Wednesday after district meeting I went on Exchanges with Elder Larson, the district leader. It was the first time I've been on exchanges with him since I've been in this area because previously his and my companions couldn't drive so they couldn't be together in a full-time car area. Anyway, we were up in Marshall. We saw quite a few people for that exchange. We saw Fidel and had a lesson with him. We also had an appointment with Leonard Fuemeler, an inactive member of the branch. That went very well. He's going to try to start paying tithing and come to church. He's a really nice guy... just needs to get back into things. Wednesday night we had a lesson with Donald and brought the branch president with us. It was good for Donald to get to know him a little bit. After that the branch president took me and my companion out to dinner with his family. Thursday, Elder Bartlett and I went to the Thompson's house for dinner again. They are such an awesome family. I always have a good time going over there! Their family makes up a big part of the strong, active members of the branch!
We taught Amber twice this week. We taught her the plan of Salvation, half of it Thursday afternoon and the other half Saturday evening. She's very excited to learn about all this stuff! She wants to be baptized but can't until she goes through some legal processes first. But she has accepted that and is willing. She's a nice lady. Saturday we taught Donald again. He's doing good. We also taught the Kaur family. Not much else went on Saturday. We did a lot of tracting in the cold with not much positive results.
Sunday after church was a very interesting and hilarious experience! Haha! Let me tell you all about it! Haha! So a few times a year our congregation in Marshall is asked to have a non-denominational Sunday service at a retirement home. Other churches in Marshall do it the other weeks. Our branch here is part of what's called the "Ministrial Alliance." Well, the time came around for our branch this Sunday. And the branch gave us, the missionaries, the assignment. So we accepted, while not knowing what exactly what to do. The only directions we were given was to give a 5-7 minute talk on something and sing some hymns until the old people are tired of singing. Haha! So not much to work with! Haha. But we went anyway. I welcomed them and said an opening prayer. Then Elder Bartlett and I talked a little bit about the Atonement using the Bible. Next was the hymn singing! At first I had no idea what we were going to sing because they didn't have any of our hymnals there. Then someone pointed out that there were some baptist hymn books in the corner. "Excellent!" I thought. Now I at least had something to work with! Haha! So we passed those out and I asked anybody if they had any favorites. Mostly I got blank stares. Haha! One of the guys had a request. It was some hymn called "Oh What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Never heard of it before, but it was in the hymnal. So I told them that they would have to sing loud because I wasn't familiar with that one. Most of the people just mumbled when they sang. I'm not sure if they didn't know any of the words or if that just how they sang. The exception was the guy who requested the song... He sang really loud and off pitch! Haha! When we started the song it was alright for the first line. We all tried to follow the loud guy (I'm going to call him Bill- I don't know if that's his name, but it makes things easier. haha). So we were all trying to follow Bill with the melody and lyrics. Then very quickly I realized with everyone else that he wasn't singing the melody of the hymn and he would sing the first line "Oh, what a friend we have in Jesus" then after that I have no idea what lyrics he was reading. It wasn't anywhere on the page! Haha! He read the first line then made the rest up while singing to his own made up melody. Haha! So by the second line he was the only one singing. And he would sing the whole length of the hymn like that! Throwing randomly, "Oh, what a friend we have in Jesus" Haha! So for the second hymn I picked "Nearer, my God, to thee," because luckily it was in the book. And I can kinda-sorta play it on the piano. I didn't focus on anyone's singing because I was focusing on just getting through 3 verses of that song, which I messed up a lot on! Haha! But since Bill sat next to the piano I could hear him every once in a while singing "Nearer, my God, to thee" at the wrong parts! Haha! Well, the other songs that people requested that I didn't know all ended up like the first one... with Bill singing the same melody all by himself with random lyrics and a random, "Oh what a friend we have in Jesus" and me chuckling! Haha! I was trying not to! Haha. The other songs that I DID know I had to sing louder than Bill so people didn't get lost and confused. So I felt like I was singing solos. Elder Bartlett wasn't singing loud at all so it was pretty much just me! Haha! I'm sure I didn't sound very good at all and I know I missed a lot of the notes and pretty much the whole building could hear me I'm sure! Haha! I'm sure I would have been so very super embarrassed regularly, playing the piano and singing horribly in front of that many people, but the situation was just too incredibly hilarious and funny to be embarrassed!! Haha! It made me laugh a lot while we were leaving and it still makes me laugh. Years from now I'll look back at that experience and still laugh at how ridiculous the situation was! Haha! So yeah. That was my week in a nut shell.
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