Water and Hearts: Two Things That Turn Hard When Cold

(Just so you know, the following is full of sarcasm which I find as my comedic way of expressing myself and should not be actually considered as me being that upset about the events that occurred. I hope you all can see the humor as I do!)

Hello Everybody!
We had an ice storm this past week.
I hate Ice.
I really do.
I enjoy being able to stand in one spot and not move, fall, correct my balance repeatedly, or dread my own existence. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know.
Ice Storms, or freezing rain or whatever you want to call these evidences that satan exists, are things where it rains (that's the good part, and that should never be the good part of a situation) but then it freezes solid over everything: buildings, cars, stray pets, my enthusiasm, the sidewalk...everything. It makes everything look beautiful.
But so does fire and you don't see me asking for THAT to cover Knoxville.
Point is, the freezing rain came this past wednesday and, after attempting to Day-After-Tomorrow-ize Iowa, caused President Talbot to send out the call that all cars were grounded. After a few minutes of walking I quickly realized it was much more hazardous on the inch or so of ice on the sidewalks than the little bit of slush on the cleared-off roadways. We walked over an hour to our service place (The Rec Center. Home to Knoxville's Pool, which acts like a bar would to a recovering alcoholic. But all I can do is stare) to do about ten minutes of service. Since we had walked all that way I made sure we went the little bit further to get some Subway for lunch. On our way home we stopped by Ray's house and helped him with his sidewalk. He had fallen pretty hard earlier that day while out moving his car. While laying on the pavement he offered a quick prayer for help and right before hitting his lifeline button he looked up to see Brother Cupples, his friend from the Branch and the man who had baptized him, walking up. Brother Cupples usually didn't drive that way through town but had felt a prompting to do so that day. He helped him back into his house and then had called us to stop by to help him clear off his walk. Moral: Prayer Works, and follow promptings.

After shuffling back to our apartment, I called up president and told him what the road vs. sidewalk conditions were like and he allowed us to drive, which I was grateful for. Later as we were walking back to our car after tracting (and finding a pretty cool former!) I slipped on the ice pretty bad. I was pretty much done with the ice after that. My companion, however, is from Oregon and finds the ice exciting and interesting and loves walking on it and crushing it and all that. I was meant to be IN the water, not ON TOP of it. As faithless as that might sound to Peter....

This week was pretty good, despite my little tirade about the weather (still not a fan of it. I miss Washington Winters - AKA normal rain). We went on exchanges with the zone leaders! I went to a neighboring area that we are covering right now because it is currently closed to missionaries with Elder Winfield, who had actually served there with Elder McConnel. It was a fun exchange, but we learned quickly how lame it is to do work in an area we can't access so easily. We tried to visit old formers that he had taught. One was in bed on pain meds because a deck had fallen on her during the ice storm. Another was an awesome one that went to church and everything but was unwilling to be baptized for no apparent reason and was out of town, despite the fact we had set up an appointment with him. So we met with some Less Actives. One was a mother and her son, which went pretty well until it came time for prayer. Well, the son apparently is atheist, which meant he had to pitch in his 13-or-so-year-old halfwitted opinions and how there was no proof of God, which led to rebuttles by his mother who just went on and on about "visions" she had had that went anywhere from them of Christ on the cross to where to find paintings at what garage sale. After a long time of this and him Elder Winfield and I trying to just end it with the bearing of testimony, I got sick of it. I told him that there was no proof of North Dakota and that I didn't believe in it. He told me I could read a book to find out that it was true. I told him I had a book that did the same thing for God. He told me I could go visit it if I really wanted to. I told him I could go visit God whenever I wanted, but i didn't really want to. I told him to read and pray and ask God if what we said was true. He said he had done that. I told him that I had had to do it over and over again and I had gained my witness not in one go but over time. I also told him I had once been as angry of a kid as him but because I know for myself now that there is truly a God and that He loves me and that these things are true, I'm very happy. And even if it isn't true, at least I'm happier because of it, and that makes my life worth it. At that point, before his mother or him could say anything else, I told Elder Winfield to say the prayer and then got out of there. I don't know if that was led by the Spirit, but I didn't feel bad about it like I usually do when i do stuff because I'm just angry, and either way it shut him up and left him with something to think about. I also don't know if that's all I said, I wouldn't be surprised if there was more. I do remember saying earlier, though, how ridiculous it was of him to try to dispute my testimony (I wanted to say something more demeaning then ridiculous, I was so exasperated by the situation, but I think the Spirit constrained me....). We went on to other Less Actives but they, for the most part, were even less effective. We even tracted a little, but what can you say when you don't know when or if you'll be able to come back and you don't have much time? I mostly just invited people to visit the website on the back of the passalong cards and call for the Finding Faith in Christ DVDs. So, it wasn't exactly the most productive of exchanges, but we did the best with what we had....

