A glimpse of life on the Rez.......

2 June 2014

This week was good.  We got our investigator Samantha to come to church and she seemed to enjoy it so hopefully she will continue to keep coming.  We went home teaching with this really awesome recent convert called Chris.  He got baptized like couple of months ago in Ohio and he was about to become a catholic priest but through a friend who was a member he got involved with the church.  He has a way strong testimony so it was cool to go teaching with him.  We also helped the first counselor (whose name is Ira Jones who is brother to President Jones) take down an analog receiver which was pretty fun.  We also failed to attempt to light a pile of wet green wood on fire and also planted a garden and mowed this lady’s garden and painted someone’s deck. We also have been visiting DNC (do not contact) people on the directory.  President Jones told us to ask people that are inactive and not interested if they would like their names removed so that he can clean up the directory.  So it will be interesting work to say the least to do that.   We already visited one lady that said she would like that to happen so we got her phone number and President Jones is going to be giving her a call.  I also popped some kind of rib in my back I think but I got it back in place so my back doesn't hurt anymore.  We visited this one less active guy who went on for an hour about everything wrong in life.  He was friendly to us but just wouldn't let stuff from the past go and talked about everything from really disobedient missionaries to his injured leg to raging on members in the branch. 

This branch has had a way messed up history.  Back 15 years ago or so it used to be a ward but then the bishop in that day got beaten up by the current branch president’s brother so a lot of people don't go because he is the branch president.  I honestly though think that people will look for an excuse not to come to church if they can find one.  And  the branch president after that bishop ran off to Utah with the second counselor’s wife so it's pretty crazy down here. But the past is the past and the branch is actually rapidly increasing in numbers.  Back at its low only like 20 people were coming but now the average is about 100 and they've had at least one baptism a month here for several months so there's a lot of new converts in the branch.   We also play basketball every Wednesday evening with a ton of non-member Indian people.  It's pretty sweet!   My shooting ability is getting better.  

We have this one random non-member lady who's a little bit crazy but really nice.   Yesterday she gave us tons of random groceries which is really nice of her.  We are going to go try to see her sometime this week as she is really nice.  

The Reservation is really weird.  They have this huge community center and Rez building but most people live in trailers and do nothing all day and the ones that actually do work are pretty well off too. Also there are no state laws or anything on the Rez either and no taxes so gas is like 50 cents cheaper a gallon and people are constantly coming to the Rez to get gas and tax free cigarettes.  The Rez gets it's money from casinos so that's how it's able to support itself.

Also, one thing I've come to really appreciate having on the mission is being able to play the piano.  I've been required to play at a lot of meetings so it's a nice skill to have. I also have improved my playing a lot too and can pretty much play any church hymn without having to practice.  That's mostly it for this week.  I know I was kind of scatter brained with this letter but there was so much stuff to talk about!  

A thought to ponder . . .

We love him, because he first loved us.

- 1 John 4:19 -