Ah...the man who called us and said he was being haunted by demons... that is a GREAT story! I have basically been telling everyone! We ended up going to see him on Thursday. We had called President and he had told us not to go without a member of the bishopric present. So we took Brother Davies and Brother Parker. We were very wary of going, but decided to just talk about Christ and how through Christ we can conquer anything.
So we get there. It is this man with tattoos EVERYWHERE. He is wearing a bandana and he is WASTED. He is completely drunk. So already I'm thinking, this will be fun! I am first into the flat. The place is covered in American flags. Covered, okay. So we sit down and start talking. And he starts to confess to us. He started talking about having ties into the middle east (and I have to be careful of how I phrase this so it doesn't send red flags up through the web) but he said he was a double agent and was supplying the FBI with information... right. So we refocused a bit to Christ and I asked him his belief in who God was and he briefly covered that and then started talking about the Devil and how the stigmata had appeared on his arm a while back.... yeah, basically it was more bizarre than scary to listen to him, but we told him about the Atonement and that if we pray and call upon Christ the devil can't harm us... We asked him if he'd read the Bible and he said he has only read the book of Revelations. So I'm thiking, GREAT he has probably only read the dragon chapters! Needless to say, he has in the past been into witchcraft and other things that have just not helped his situation. But here is the best part. He said that after talking to SIster Hoffman on the phone for the first time he had felt inspired to paint Christ (because apparently he is an artist) So he donated this painting of Christ to us to hang in our chapel. It is a Picasso-style painting of Christ with a crown of thorns. It is ridiculous. So we were like yeah..eh... But yes, we have it. This man called us the day after we saw him (still drunken) and left a message about how he really enjoyed Sister Hoffman's company and that she is a "Very Beautiful woman" and that hopefully she will hang the painting in our flat to remember him. So yes she has a phone stalker now. I think it is hilarious, Brother Davies and I were dying laughing yesterday. I told our district leader about it and I was laughing hysterically and he said, "Sister Orr that is not funny." I was like oh come on! Have a sense of humour!... but we have been forbidden from seeing him again.... haha Sister Hoffman doesn't want the painting so I asked if I could keep it as a souvenir! haha! I still think it is hilarious! :)
So that is one adventure of the week. Next adventure. Friday we were out trying to talk to people on the street and it was shortly before we were going in for the night and we found this man maybe in his 40s. We started to have a good conversation and we had a great discussion about God. Everything seemed relatively normal... UNTIL... he looked down the street and he saw his bus coming and said he had to run, then he turned to me and stroked my cheek and said, "You're beautiful" and lingered then he turned to Sister Hoffman and stroked her cheek for a second. We then handed him a pass a long card trying to maintain our composure and he turned to me again and stroked my cheek with the pass a long card and then turned to Sister Hoffman etc. then headed for his bus. I just stood there horrified not knowing quite how to react to that... it was interesting. There are weird people in the world.
Saturday morning we got a phone call from President Preston who said he would be in the area that day and wanted to drop by. So President and Sister Preston dropped by "just to chat" (I said they had to have a hidden agenda of some sort, but nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary). They brought us Baskin Robbins ice cream which was nice.
Something President said during his visit to us did hit me hard last night. I have come to a conclusion... I am going to start learning Chinese. Yup. President had said that in August we have 4 Sisters coming in that are called to speak Chinese and we will have no one in the area that will really be able to work with them. I was thinking about some other things last night and it kept coming into my head. When I got my mission call I was kind of surprised if you remember that I wasn't called to speak a different language because in my patriarchal blessing it says, "You will have the special blessing of teaching the gospel in the language of the people you are called to teach." That popped into my head last night in conjunction with President's comment and it just felt right. I prayed about it and I pondered it and as I lay in bed last night I just had a thought to reread the wording in my blessing for clarification. This morning I looked at it and I saw that it doesn't say that I will speak the language that I am called to but I will speak the language of the people that I am called to. The first area I was called to I was assigned to teach Chinese. So I will begin learning Chinese, hopefully. Yup.
So, that is what has been happening this week. Very interesting week.
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