Ray was confirmed on Sunday!...Yesterday! That was awesome to see and participate in. He's going to make an awesome member, that's for sure.

I also met our other baptismal date this week. His name's Jacob and he's an awesome 18-year-old from, get this, Nauvoo, IL. Yup! The thing about those church historic parts of the country is that people are either LDS or hate us. So, his family's sort of anti-LDS (and I don't mean in the Anti-Nephi-Lehi sort of way....). But he's still on for baptism! He's apparently been looking into the church since early on in high school (he's now in college in Pella [home of Pella Corp., which makes storm doors. So if you ever see Pella written on a storm door, that's in my area!] at Central College) and has even taken part in the Pageant. He's way solid and we basically just taught the lesson by asking him questions and having him teach it. THOSE are the best lessons. Not only do I not have to explain it, but you get to see just how solid your investigators are.

We also picked up a new investigator last sunday who we met up with yesterday and is doing great. She's an old former from years and years ago who almost got baptized but didn't due to some concerns she had. Now, however, we've been able to help her overcome those concerns. AND she sees a need for baptism! She's awesome and I feel good about how far she'll go.

That's about it in the news. Sorry I wrote so much, I just checked the clock and realized that I've gone over my hour for this.... Oh well, I get kind of sick of writing the same old "This Is What We Did This Week" sort of format and wanted to try having some fun with it. Guess I'll have to cut it down next time.... Hope it was as fun to read as it was to write!

Love,
Elder Gates

30+...Shorts and T-Shirt Weather

Just so you know, yes, in fact, I am wearing a T-Shirt and Shorts. We're going to play Racquetball in a bit and it feels good. I just have to throw on a jacket and it's perfectly comfortable. Think i'm crazy all you want it feels great!

Yesterday Brother Rayburn was baptized!! They put in a new water heater that is apparently able to never run out of hot water. It's about the size of a big computer tower and was able to make the water nice and comfortable for the baptism. It was an awesome experience to finally see a baptism in one of my areas, even if I had very little to do with him coming to it. I almost feel like we have very little to do with this work, in the grand scheme of things. We're just tools in the Lord's hands...I think I finally see what that means, since it has a lot more to do with the spirit and the people's willingness to listen and commit. We just have to make sure we, as tools, work right. Anyway, rambling, the baptism is unlike one I've seen yet. You see, the person who did the baptism is a great man who can't exactly move very well either, and they ended up both falling in.... But, it counted, and Ray felt so good and clean.

We've been doing so much tracting it's not even funny. We have a lot of return appointments, I just hope most of them pan into something. We also had a great person we knocked into yesterday who had met with missionaries before and had almost been baptized. She also recognized that we weren't there by accident, which I recognized as well, since I had definitely felt like we should knock that apartment complex. Tracting is also a good way to get a lot of weird stories, but I don't even know where to begin there. From someone that lets you in just so you can realize that he's an inactive with schizophrenia who rambles on forever about conspiracies and the holy ghost getting a body to people that yell at you for knocking on your door, but don't accept you kindly leaving either. And that was in the same small apartment complex.

