The One With a Plea and Extermination Role Plays

This has been quite a week. It's been pretty rough again. I feel like when I got to Albemarle I hit a wall. And no matter how hard I push against it it doesn't move. But the thing that I'm learning is that what I'm supposed to do is push. It doesn't matter if the wall is there or not, I can't control that. But what I can do is push. I think that's true for a lot of things in life. We all have walls that come up in our lives, I think the scriptural term is "stumbling block", and most of the time we don't control if they are there. What we do is press on. Grit our teeth and bear it. To borrow from a story an apostle told about what a swimmer said the key to his success was, "Kick when you don't feel like kicking, and stroke when you don't feel like stroking." Eventually, through our own determination, or if the Lord feels our patience has been adequately tested, we can move forward. 

Now please forgive my disgustingly introspective existentialist first paragraph but bear with me as I say one more thing on a serious note, then I'll get onto the stuff you actually want to here about. 

At our mission conference a week ago I learned some pretty startling things. Apparently, the church out west has been going through some rocky patches. I'm not sure if it has spread to Canada but I feel the need to issue a plea. We were told that some members of the church, in an increasing amount, are doing "research" (the quotations are used to make that seem sarcastic) on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. To put it bluntly, there are numerous members of the church who are actively seeking out and reading anti-Mormon literature. They feel that they are uncovering "truth" about the history of the church, Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon that disproves its truthfulness. This is idiocy! Why would you question what you know to be true! Why would you go looking for things that there sole purpose is to destroy your testimony! Why would you expose yourself to something that is contrary to your beliefs! We simply don't do that. Now let me be clear, I am not saying that it is unhealthy to have questions or concerns but the point is we find our answers in a better way. I'm going to make a comparison, and I just came up with this on the spot so don't judge it. A woman's daughter comes inside with a scratch on her arm. The woman doesn't know how to treat it so she kills her daughter. My friends and family, please don't let one thing you don't understand destroy everything you do understand. I urge you to read from, study, ponder and pray about the Book of Mormon every single day. I love the Book of Mormon with all my heart, I feel blessed to be able to read it every single day. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, was he perfect, absolutely not, but that doesn't change the fact he was a prophet. 

Now that my rant is over on to my week. I hope I didn't offend anyone with my boldness but I felt inspired to talk about it so I did. 

So this was fairly uneventful. We had a mission conference on Tuesday that was great. We had a lenoirganton reunion over lunch so I got to see all my friends again. President and Sister Craven are wonderful and I learned so much. It must be pretty amazing to be an assistant and be around them all the time. It would probably freak me out a little though. 

As far as missionary work goes this week we didn't see much success. A lot of people we tried to see weren't home. And we talked with dozens and dozens of very not interested people. But oh well. We tried. 

We did make brownies this week. Only we had a bit of a predicament. We had mixed most of the this together but when we got to the vegetable oil we realized there was none in our apartment. Plus it was around 9:45 so there was no way to get some from the other elders. So we got desperate. What we ended up doing was taking our can of aerosol canola oil spray and spraying it into a 3/4 cup measuring cup until it got full. It worked surprisingly well and the brownies actually taste good. 

We also had some wonderful experiences with the North Carolinian wildlife. We came home one day to a large wasp nest right outside our door. So the next morning we decided to take action. Armed with a shoe horn and a camera we set off to work. I sat in the the car recording like the chicken I am while Elder Ashcroft waited to pounce. After mustering enough courage and with a getaway route in place he crushed the nests and the wasps in one fell swoop. And them almost tripped down the stairs as he rushed to the car to safety. 

I would report on people we are teaching but, as usual, no one has kept a return appointment. 

Well I hope everyone has a good week. Know that I love you!

Elder Galvin