenty to talk to.
2: So, what else do we do with our time? Well one of the things that I’ve capitalized on is the extra time we have to work out. I’ve been going HARD, doing a full workout twice a day. When Imma get home I’ll be massive! Another thing that we can do with our time is extra studies! I may get through the Old Testament for the first time ever! But that’s not really missionary work is it? The other things that we’ll be doing is contacting people on Facebook, or use whitepages to call random homes, etc. We’ve seen some success in the zone, but Elder Line and I haven’t seen any personally.
1: Let’s address the title By telling you a story. Last week, we got the news that missionaries over 20 months had the choice to go home. I thought; “Oh no, I won’t take that, I’ve only got 12 weeks left, it’s fine.” But when I told Mom that, she said something that stuck to me. “Have you asked the Lord?” As soon as she said that, I had the end of Jacob 4:8 came to mind. “Despise not the revelations of God” As soon as I knew that I knew that I had to ask. Even if I wasn’t going to like the answer. So that night I asked the Lord, and told him that I would accept his answer, but was told that I wouldn’t receive an answer immediately. The next morning, I studied my partirachical blessing, and while I was praying, I got my answer. I was to return home. Dang. So close to the end of a natural mission. Oh well, despise not the revelations of God right? Shortly after that experience we went to do service for a food pantry, halfway through that we got a call from our mission president. Never a good sign. We told him that we could call him in 10-20 minutes. That ride back to our place was stressful, then he said he wanted to video chat. That was a stressful walk to the church. President then informed me that I no longer had a choice, and will be going home at the end of this transfer. Pretty funny right? I had received my answer when I was ready for it. When I had humbled myself to accept the Lord’s will, then was I permitted to receive it. So yeah, I’ll be coming home on April 22nd.
Crazy. Actually, I might go crazy by the end of this transfer, cause we can’t even meet with other missionaries, except to buy groceries. Even then, we can’t go into the store together. It’s all wack out there, but the hand of the Lord will steady us if we let him.
Ya Boi
Elder James Berky
