Elder Gary King is my new companion here in Erie Walk. And I have to say he's definitely perfect for me. This week has felt like one of the longest weeks I've had on my mission in a long time. Elder King is from Lindon Utah, really close to Provo. He's 19-years-old, an excellent debater, and keeps me super accountable, which is good. Training is always an interesting experience but this experience in particular is teaching me a lot. I've learned how much stuff you need when you start off, probably foreshadowing the days when I will eventually get my own apartment and realize I really don't have anything. Our mission secretary is really good at thinking of a lot of things that go into an apartment but there's always something that's forgotten. We got into our apartment seeing that we did have quite a bit of furniture and very useful items, but we still missed some of the essentials. It turned out that our air conditioner only functions as a heater and so we were dying in the 80+ degree weather we walked in this week. We also didn't have beds until Friday, just a mattress on the floor. It definitely reminded me of the good ol' days in Bedford when I didn't know that an apartment could be any better but it reminded me in a killing-my-back and stiffening-my-neck kind of way. Oh yeah and we didn't have curtains. Yup. I felt like I was living in a fishbowl in the ghetto of westside Erie. The apartments are really old and just painted so all the windows are huge and all the doors open into each other. Nothing seems to have been set up with any sort of wisdom behind it. It was a lot of fun changing and sleeping and showering with gigantic windows on the first floor. Yeah showering was definitely interesting because there's a window IN the shower and we didn't have a shower curtain for a couple days. We gave Erie a little more than they paid for.
The walking has also taken a toll on me. I've never been in a walking area and I think being pampered in Hershey and Millcreek with cars and medical student families has made me a lot rounder than I thought I was. I've never been more tired in my mission. I basically collapse on my bed every evening as a lot of our time is filled with walking and finding people by street contacting. We still haven't figured out the bus system so we basically walk our 2 x 3 mile area. Good thing my shoes don't have holes in them except one... oh wait.
The Lord knows how to humble me. I told Elder Swensen a couple weeks ago that the Lord's never put me in a walking area because he knows how terribly I do with OYMing (street contacting) all the time. I'm naturally an introvert and so reaching out to talk to people, especially when I know that they probably already hate me, is really really hard. But, as He always does, He's given me weakness that I may be humble and luckily enough, His grace is sufficient that He can help turn my weaknesses into strengths (That hasn't happened yet, but I'm looking forward to that day when I can call it a strength). Elder King is really smart. He picks up on things fast and his obedience from the MTC has made me realize how slackened I had gotten being companions with experienced Zone Leaders. He pushes me to be the best and makes me realize that I really do need to be the best example, the kind of trainer my trainer was to me. He knows we need to talk to everybody and even when he feels too scared to talk to somebody, he'll nudge me and say “should we talk to this person?” I'll look down at his good intentions, sigh, and say, “yeah, we'll talk to this person.”
Our teaching pool has been greatly reduced not only because Elder Swensen and I divided our investigators for when I would double-in, but near the end of last transfer, a lot of our investigators were ready to be dropped. We went into this area only having two solid investigators. But optimism and faith radiated from Elder King and we were able to talk to many people. Such an experience came to us the other day when he nudged me to talk to a group of black guys and a girl. Now, I avoid talking to groups of people and these guys also looked and talked like gangsters. I was definitely hesitant to say the least, but I did so, offering the generic invitation of sharing a message about Jesus Christ. They both looked at me, shocked and amazed at what I had just said. They revealed to us that the one guy (Dante) was trying to convince the other (Deandre) that Jesus Christ was the Savior and that it was only through Him that we could come to the Father. They took our gesture as a sign and let us right into their house where we proceeded to teach much of the first lesson. Dante could quote much of the Bible and, unlike most Pennsylvanians, he would quote all the RIGHT passages. We set Dante with a baptismal date on Friday and are still working with Deandre.
I have to wonder what would've happened if I hadn't talked to them or if we had come 5 minutes later or 5 minutes earlier, we would've missed them completely. The Lord directs and guides us and I believe that He has sent Elder King here to train me more than I could ever do for him.
Elder Low
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