We had an amazing
miracle as we were teaching Darlene this week. She has been using a crutch for
the last 5 years and was especially in quite a lot of pain one of the times we
saw her this past week because of the weather and how it affected her
arthritis. She had told us she didn't want us to come by since she was in a lot
of pain but she felt the need to have us over. Well that day we had just
happened to be teaching her about the priesthood and what it means and so we
explained blessings and asked if she would like a blessing of healing. She
accepted and so Elder Bodily anointed her with the oil and I gave her a
blessing.
During the blessing
she gasped and was shaking a little bit so in my head I was like (oh please no
don't tell me my hands are too heavy or something, cause I thought they were
super light!) Well, after the blessing she looked at us, stood up and grabbed
my arm without her crutch and said "let's walk." So she walked out
the door and down the hallway holding on to my arm saying "oh wow! It
doesn't hurt anymore! Oh wow!" We came back and sat down and she said,
"can I do it again?" So this time she grabs Elder Bodily's arm and
walks down the hallway and at the very end he says "alright I'm going to
let go!" and he let go and she walked on her own for the first time in 5
years. I was standing there at the end of the hallway and she burst into tears
and gave me a hug. She was sobbing as she whispered "thank you."
I was shocked and
amazed to witness a miracle performed by the priesthood that Elder Bodily and I
hold. What a blessing to be able to experience. We made sure to have her write
down the experience in her journal so she could always remember it! Finally on
this Saturday the Hyde Park ward will be holding a baptismal service and she'll
be able to make a covenant with God that she's been waiting to make.
Another absolutely
hilarious experience (horrifying for my comp, funny for me), we went to our
good friend Martins’ house. Martins is a Nigerian man and is on date for the
24th as well. He was cooking some food when we walked in, so naturally I went
and asked about the food that he was making and what it was and he says in his
booming voice: "may I offer you some food!" Of course I say yes,
because that is what you must do. He made us a plate of fried yam and stew (an
extremely spicy stew that was spicy sauce and very rubbery fatty beef) and I
began to eat. Now I cannot say that I like Nigerian food, but it's not really
hard for me to eat it anymore. I'm able to pound it now.
He turns to Elder
Bodily and says: "It is for you too! Go and eat your food!" Poor Elder
Bodily did not heed my warnings and said, "No thank you." If I could
face palm that is exactly what I would do. Martins turned to him slowly and
fiercely and said with his voice raising every syllable: "You do not
accept my food? WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO DO POISON YOU?! YOU ALWAYS
ACCEPT FOOD WHEN WE OFFER YOU! IF NOT YOU ARE AN EVIL SPIRIT! YOU DO NOT SAY
NO!" Elder Bodily was absolutely horrified. I was trying so hard to hide
my laughter so naturally I started to film. So Elder Bodily started eating the
yam. Yam basically just tastes like tough potatoes. He's like "this isn't
that bad!" Ding dong, didn't even touch the stew yet. I eat all the spicy
sauce, and a whole piece of beef and point to the other one and say to him "that
one is yours." He refused. So I ate all the fat on the beef for him. And
then I told him that was all I was doing for him.
Martins at this point
says, "he will not always be there to eat your food! You must finish it or
I will not be baptized on the 24th!" Of course he was messing with him,
but that made him finish up the food really fast haha. I will probably never
stop making fun of him for this and I thought I was the picky eater. It's OK,
when salvation is on the line I'll literally eat anything.
This week was the ONE
YEAR! I just happened to go on exchanges with Elder Bell, my MTC buddy on that
day. He burned a shirt, I decided I'd keep mine for wearing haha. We went into
our journals and read the entry from our first day in the mission. It was
pretty funny I cannot lie. We went ham and he told me it might be a good time to
broaden our horizons and start trying to find people outside the one building we have because we've just about talked to
everyone in there. So we decided to start doing the hood contacting. We walk
around the streets on the Southside and see all these families who are just
chilling on their porch. They'll pretty much always let you teach them, but
very often you'll never see them again so it's a risk. But it's been really
fun. A lot more dangerous areas and a lot of people are like "oh don't go
that way there was a shooting just like 2 hours ago" and we are like”
thank yo, do you want a message from God” And it's pretty gnarly! So we had a
lot of fun and probably was the unhealthiest day of my life since we had a lot
of Oreos.
Last off a couple
nights ago we were in our fav building stopping by with a few more people to
end the night and we stopped by this one dude we were teaching named Tayo. As
we were talking to him we hear a loud "BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM" I'm like
"why are people doing fireworks in the building?" But also this
building has a butt load of crazies, Nigerians and then a bunch of hood drug
dealers who all love us. So anyways we get on the elevator to go to our car and
it was stopping like every floor and everyone was getting on looking severely
stressed. We discovered from the conversation that there had been a shooting
right in front of the building just barely and everyone was going to see what
had happened and if their cars / friends were all OK. There was a drive by and
definitely some cars got shot and someone was shot and most likely killed. Cops
were everywhere instantly. It sufficeth me to say we dipped from the scene
haha. We always park on the side so our car was OK but it was insane! The next
day everyone had acted like nothing had happened. #southside
The cool thing is we
literally never feel scared. But don't worry we're not stupid haha. These
terrible things happening are signs of even more people being prepared for the
gospel. There are so many prepared people in this sad place. It's hell for
everyone who lives here, but it's missionary heaven.
Well, last night we
had some more Nigerian food and my comp got wrecked again and I ate tons of
Nigerian food. It was pretty funky not going to lie. Tons of fish and I hate
fish (I'm still winning the bet against Broden Lund) but the lord is my
strength and I ate it all. My companion luckily got an Americanized Nigerian so
she let him take it to go haha.
I LOVE THIS PLACE! I hope
everyone has an amazing week and is doing well! Have a good one!
Elder Jensen
Elder Bell
Darlene
Benjamin and Febisola
No comments:
Post a Comment