Family!
In the past few months our mission has done a 180 as far as logistics. The newest change involves the way we find out our transfers. Used to be that we would get a phone call Monday morning telling us whether we were being transferred or not. Tuesday, depending on the previous night's phone call, we would either pack-up and head to transfer conference or continue to work in our areas, respectively. We would not, however, know the details of our next transfer, i.e., companion, area, assignment, etc. This has all been changed. Now we receive a letter in the mail on Monday detailing our next transfer. It explains whether we are staying or going and who our new companion, area, and assignment will be. Today I received my first letter of this kind. I am being transferred!!!! I'm going to the south-west part of our mission here in Las Vegas to a town called Warm Springs! I'm excited for change and new things but I am sad to leave the families here I have come to love, admire, and respect. When I first came to this area I searched for the purpose of me having that assignment in that area. Quickly I realized that as I invited others to Christ I was put there to learn how to interact, work, and relate, with members of the church and their missionary work. I have learned some valuable things and will leave this area with no regrets.
I have the chance to come back next Saturday as well. Shannon's kids will be baptized then. It has been a struggle for the past 2 months in terms of their baptism. Like I told you before their house holds 6 kids and her and her husband are younger than 30. The 6 kids come from each of their previous marriages thus our struggle as of late has been receiving consent form the biological father with whom Shannon shares joint custody of the kids. He has been closed during all of this but Shannon's faith and the faith of her kids is immense!! After a conversation with President Neider they were able to come up with some things to apply and the next day the father consented!!!!! We were ecstatic to say the least!
I ran into former Sister May. She served in Ft. Lauderdale with Joe. So if you could please pass the word along that Sister May says hello and that he was a wonderful missionary!!! It is such a small world out here!
To close I want to share with you all an experience that strengthened my testimony that many people are waiting, willing, and ready to listen to the message of the restoration. Like I said in my last letter, things have been slow here in our area as of late. For a while, rejection was all we received as we talked to everyone we saw. My entire mission rejection has been something with which I have easily coped but for whatever reason I have not coped so well these past few months. As a result I hesitated to talk to many people here in our area that we saw on the streets. But here and there I would step out of my comfort zone and strike up a conversation keeping in mind that when they reject my approach they are rejecting Christ. Passing the buck to Him helped me, knowing He could handle it better than I. Needless to say discouragement set on to the effect that I began to believe that there were no people in this square mile we cover who were willing to listen. I had forgotten about an area 40 min. south of us that we covered in our Singles Ward, Searchlight. Birthplace of Harry Reid, and if he goes back it would become his death place, too. We took two other missionaries with us who cover that area in their family ward, Elder Ermakov and Elder Kynaston. Elder Ermakov is one of my closest friends here in the mission. He is a Russian convert who is a few years older than I and attended the U!!! We left one night with enough time to do about 1 hour of work before the sun set. We did not want to be in this town which at first glance looks like a scene of some horror film depicting a traveling family and their follies. You know, one of those wrong place, wrong time, wrong town flicks. We have been there once before so our first stop was to follow-up with some of the people we talked to last time. Nothing came of it as we divided and conquered. So we regrouped and headed for a park where a group of teenagers played hacky-sack and a family BBQ'd. We rock-paper-scissored to see who would talk to the teenagers. Elder Ermakov lost after showing the same as me twice in a row. Ultimately it was my rock that beat his scissors. As they headed for the local teenagers we saw a lady walking on the street and approached her. She was sweet and receptive but then her cynical, anti-mormon boy friend joined us. They were both in their 50s. He cracked some polygamy jokes and claimed he and she were beyond saving. We offered a card and got the heck out of dodge as we felt an odd feeling about them. We regrouped again and the elders told us the teenagers were local members of a world-wide gang called The Insane Clown Posse. They refer to themselves as Jugalows. All it is is a white persons attempt at a gang. They sport tattoos of running clowns holding cleavers and are verbally threatening at best. Still I would never challenge one. They told the Elders to let them know if anyone gave them trouble and they would take care of them. Elder Ermakov described the feeling he had as he spoke with the kids about their daily activities. He said he sensed something off with them. His senses were confirmed when one boy told him he attends school and plays sports and the next boy said, quite nonchalantly, "I do meth." What????!?!?!?!?! They got the heck out of dodge too. In a loving way of course. We then headed for the next street up and agreed to each take one side a tract down it. At this point we only had about 20 minutes of sunlight left. However, neither one of our companionships made it past our first doors. A lady sat in her lawn chair outside of her 5th wheel that sat next to a double-wide. As she sipped her can of coke we introduced ourselves. With what seemed like obligatory respect she stood up form her chair and walked towards us. She looked exhausted. We shook hand and began chatting. What seemed like obligation before turned into what I would deem 'small-town hospitality.' She opened up to us about her situation and explained she is taking care of a dear friend on hospice. She does not expect her to live for much longer. As she spoke I felt impressed to share with her the message of the restoration and how that included the Restoration of the priesthood with which Christ and his apostles healed and comforted others. In as plain language as I could gather, I explained this to her and invited her to ask her friend if she would like a blessing of this magnitude. She said she would ask and made her way inside. After a tense 7 minutes she reappeared and waited until she was a few feet in front of us to let us know her friend would greatly appreciate a blessing. We expressed our excitement and signaled to the other Elders to come and participate and the lady recieved the blessing well and with tears in her eyes she thanked us. Before the Elders came over though, they had some success of their own. They were able to share the same message focusing on Christ and offer a blessing on the home across the street. Both families agreed to have us back in a few days. The simple truth is that had we not gone their that day we would not have had those experiences. And moreover, had we not gone their with faith that there were others ready to hear and listen our experiences would not have occured either. WIth that in mind we came back to our area and the next day I decided to think differently. As we drove to our dinner after being in church from 8-5 we noticed a lady outside pulling her weeds. Mind you, it is 5:00 and 100 degrees outside, needless to say our hearts went out to her. So instead of passing and taking in another deep breath of our A/C we pulled over and began helping her. She was accepting and chatted with us. As it turns out she is a refugee from the Warren Jepps ordeal. That led to some interesting conversation. For obvious reasons she told us up front that she was done with organized religion. I don't blame her. But still we tried to help her understand that it is not an organization we invite others to join, rather, to be numbered among those who will recieve the blessings of the Atonement. In more laymens terms than that we bore our testimonies to her, yet she accepted no return appointment, only a card. However we left that conversation with our heads held high knowing we had planted a seed and testified strongly of our Savior. That feels good.
I love missionary work! I love the tag, the shirts, the pants, and the conversations and conversions. I love my life!!! There should be a website called ilovemylife.com if there isn't one already!!!
Love,
Elder Cronin
 |
| Perhaps a new missionary car? or just a reminder to Mom that Elder Cronin's birthday is coming up!!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment