Pretty Little Song Bird

To start out we got transfer calls and I am staying and training still.

I am so glad we bought those bikes! they help us out so much! And it's super healthy for me to be able to ride places, explore, and fix up the things! Especially fixing something. But I am still partial to the Gary fisher back home and would never replace that or my specialized for the thin I am riding.

This week we had what was called "the day of service" It was one of those Mormon helping hands events, it was awesome! It was like a eagle scout project for grown ups on steroids! =p It had like 15 different projects that was to help beautify and help the people in Lansing all of which where about eagle scout project size. I was assigned to Reutter Park which is right next to the capital building. that was so much fun!

What happened is they have this beautiful fountain that wasn't being seen so they chopped these trees down and chopped huge limbs off so people could see it and the beauty of the place. And our job was to drag these massive things and throw them in a huge wood chipper. Man that chipper was a beast! I saw it eat a log bigger and thicker than me like nothing! I am not that thick but point made we needed 4 people to carry it to the thin. We were rained on for 5 hours straight too and those things got us way dirty! loads of people took pictures of me so you should look it up on the internet to try to find something because I know I am in like 12 of them at least.

So I told you about NIIIIGHT EEEEEYYYEEEE!!!! last time but just like I was trying to say, I wasn't the Hero the whispering pines appartments needed, But I was the one it deserved. I battled valiantly to take out the ear wigs and the spiders but eventually the hero that was needed came and our apartments got poison gassed. So the tallys on my blow gun are at a stand still. I took one out this week by taping it to the floor and spraying it with axe body spray ha ha.

Since we are on the subject of creatures brutally biting the dust that leads me into this next thought.

These last few weeks I have been really feeling odd, I knew something was wrong in what I was doing with our investigators and it was irritating to me because the spirit just wasn't there. I was being obedient, I was focusing, I was helping my companion with everything and we are getting along great. It was cutting me every day because I was seeing our pool of 18 investigators get close to baptism and then fall away, and there was a downward trend. I realized the importance of Revelation through reading, praying, and keeping the Sabbath day holy and loving the people we are with. 

I look back and I now see those key ingredients missing was that love and the deeper follow up on what we committed them to. We have been doing that for like 2 weeks now. It was horrible seeing our area and investigators sliding down and getting lost. It's like we were doing "the dance steps but we weren't feeling the music" and they couldn't either.

It continued even after we started to emphasize those things, but that all changed yesterday. =p

We have a investigator who has basically had the gates of hell open to try to get him. Love of his life who he had been married to for 40 years divorced him is forcing them to sell their beautiful house, he got in a car accident, health... We found him at a all time low and he had no faith that there was a God he didn't believe that a loving heavenly father would allow this garbage to happen. He was ticked at the world. Super busy and stressed with work and the divorce. 

One day we came over when he was thinking the end of life, for him and his technical "wife". If you know what I mean, we were prompted to go there without knowing it. the spirit calmed him and that didn't happen. We are the only church people he can even stand to be around. And to us it seems like we have been beating a dead horse for a while. But we kept going over because He wanted faith he wanted that light he saw in us (he still does). 

Finally he broke and kept a commitment and listened to the book of Mormon. And with out telling us has been listening to it every day while he works out. He argued and yelled when ever we would ask him to pray. But this week was a stormy week. And one of the days was really bad! It was pouring rain hard. He prayed to know If "Elder Crockett was a sign" sent from him (since I have been in every lesson with him while my companions have shifted around from trade offs). A while later he heard a loud thump on his window. He looked out to see a blood stain on the window and a small song bird lying dead. It tried to get out of the rain quickly and hit his window. He sat there and cried as the bird lied motionless on his porch. 

It really carved into his heart and he prayed for the bird (he later told us he would have never done that EVER if it wasn't for us continuing to come back and loving him) And he prayed that the pretty little song bird would be able to sing again for some one. A half hour passed and the bird still lay motionless on the porch now with a empty bladder in the same position. It Wrenched his soul to see it dead. He prayed again and he prayed like I do "dear heavenly father" and when he closed in the name of Jesus Christ, he saw the tail twitch and the head snap up and quickly it darted out of the weather into the trees.=p

We met with him yesterday and he told me I know God lives =p, he said he wouldn't convert that easily but that is a huge leap forward! And really that is why I am out here that very specific reason because I know God lives and loves me and I want other people to feel that joy and experience that through the True Gospel of Jesus Christ that was restored. That was super fulfilling especially after the garbage we've been getting!

Well I'm off to go play some Jesus ball!

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get Shot!

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- Elder Truman Rex Crockett