Week 8 in Marksville: Weathermen are not prophets

 Bonjour amis et familles!

As I write this, our porch is covered in a sheet of ice. How we wish it would be snow. But, alack. This leads to this week's subject line. We're just a little too south to get full-on snow apparently. Would've been cool. 

MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK

After not meeting with him in person for 3 whole weeks, we had multilple great interactions with Carl! We called him up on Thursday and he proceeded to give a 45-minute dissertation on how he thinks God put us in his life and that he's so grateful and proud of what we do as missionaries. We're trying to get him to understand that it's because of God and our message, not us, that he feels that way, but it was nonetheless great to hear that as a missionary! We were able to teach him again on Friday and we ended up being there for 2 1/2 hours, which isn't supposed to be how lessons work, but he's a very talkative fellow. He said that if he decides to get baptized, it'll be before Elder Mills leaves in early February. Again, not sure if God or us is his motivation, but we'll work on that! The good thing is he's still thinking and praying about it!

FUNNY QUOTE(S) OF THE WEEK

Literal conversation over Messenger that I had with the Zone Leaders this week as I tried to set up a virtual meeting with them (ZLs are a companionship of Elders in charge of the zone):
EM: "How's tomorrow afternoon work for y'all?"
ZLs: "Works with us. How about 12:30?"
EM: "1 would be better but 12:30 works."
ZLs: "12:30 would be awesome."
EM: "Alright, see y'all at 12:30!"
(the next day at 12:29)
ZLs: "Hey can we do like 1 instead?"

Face. Palm.

SCRIPTURE/SPIRITUAL THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

1 Corinthians 3:6
"I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase."

In my continuing 'cover-to-cover' reading of the New Testament, I came across this verse. It's relevant this week for 2 reasons. One, Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles quoted it in his devotional for young adults last night (which all you young adults - and I mean all - should check out - it was really good), and two, it continues a theme of this email. Our job as missionaries is to teach - not to convert. That is the job of the Spirit, along with Heavenly Father. We help people see God's hand more in their lives, and through that, the Spirit can bear witness of our message. Or, in other words, we are the ones that 'plant' and 'water', but 'God [gives] the increase.' 

BONUS TRACK BONUS TRACK
Alright: A lot of y'all asked me about the story with the wheel so I'll tell it:
It was the 1780s (or thereabouts). A peddler named Mark was peddling from town to town (as a peddler tends to do) when his wagon broke down. Mark was stubborn (he was from the South) so he decided, "to heck with it, I'm staying right here" (I might be paraphrasing). So, the town of Marksville was founded. There's that mural I sent a picture of a while back with a broken wheel in it, there's the statue, there's even the Broken Wheel Brewery in town. It's really a pretty funny thing. 

I hope everyone is doing well as this new year starts up. I'd love to know how y'all are doing. 

Sincèrement,
Elder May

PICTURES
1. New iteration of the Alexandria Zone. Lots of new eyes to look at (notice I didn't say faces).
2. New iteration of the Alexandria District. Statistically speaking, even more new eyes to look at.
3. Cool shoe I found at the mall.





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