Elder Taylor Ray: The Final Countdown

Last Monday we had a great zone activity. Everyone loved it and it was pretty popular, even the fire department come out for it....

So as I was helping set up and turning on the fog machines, I asked some other missionaries if they thought it would set off the alarm. They said no that the smoke detector was smart enough to distinguish between smoke and fog well not even 30 seconds later the alarms were flashing and blaring. We opened the doors and blew most of it away before the largest ladder truck I've ever seen arrived. We explained to the firemen and they just said "yup, that will do it." They were really nice and before they left a few of us snapped a picture in front of the truck. Lesson learned- disable the alarm before you use a fog machine. But we still played laser tag, just with no fog.

Tuesday we had District meeting at the Orgills home and Sister Orgill was with us. It was a great meeting and she loved the story of the false alarm. So we updated the mission blog with the pictures. Afterwards we went to our investigators restaurant for lunch and taught him with a member.

Elder King had to leave Wednesday for the mission choir so me and Elder Thayer just stopped by a lot of less-actives and went to a "bible study" called Alpha. The missionaries in the area have been going every week for some time, it’s put on by a group of Christian from all different faiths to learn more about the Bible, God, Jesus (though if you ask them they are the same person, but don't ask them to explain how...they can't.) It’s actually really nice and I'm happy to see there are still lots of people who are excited about religion although there is a LOT of false doctrine tossed around and we do our best to be peaceable about it, and in turn they are nice to us as well.

We had a great week though following all that. Something that has really stuck out to me or at least I have learned has been with some of our old "stale" investigators. Ones who just weren't progressing or seemed to not be interested with the message anymore. Though records were filled out for them and many missionaries said what they had been taught in the past; after teaching some basics again we discovered a few key points were missed or not learned with old investigators, not anyone’s fault just something overlooked. Now a couple of our investigators are progressing like never before because they learned more about either baptism, Joseph Smith, or the Book of Mormon. I feel that in my life at time to time, I gaze over basics and then farther down the line I get lost, but by a bit of back stepping and study I find myself again.

In other news we got transfer calls. I'm staying (though we all figured that) Elder Thayer is going, but King will stay with me, maybe we will get a 3rd companion again, but we won't know until tomorrow at transfer meeting. The ones transferring only know they are leaving, not where they are going or their new companions. I am happy to finish up here because I love this place so much and couldn’t be happier with things or maybe I could and that will keep me working, right? “Never satisfied” was the motto in football. I think of what ol' cowboys always say. "I want to die with my boots on."

Much Love,

Elder Steven T Ray