Wisconsin Dog Man

Oh, Mother!! YOU are the one worrying! I mean, look, you're worrying about me worrying! Don’t worry, I'M not worrying. I am completely, 100% focused on the work. This is the best time of my life! I feel blessed that the Lord has blessed me with such great peace in my life right now. (I only gave him a little “motherly” advice--it was no big deal. I'm really not worried!)

So our one investigator, Barri love - we keep setting up appointments and something keeps coming up. We are still encouraging her to quit smoking, and she really wants to quit. If we could just get a lesson with her soon...

Well, on Friday the 13th, I met this less active guy who I figured out later that he has this EXTREMELY rare disease where his bones grow tumors in them and they burst and shatter. It doesn’t happen to him often. But apparently, he is one of four people in the US that has this disease. So he showed us some of his "bones." They were these crazy strong titanium bars for his femur and stuff. It was pretty cool.

We met a man named Dave on Saturday who wants to stop smoking a little bit, and his wife really wants to stop smoking. So we are going to see them soon and help them out, and hopefully we can tie in the gospel too! We also met this older man who was very cranky at first as we knocked on the door. He said he didn’t believe in an afterlife, and we launched into a small discussion. The Spirit was there and he felt it. I know he did because he started crying... He said, "My wife died a few years ago from cancer... and now I'm dying of cancer." He said there wasn’t anything we could do for him and began shutting the door as tears just kept flooding. I tried to tell him that he could see his wife again, but the door was closed. It broke my heart. That old man was in so much pain... but as we tracked back down the other side, he was just pulling in the driveway and as he got out of the car, it surprised me what had happened. He looked at us, smiled, and waved. All the crankiness we had seen earlier had all vanished. We had touched him in some way, and that was all I could ever ask for. Well, I'd never think that I would want to be wearing a short sleeve shirt in forty degree weather, but I did!! That day I was sweating! And it was only forty outside!!

Our favorite Seventh Day Adventist called during church last Sunday five more times and left five messages. Three of those messages were well over five minutes long because the answering machine cut him off... me and Elder Tueller just shook our heads.

On Monday the 16th, it was car appreciation day, because some elders in the mission had decided to drive stupidly and totaled their car. So, because of their stupidity, everyone else got to ride bikes all day. I’m not complaining so much about the bikes, cause it was really fun, and my bike is great, although my behind was pretty bruised the next day!

My favorite investigator so far is Robert. Let me tell you about Robert. He is about forty years old, and when he was younger, he was lightly into drugs. He decided that drugs were bad and burned that bridge down. He is completely normal except that he believes in the Wisconsin DOG-MAN. I'm not trying to make fun of him cause I love the guy, I just think it's funny. He seriously believes that there is a dog man. He was trying to show us pictures and stuff but, oh well. We went over and really got talking gospel with him and we had an AMAZING lesson/discussion with him. He had somehow come up with the idea that there were 3 kingdoms in heaven. Elder Tueller and I couldn't believe it cause he had never been taught that before. So it opened the way for a great discussion.

On Tuesday, I had my first real opposition I guess. People always say something smart to us as they’re driving by, but I can’t ever understand them. But someone threw a mint box at us from a bus, and then we went over to this house to see if a less active member still lived there. This guy came to the door and immediately you could tell he was totally hammered. He was slurring words and whatnot, so we left quickly. As we knocked on the house next to us, we looked over at that guy’s house and he was halfway out the door, looking at us. He raised his other arm up and he was holding a volleyball. He made the motion to throw it at us, but he was so drunk that it just fell out of his hands and into the front yard. He looked at the ball, then at us, then back at the ball again, and went back inside. I hope he had the worst hangover ever!! Okay well, maybe not.

Yesterday, we had 6 appointments and most of them fell through. We had one with this guy Jordan and his wife who turned out to be a less active member! We showed up and no one was there so we went all the way back to the apartment to get our car (a ward member was driving us around) and I just had this thought that maybe they were running late and we should go back. So we did and wouldn't you know it, the wife was home that time!! We got to talk to her and they sound like they could be VERY solid investigators.

Other than that, we talked to this Native American guy who’s name is Anthony. I felt like Ammon because he said that he believed in a "great spirit." But he knew that as God. It was scary at first because he flat out said he wouldn’t change for anyone, or anything, no way, no how! So I just prayed that we could find some common ground, and we did. We talked to him a little about our beliefs and he took it really well. Once again, could be very solid.

Dad, don’t worry about those conversations. If it gets to polygamy or anything, here’s what you do: briefly answer their question, and find another gospel principle to tie it into. Then, start asking them questions, ones that make them think.... hmmm I guess its not THAT easy, but you're a "people person," you've got that tact. Just try and keep the focus off of their weird questions. Definitely answer them, but keep the focus on something else and yes, testify!

Anyways.... love you all, and I hope all is well! Cameron, are you too cool to shoot me an email too?!?! You better be prepping cause this really is the greatest time of your life thus far! And it’s not AS hard as people say it is.

With all my love,
ELDER LOGAN BROOKS