Week #32

Dear Family,

I wrote another poem.  I think I wrote this a couple of weeks ago.  

God sees us better

Than we may now see ourselves

Both inside and out

"A companion? Why?

I know me better than he.

I think my own thoughts."

But "in" is just half

The eternal equation;

We need insight out

No mirrors can be

Used to reflect our actions

Like somebody else

Their eyes reflect us

And we know our own thinking

God's sight comes through both

I see him,

And he sees me.

We see ourselves

As God would see.

I wrote this poem because a thought came to mind one day about the way that God sees us.  We always say that God knows us better than we know ourselves, and I think that I know why.  Not only is he perfectly pure in his judgment, and knows where we're coming from, but at the same time he not only sees us from the inside but also from outside.  He can see how we act from the eyes of another person, whereas we cannot.  So I think that's why it's super important to surround yourself with other people because we can't really become our best selves without someone else letting us know how we appear from the outside.

So we had an interesting week this week.  Especially because of our fast and testimony meeting yesterday.  Good night, it was a sight to behold.  So I told you about LaiTaras Stokes, the black man we've been working with every week for like the past three weeks.  Since we've been meeting with him he's progressively gotten better and better at communicating, but it's still going to take some time to get him to speak clearly in a public group.

So he came to church on Sunday again, and it happened to be fast and testimony meeting.  We're not allowed to drive him, so we had a member bring him to church.  He sat with that family, a few rows in front of us pretty close to the front.  As soon as the first counselor turned the time over for testimonies to go down, LaiTaras stood straight up, preceded only by one person who had also jumped the gun.  Elder Burnett and I waited anxiously for LaiTaras's turn, and then it came.  He stood up and started preaching.  This is how he started: "Belief...(pause)...Belief...(pause)...Belief...(pause)..." and with his last pause I thought he was going to say it again.  After that he went into kind of a spew of words that didn't make sense together, and then he finally started making sense, made a few powerful statements, sang a line from "Amazing Grace" and then went and sat down.  The funny thing is that as soon as he sat down, both Elder Burnett and I had the thought, "I wonder if LaiTaras would dare stand up again."  Well, he did, and my heart dropped into my stomach as soon as he stood up.  That is the first time that I have ever seen someone stand up twice to bear their testimony.  Apparently he had not finished his thoughts, so he walked up their.  Brother Bishop stopped him and spoke with him for a sec, and then let him finish his testimony, which wasn't too crazy, just kind of out of place.  So that's went down, we had the gospel preached to us by a Mormon with a Baptist Preacher attitude.  

That was probably the highlight of the week.  We're going to see LaiTaras again today, and we're hoping at some point to be able to meet with his entire family.  We'll see what happens.

Thanks for all of the pictures of little Penny's baby blessing.  That little kidney bean is super cute, especially in her humongous dress.  That's way cool that that used to be Addie's dress and now little Penny is wearing it.  Super cute.  And Dad, congrats on your colonoscopy, I hope it was an enlightening experience.

Thanks much, you goons.  Keep being awesome!

Sincerely,

Jack