March 18, 2012

My St. Patrick's Day was pretty cool down here! You know why? Because it was raining! The whole day! And we were biking it in the rain most of the day! I think that this was the first time that I have actually biked in the rain sense I've been on my mission. But ya, it was super sweet. We were pretty cold all day long, and really, really wet. Today is really nice though! It's back up to our nice lower 70's with no clouds.

Even with the rain, we have had an awesome week! We taught more people in the first 3 days last week than any other full week that i've been here in carlsbad. Things are really starting to pick up! We have recently had some pretty sweet miracles this past week that I would like to share with you guys.

Sense I've been here, we have been trying to go by all of the perspective elders. This one guy we tried by was not home, but there were people outside of his house that we talked to that just blew us off. They were moving stuff too, so we guessed that the guy that were were trying to see had moved.

 Well, yesterday we went by just to make sure. We knocked on the door, and some guy answered the door. We asked for the perspective elders name. He told us he was gone. Then there was a short pause and he said, " Wait, are you guys JW's or mormons?" We said that we were mormons. He said, " O.... Ok, sweet! Well come on in, this will be cool!" As he said this, both elder soderburg and I instantly thought, "basher!!" And we really did not want to bash.

So we went in, and he called to someone in the back and told him that his "brothers" where here. The guy in the back walked out, and instantly he was super, super excited about something! We just looked at the guy and saw that he was tall, and had tattoos all over his body. The thoughts that ran through my head were these.

"O, crap! He is totally a basher and he looks like he is going to eat us!!! This is not good! How do I get out of here... Well, I can't... This is not going to be fun..."

The super tattooed guys asks us to sit down and begins to tell us how he has just been baptized and confermed. I thought, " Great, so is it born again, JW, what? You've just been baptized and you want to show your awesomeness by bashing." He kept on talking and happened to mention that he had just recived his Patriaricle Blessing... That stoped me dead in my tracks.

So it turns out that he is a super active, convert of just over a year, newly moved in/ homeless, member that had been really in need of meeting with someone from the church to talk to. He acutally had been praying for some help that day, and then we showed up. To make a long story short, we are teaching him tomorrow, we picked up his friend as a new investigator, and they both are about the coolest people I have ever met!

 _Elder Snedaker