This week FLEW BY. This week was definitely the fastest week that has ever gone by on my mission yet. I know I say that my weeks go by fast but for some reason this one went by and I didn't even notice it until yesterday. It seemed like it was only a day long. This week has been awesome mostly. Elder Lavulo and I have had a ton of appointments and places to go this last week, and we had a lot of lessons with people. There were some nights where we couldn't even get home on time because we were out teaching too much haha. I didn't even have time to think about anything because I was so busy.
There were a lot of miracles that happened through the local members here too. The first example that I can think of is awesome. This experience strengthened Elder Lavulo and I a lot. We were biking a lot on Wednesday and we had an appointment with a member, Josh. He lives on the bottom corner of our area, and it's one of the farthest places that we can go in our area, but we still go there about every other day because Josh is our bro and we're preparing him to get the Priesthood. Anyway, we were riding over and E. Lavulo got a flat tire. He was pretty bummed but I was so used to it since Elder Welty had about 10 that I just started walking without even thinking haha. We couldn't ride home after the lesson with Josh so Brother Hutchings picked us up to take us home. So the next day when E. Lavulo tried to patch his bike tube, he couldn't because the hole was too big. He didn't have any money to buy a new one so I offered to buy him a new one at Walmart. So we borrowed the other Elder's bikes and rode to Walmart to get him a new tube. When we pulled into the parking lot, a car started waving us down and honking at us a bunch and I didn't think much of it because everyone does it to mess with us. Well then the car stopped in the middle of the lot, and Sister Rush got out and started running at us waving her hand in the air. I was just like "what the heck..." and she ran up to me and went "HERE TAKE THIS" and she pulled out a 10 dollar bill and held it out in front of me to take it. I tried to not take it because I feel bad when people donate to missionaries, but she went "No take it, the Spirit said you needed it. Just take it and buy lunch with it or something!" I couldn't deny it after that and so I took it and thanked her. We parked our bikes and Elder Lavulo and I just stood there looking at the 10 bucks and laughed and smiled like this was supposed to happen. It was crazy how mindful God is of two young guys sitting in the humid heat in South Carolina who don't even know what they're doing half the time. That little thing just made me feel so blessed and I just had a smile on my face because I knew exactly was going on.
So yeah the members are still some of the best people I've met here and I'm just thankful that they're mindful of what God wants them to do in their every day lives.
Teaching has been going really well too. Tarl has been progressing really well and we've been having better and better lessons with him lately. He's an amazing guy and I love teaching him. He's a lot like Ryan hahaha. Tarl has every X Men comic since 1973, about 100 X Men statues around his house. He's also really smart and he's almost done with school to be a Physcian's assistant, and he also breeds and sells snakes. he had 28 of them.... I fed them rats once it was way sweet. But yeah he has been doing really well lately and so have some others we are teaching.
Dago has come to church for three weeks straight now. He loves it every time and he learns so much from reading and praying. He read 1 Nephi 8-14 without us even asking and he had a bunch of questions about it. after church yesterday he just randomly went out in the hall and started talking to literally everyone that passed by, it was amazing to see him so happy. he's a really amazing guy and Lavulo and I care about him a lot. He's come really far in his life to not deserve what the Gospel of Jesus Christ has to offer him. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom, and that kind of hit him hard. He smokes a lot of weed and he likes doing it a lot and it kind of devastated him when we told him that he had to quit before being baptized. He was still open though. He said that hew would pray and ask God if it's what he should do, and he did. he says that his cigs and weed aren't very appealing anymore and that he's still thinking about making the decision, but it seems like he got an answer already.
I couldn't be more happy right now. I love my mission and I love seeing the people I meet on the street turn into my friends that I care about as I get to know them and teach them the one thing that can change their lives forever. It's the greatest thing anyone could ever do and I love every day of it.
Love
Elder Bills