Dear Family,
I was only going to have 30 minutes to email y'all today, but my
companion sweet talked the lady behind the counter to give us extra time on the
computers. I love my companion. Anyways...BOLIVIA!!! That's so awesome! Man
he is going to eat a bunch of weird stuff! That's great. I am so excited for
him. That is going to be amazing. Good thing that I will be there before he
leaves. I was afraid of that.
What in the heck does a dish towel have to do with a chicken? Okay so
the whole CSN thing...I really have no clue what classes I want to take right
now. Really just want to get generals out of the way first...not that I even
know what that means. How about this...you send me a list of classes and I will
pray about it. When is the deadline?
This was a pretty good week. Some of the families that we teach have
made huge strides in the last couple of days. We have set up a "marriage
class" for all of the investigator couples that need to be married before they
are baptized. All in all there should be about four couples there. We wanted
to find a way to have these soon to be converts to have a really good
relationship with the Branch President. Well, we figured the best way to do
that would be to have Branch President teach them about marriage before he
marries them. We also had 12 investigators come to church this week. It was
great.
A lot of really great stories from this week. I could write about all
of them but that would take me all day. I am hoping to some day go through and
write down all of these in my journal when I have more time. For now I write as
much as I can in my planners so that I can remember them. Among other things I
learned how to play two songs on the ukulele, a few words in Marshallese, and
how to install a screen door. Pretty useful things I would say. The shining
moments of this week would be with Reilly and Angela, Jared and Amy, and John
and Madonna. Reilly and Angela are Marshallese recent converts of the Branch.
Reilly received the Aaronic Priesthood about 2 months ago and has been passing
the sacrament ever since. He expressed to us the desire to bless the sacrament
last week. We decided that we would help him prepare. Throughout this past
week we have gone over three or four times to help him memorize the prayer on
the bread. We recorded us saying it on his phone so that he could practice it
in between visits. He steadily improved throughout the week. We told Reilly
not to be discouraged if he didn't bless the sacrament that Sunday; that it
might take him some time to get it down. Then Sunday came. As Reilly was
sitting there waiting for sacrament meeting to start Brother Bundy asked if
Reilly would help bless the sacrament. We were in the hallway and came into the
chapel to find Reilly sitting at the sacrament table. We were stunned! We went
up to talk to Reilly about it. He said that he was really really nervous. We
told him that everything would be fine and that he would do a great job. When
the time came I was even nervous. Just waiting to hear the blessing on the
bread. On Sunday June 3, 2012 I was privileged to hear the most sincere
sacrament prayer in my life. I sat in tears as I listened to Reilly sound out,
in his humble English, each of the words in the prayer. Those words have never
meant more to me than in that moment. Then the tears only increased as the
sacrament portion of the meeting ended and Reilly and Angela stood to be
sustained by the branch in their first calling as Branch Missionaries. It was
amazing.
Jared and Amy are progressing quickly. We had scheduled an
appointment with them for this past Saturday. We were on the way to their home,
coming from Broken Bow, when we got a call from Sister Durrant (Mission
President's wife). My companion answered the phone, "Well hello Sister Durrant,
how are you?!" Then a male voice on the other end said, "Hello Elder Sproul,
this is Sister Durrant's lesser half." "Oh my goodness, I'm sorry President!
How are you today?!" Ha ha ha. President Durrant proceeded to ask us what
there was to do in Idabel and Broken Bow. Tourist sites, recreational stuff,
etc, etc. After talking for a while he asked us if he and his family could come
and visit us sometime. "Sure!" we said, "When would you come up?" "Well, we
were thinking Saturday." "President...do you mean today?" "Yeah! Do you have
a couple minutes where we could stop and visit you? We're just coming into
Idabel ourselves from Broken Bow where are you at?" Ummm...uhh....Ha ha ha. We
explained that we had a dinner appointment with some investigators that we were
heading to, but that he and his family would be more than welcome to introduce
themselves to our investigators. They happily agreed. So my 6'7" Mission
President introduced himself and his family to our 5'6" investigators. It was a
great meeting. President Durrant asked Amy and Jared, "So have they invited you
to be baptized?" Jared replied, "Oh yeah! They talk about it all the time!"
Ha ha ha. Amy concurred, "Yes, yes they have...but we have to get married
first, right?" There were a couple of funny moments like that through the
introduction and then it came time for President and his family to leave. They
said there goodbyes and then we proceeded to have a great lesson. That was
definitely a first for me. I have never had the Mission President come with me
to a lesson. On top of the great lesson that we had they fed us some AMAZING
Marshallese BBQ. Woo Dang it was good!
John and Madonna are doing so well. Madonna is remembering all of the
things that she was taught when she lived in the Marshall Islands. Her and her
husband John have been coming to church for the past month or so. We have been
treating the lessons as a refresher course for Madonna and for a start up for
John becoming a member. We had invited John to be baptized when he came to know
that the things we taught were true the first time that we came over. He said
that he would but he did not feel ready to set a date. Ever since then we have
invited him to pray about a date that he would like to be baptized. Well, he
called us on Saturday telling us that he had some big news. He said that he
would tell us when we came over after church for a lesson. The suspense was
killing us. We got to the appointment only to wait longer. Madonna hadn't
returned home yet and he wanted her to be there when he told us. Finally she
comes home and we all get situated. We said, "SOOOOOO......what's the big
news?!" He replied, "Oh, I was just wondering what day you all were going to
baptize me." Ha ha ha. It was so great. I had the biggest smile across my
face. We said, "Well John, it can be any day that you like." He thought about
it for a minute or two and said, " How about the first Saturday of July?" Music
to a missionary's ears. Sounds beautiful. He then went on to say that he
wanted to make a bunch of refreshments for his baptism as well. Well...of
course you can make refreshments! He said, "Oh good because we have some people
that we want to invite." I have the feeling that this is going to be the start
of it all. John and Madonna are the lead singers for the the Marshallese
congregation in Broken Bow. The "people" that they want to invite to their
baptism are all members of that church as well. I cannot wait for July 8. What
a beautiful day it will be.
If anyone has ever wondered if miracles are real, just come and spend
a day in Idabel, Oklahoma. Just getting to Idabel is a miracle itself.
Love,
Elder McNinch
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