"Pit"..."Pat"....."PIT!"....."PAT!"...As the rain started to fall harder and harder, we looked out the window and into the dark sky seeing the clouds gathering for what looked like another stormy night. We were cruising down the 154 and had just gotten a call from our previously set appointment, letting us know that they're going to have to reschedule. Well there goes the possibility of a new investigator...again.
So, as we were driving and trying to decide where we were going to knock and find our new investigators, we passed by the 'Wash-A-Minit' Lavanderia. It's a spot that we always pass by and a very popular location for all of our Spanish speaking homies which provides a lot of potential. But this time the conditions were a little different than expected. Instead of the normal group of hispanics we find there, we saw foggy windows and a couple that was getting...friendly. At first we decided we'll just let them be and avoid our idea to contact, but then we remembered our role as representatives of Jesus Christ. We remembered that not only do we teach the Lord's commandments, but that we can use a little bit of authority in enforcing them. So we had the bright idea to flip a U on the 154 and we headed straight back as I whipped a 'Law Of Chastity' Pamphlet. We cruised right on in there, as professional as possible, and introduced ourselves as Representatives of Jesus Christ's Church. It was super awesome as we began to chat with them and the girl was super nice...but the look on the dude's face was absolutely priceless. He was so disappointed. Yup. Sorry pal. We're keeping Gilmer righteous! After talking with them briefly, we just told them that we wanted to share a little bit about what the Lord expects of them and handed over the Law Of Chastity pamphlet, said goodbye and peaced on outta there! As we drove off we saw them reading through it...and now our message to Upshur County...."The Bar Has Been Raised, The Commandments Have Been Set, and If Y’all Try To Break Em, We'll Be There To Stop You!"
If you're still not satisfied with the help and counsel we provide couples, let me inform y’all of another story....
Instead of cruising the 154, this last week we spent some time on the FM 1795, and after a long day of hard work, we started to head back on home. As we were cruising through the backwoods...the real back backwoods, we flew by a wedding reception in the middle of nowhere. If you haven’t noticed, we always seem to get bright ideas that bring us back to some unexpected places where we may be needed. But we figured it might look a little odd if we just drove up and said hi to everyone...so we parked a ways away from them, and then after a little bit of walking, came out of the dark trees with scriptures in our hands and started to contact everyone there. It was another classic "look on their faces" moment. They would start out looking confused, and then look at their drinks, as if to consider all the Beer they had drunk, and finally decide they were done for the night.
It was as we had suspected, a wedding reception, by the world's standards...just a tad late. They had lived together for like 3 years now, were married about 3 months ago, and decided that now was a good time for the reception. Now all they need to do is have a kid in 3 weeks and they can follow the world's 3-3-3 plan (yup Herman Cain wasn't the only one crunching lifestyle numbers.) The groom was by far the coolest guy there, dressed in his best jeans and Wrangler shirt with his beard newly trimmed and what looked like the first time he'd used hair gel in about 10 years. It was fun talking to everyone and randomly becoming members of the party. They loved the idea that we share messages about the importance of the family and we're looking forward to getting this couple baptized!!! For now though, muchos congrats to Brent and Heather, happily married for 3 months already!
Along with our Couple Counseling efforts, we've also become Honorary Members of the FFA this past week as we were able to help Raigan's Family by "Hay Bailing". By now you could say I've lived the country life...I've been Brush Hoggin, Trail-Blazin, Tractor Drivin, Tree Choppin, Brisket BBQin, and Hay Bailin...all I've got left now is shootin and fishin...and I'm still waiting for the mission to approve these activities haha.
So, this past week Raigan gave us a call and told us that her family needed some help with Hay Bailing the square bails because they needed it done ASAP and couldn't find anyone else to help them out. Naturally, we jumped on the project thinking it was going to be the greatest thing in the world, just living the country life! We showed up, just as stoked as could be rockin our cowboy hats and ready to get to work. Raigan's grandpa saw us pass through the gate in our Toyota Corolla. I'm sure he was just thinkin "...Just a couple city slickers..." After we cruised on up he greeted us with his overalls and weathered old farmer hands and explained to us the art of hay bailing. Each bail is about 80 pounds, so you have to flip it over to the side where the twine will hold, grab it by the twine, lifting with your legs, then haul it on into the trailer by forcing it up with your knee...making sure it lands in the trailer in an organized manner...and then repeat the process for all 200 bails of hay.
It was definitely hard work but I'm not gonna lie, for a couple of people from the city and this time being our first, we dominated and got it done way fast. It was fun...until we found out the real reason they needed it done so fast. Apparently, if you leave the square bails out in the field too long, fire ants start to make them their home and begin to breed inside them, which pretty much destroys the possibility of you selling Hay. By about the 20'th bail of Hay, we started to notice that our arms were really itching, and as we looked at them, we saw that we were COVERED with fire ants! We did our best to get them all off, but we'd always feel one bite somewhere and see that we missed a spot and kill that one, followed by another one, and it felt like that during our entire bailing experience. We would flip the hay over and the ones with the most ants were the ones that got loaded the quickest (probably the reason why it got done so fast.) As we got home we got to examine all the bites covering our arms and try to apply something that would work, but we woke up the next day to find that all of them were loaded with puss. It was pretty nasty but easily worth it...because Raigan's super Anti-Mormon family has finally consented to listen to us. In Raigan's own words, her mother is Satan reincarnated...and I'm no genius, but I'm guessing that she'll bring her preacher with her. We're still not sure if she truly does want to meet with us, or is just trying to be nice since we declined the pay for the work we did on their farm, but we're pretty anxious to see how this is going down and we'll have to bring our 'A' game.
Well it's time to wrap up, but I want y’all to know that we're seeing miracles out here along with enjoying all these crazy experiences! Be it chasing off the Jehovah's Witnesses from our members (Sister Miller had us come over for one of their appointments...it was quite the experience) or looking forward to four baptisms on October 26, we are, por su puesto, living the dream!
Con mucho amor,
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