LIKE THE BAPTISTS?

March 3, 2011 Thursday

This morning we did some tracting on a street we started the other day. We had prayed that we might be guided to a street where there was someone who would receive our message. We chose a page in the map book in our area, selected a suburb and then independently chose a street. We had both chosen the same street so that’s where we started. Our first day on that street didn’t yield anything, but today we ran into a young man named Michael. He listened with an intensity we’ve never seen anyone listen with before. He said he couldn’t follow up with us immediately, but accepted the reading material we gave him. We both feel like he is the one we were sent to find. It was a neat experience.
This afternoon we visited Lori Manning in the nursing home. She is just the neatest lady. We took her a new pair of slippers and you’d have thought we’d given her the moon. She was so excited. (The ones she wore last time we were there were so worn out you could see all her toes in them.) But we’d bought the wrong size. So we’ll return them and get a size smaller. We had taken our family calendar to show her our family. We only got through 4 of the kids because she kept interrupting to comment (write) about something she was reminded of during her life. She then fed us water and cookies she keeps in her room for visitors. She assured us that the cookies weren’t out of date. We then took pictures; she’d told us to bring our camera this time because she loves to have her picture taken with missionaries.
We went to look up a few inactives. The last one we went to was a family with 7 children. Only the father is a member. He wasn’t there when we got there, but the wife commented they’d gone to church at Christmas time. She’d liked it but she said her husband, James, said he didn’t want to give up his smoking and drinking. We were still there when he arrived home. He wasn’t what you would call super friendly, but as we talked he invited us in where it was cooler. He asked her if she wanted to go to church and she threw it back to him. Finally he agreed they would come to church this Sunday. Just before we left, she commented that it was strange that we would turn up just after they’d been through a trauma in the family. They didn’t say what it was, but we had learned that the oldest son, 17, had recently moved out. James said maybe it was time for a change. He was baptized 20 years ago and been inactive almost that long.
Tonight we visited the Tomlinsons again. I asked him what his favorite role in his career was. He said it was in “Kizmet” which isn’t an opera but a musical. He then went through the last scene describing favorite bits and breaking out into song a couple of times. My goodness, what a beautiful baritone voice that man has. The stake patriarch died suddenly of a heart attack on Saturday. Colin has been asked to sing, “The Holy City,” at the funeral. I wish we could be there. I’d love to hear him sing. But since we didn’t know the patriarch even though he’s in our ward, we volunteered to do something behind the scenes so others could attend the funeral. We’ve been asked to stay at the house during the services and help with the food which will be served at the house.
It’s been a good day. But remember Seth whom we taught on a Sunday morning and then he came to church in the afternoon? We called him to follow up, and he told us it reminded him a lot of the Baptist church and that he was too busy to study anymore with us. I don’t know what made me feel worse: saying we were like the Baptists or not wanting to learn anymore.