01/14/2019 Cougars and Durags

Greetings, all. 

This week has been kind of a downer. Elder Jolie got sick, so we didn't get get out as much as we usually do, and when we did go out, we were not 100%.

So here are just some random stories:

-we were in the large Memphis library about to leave (from a missed appointment), and a guy walks in wearing a BYU jacket and a durag. A good BYU brother. He is either already a member or elect. Turns out he's a Hebrew Israelite who had just been to Utah and got a BYU jacket while he was there... tragic. At least I got so see someone in BYU gear wearing a durag. That was a first. 

-One day, as usual, we didn't get to everything we had planned to. One of them was going to a specific street. But later in the day, we felt the Taco Bell urges, so we went and got some dinner. While there and while Elder Jolie was in the bathroom, a man stopped me and said he wanted to meet with us and that he has been looking to find himself. We got his address, and it turns out he lived on the road we didn't get to that day. Interesting how that worked out. 

-At Walmart last week we met a member who had just moved from rural Montana to inner city Memphis and didn't know what building she and her husband was to go to. She lives in Highland Heights Branch area. What an interesting welcome. "You live in a branch that doesn't exist yet." For now we told her to go to Memphis 1st Ward. Rural Montana to inner city Memphis has got to be one of the biggest culture shifts within the United States. 

-This week again proved you need the gift of tongues in Memphis. We were at the bus station and we started talking to different people. I was talking to a man, then an old man next to him joined into the conversation. I could understand nothing he said. The other man had to translate for him. It was super awkward trying to understand this man. And then the third guy on the bench called me over. And he talked with a more understandable accent, but super quietly. And it didn't help that the guy I actually could understand didn't really want to talk to me, so now it's just me and two guys I had to exert heavy brain power just to understand a couple words.

We watched yesterday's YSA devotional  with Elder/Sister Renlund. It was about faith vs doubt. It was very good. 

Pics
1) there is nothing more welcoming to young kids that a boarded up house.
2) a Memphis "roundabout." There is just so much wrong with this disaster of a roundabout. I'm pretty sure that car in the picture cut through the roundabout going the wrong direction. 

3) the district at a baptism this past Saturday. The sister who got baptized had been going to church for almost half a year and the Memphis 1st just recently learned that she wasn't even a member. Bottom: Elder Rivera, me, Sister Davis, Sister Griffiths
Top: Elder Hunt, Elder Jolie, Elder Deushane, Elder Steele, Elder Davis, Elder Griffiths 
Elder and Sister Davis are going home soon. I haven't been around for most of their mission, but they have done so much for the Central Gardens Branch. It was an MLS (member/leadership support) mission. They have been so good for so many of the branch members, in support and/or reactivation. The branch is going to miss them so much.

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