We're also being able to get back in contact with our other baptismal date who's been down in Nauvoo with his family and in Mexico on a trip so lessons should be starting back up with him soon. Also, we've been able to get back in with another great investigator who is pretty solid.

All is well here.
Elder Gates

Knocking in Knoxville... Knocksvilling?

Hello,

So, remember that baptism that was supposed to happen yesterday? Yep, no go on that one. But that's only because the water heater was broken, again [FPEO: Dad, now I can see why you love the FM Group so much ;)], so it has been put off until next sunday. We didn't think putting a 79-year-old man into ice-cold water was a good idea. But Marissa's baptism back in Yankton went through! I called up Elder McConnel last night and it sounds like everything went really well. I wish I could have been there for it, but as Elder McConnel told me, it counts as "my baptism" (I always feel weird "tallying up" people's choice to take the first big step towards eternal life. It makes me feel like some fighter pilot with markings on the side of his jet....) as much as anybody else's. I still wish I could have been there for it, though.

We had zone conference this past week. It was all about planning. It was a good zone conference, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go home and have no idea what to do with myself. I'll keep reaching into my back pocket for my planner to see what I should be doing and end up planning out the next day every night and the next week every friday morning. I'll be such a bigger geek than I already am.

The temperature's warming up. It's supposed to hit FORTIES this week. That's pertinear T-Shirt and Shorts weather! The snow's started to melt some from the heat wave. You might think that's a good thing. That's a very bad thing. Snow turns into water which turns into ice on the road. And Elder Havice is from Eugene, OR and has never dealt with weather anywhere close to this.

We've picked up some cool new investigators this past week. One is this man who we now realize has some big problems with short term memory loss so teaching him might be pretty dang tough. There is also this media referral who is an awesome little lady who loves to comment on everything (which is so different than most people, who just sit there as robots nodding their heads if you don't ask them enough questions. I like it so much more when they will actually just ask you questions or comment back). And then there's this lady we knocked into who already knows that we lived with God before this life and that apparently there's some Ancient American saying that is nearly exactly like one of the Psalms (hmmm...I wonder why?). She seems great.

Well, that's about it. I can't believe Brother May passed away! It's good that he's no longer suffering, but it's so weird to think that he's gone.... At least we know that all will be well with him.

Elder Gates

New Decade, New Area

Good morning, family, friends, and fans!
I'm now in the great city of Knoxville, Iowa. Population: 7,000. World Capitol of Sprint Car Racing. Strangely enough, it's not the largest town in my area. That honor would be reserved for Pella, a town the size of Yankton that is sort of the Leavenworth of Iowa, just Dutch instead of Bovarian. It's an interesting area, for sure, and the first time yet I haven't been on the outskirts of the mission. My area is also much, much smaller and much, much easier to explain the boundaries of: It's just Marion County. We're about an hour from Des Moines. I'm now companions with Elder Bill Havice from Eugene, OR. He's an interesting character but definitely seems like an awesome missionary. The weather is much more mild here, they got a lot less snow from the blizzard, but it's been quite cold lately. Which has made it perfect weather for us to do the amount of tracting we've done! <--(sarcasm) When people say "It's too cold for you to be out!" I just want to reply with "So then let us in." I especially love the good natured people that decide to inform us that it's cold outside. "Really?? Holy crap I had no clue!! Thank goodness you told me, I could have made the mistake of freezing my butt off knocking on doors!" Too bad I'm a nice person. There have been a few people, though, that have let us in, which was very nice of them. Some Community of Christ people let us in for hot chocolate and cookies. They nearly gave us coffee but they remembered we don't drink it.
And while I left Yankton's baptismal date for this coming saturday, I seem to have fallen into another one for the same saturday! Way cool. There's also another baptismal date and also another progressing. This definitely seems like a good area, and I'm stoked to be here. The members here are legendary for being awesome, which is perfect. I should hopefully be here for a normal amount of time. We'll see.

Elder Charlie Gates