Service, Service, Service!

I am sore........ That's probably the best way to sum up my entire week. Along side with lessons and other "interesting experiences" there has been a lot of service this week.

Anyway!! The week started off pretty normal, had a lesson with Brother Shaw. He is an old navy guy who got baptized while in the Navy. He was active for quite a while. Had a bad experience with a ward out somewhere in the islands (I forget where) and went inactive..... for 40 years. He has been married 3 different times, his current wife is a little old Filipino woman. (let me tell you something. There are so many Filipinos out here hahah its insane. They say if we got all of our inactive Filipinos and reactivated them, they could have there own WARD) Who is insanely funny. She still kinda speaks broken English and she is a HARDCORE Catholic. She is still curious about our purpose coming over. We have done some service for her. She is an amazing gardener, her backyard is so green haha. Anyway back to Jim. We met him while going to visit less actives. He was on our list but when we pulled up he greeted us at the door. He was actually pretty excited to see us. He again told us "missionaries haven't been this way in a while! Its good to see you though! Come on in!" That's been a reoccurring phrase. Strange. Anyway, we have been meeting with him for 3 weeks now. Every Tuesday at 1 pm we go over. Talk for a bit. Ask him some gospel questions. Then leave. He enjoys having us over. Even though he went inactive 40 years ago. He still believes everything. He still reads the book of Mormon, he knows everything is true, he sorta wants to go back to church because he feels like he needs to haha. He is solid. So most of the time our visits are a nice conversation and then trying to convince him to just come once to church again. He said he might here soon, he just doesn't want to inspire contention between him and his wife. Which is understandable but after 30 somewhat years of marriage of being different religions, I think the contention is gone. But that's just me. He said is he is going to church he wants his wife to come with him. We told him she is always welcome. So we are hoping he shows up to church sometime.

We met with Debbie again. She said she will be coming to church this week! So that's awesome!! Her daughter came to visit while we were there. And thanked us for coming and visiting. We were kinda caught off guard. She pulled us aside while Debbie stepped aside for a quick smoke (Don't worry she said this is her last pack and we are holding her to it. She really does want to quit! and we haven't even gotten to the word of wisdom yet!) She told us that we bring a lot of joy into her life and a lot of peace and comfort every time we leave. She said she might sit in on a few lessons. So that would be awesome!!

Those were the only 2 big lessons we had before the first service project of the week. Well this non-member lady needed some help with her back yard last transfer (before I was out in the mission) so the missionaries went to her house to start cleaning up. Well little did they know her backyard was over grown with raspberry bushes, weeds of all sorts, and a fig tree that was massive. (the fig tree is what she needed cut down) So before I got there the missionaries got all of the raspberry bushes taken care of. But the fig tree........ oh the fig tree....... that blasted fig tree....... we got it cut down but when we went back to finish clearing up the mess. It was already starting to grow back. Well we couldn't let this little old lady have to deal with that again. So our brilliant minds tried throwing poison on it. Didn't work. We tried drilling into it. Didn't work. So the only foreseeable solution was to de-stump it........ With hand tools hahahaha. We have been going at it for 3 weeks now. Every Thursday from 1-4pm we have been going ham on this stump. (when I say stump, this "1" tree is actually 36 small fig trees that were separate out side the ground. But grew together under the ground.) we have taken out about 1/2 of it. We are almost done. We think about 1 more day of hard work with 6 elders going at it.(its turned into almost a full zone project.) It should be done. Its fun. Its a good work out. I'm really sore hahaha.

A few hours later we get a call from a lady named Gina. Gina is the lady we met last week at the dinner with a member named sister smith. She wanted us to come over and talk with her. We went over and just chatted with her. Asked her base beliefs about God and Religion in general. And just kinda listened for a bit. She doesn't know anything about God and religion. like nothing at all hahha. She said she knows there is a "Higher Power" but she cant describe it. So we talked a lot about what the base line of Christianity was, and of course explained why our religion is set apart from the others. Before we got into anything else I felt like I should say something that sounded strange but came out pretty normal haha. I said "Before we get into anything else, I just want you to know, we aren't here to convince you to join our church." She looked at me very puzzled.....as did my companion. I continued "We are here to give you the tools you need, and the base understanding, to find out for your self. To find what you think is true and what you think isn't true. We are just guides. Would we love to see you come to our church! Absolutely! But ultimately its your decision. So if you have any questions we will try to answer them the best we can. Its going to be from our churches stand point but we feel like you already knew that." She then looked very relaxed. I didn't notice it before, but she was extremely nervous about meeting with us. I think she was expecting us to just tell her to join our church, to believe and don't ask questions. But that's not what our religion is about. We are supposed to ask questions. Its healthy that way. The more questions you ask the more you learn, and the closer to God you get. So if you have a strange little question or just a small concern. Ask someone. Or even better ask God then study the scriptures. You will find the answer I promise :) Gina said she would love to have us back over. So we are just waiting to call her, and see what time works out the best.

Well the rest of the week was full of service. lots and lots of service. We helped 4 families move out. 3 move in. And helped a member dig a large hole. we dug it about 6 feet looking for a stinking pipe...... we cant find it hahaha. The member had people come out and look for it. They found it, but didn't tell us how deep it was. SOOOOOOO we are digging in the right place we just cant find the pipe hahahah. That's been fun hahah.

Anyway I think that's all for this week! I hope all of you had a wonderful and fun week! Know that I'm thinking about all of y'all. And know that I love and miss you all so freaking much! Keep going!! you are strong! God is with you! Even if you don't know it ;) I'm so insanely sore.... I'm going to rest for today hahaha no more service until my lower back starts to feel less sore hahahah! Later guys!!

Love
-Elder Riley Field

P.S. The story behind the Bear pick, is we were at a members house and before we knocked I looked down at this statue. He looks like he wants to cut you hahaha. I started laughing because when I saw him, I thought I was going to hear him say "Don't try and funny business. I will mess you up".