More Sobolo!

Dear America,

The quick email this week was neat. I liked the talk from Elder Holland. My main snack this week was sobolo, the drink that I've written about before. One of the members makes really nice sobolo, so I paid them to make a bunch of it for me. It is so nice. I just sit in my chair in the kitchen at night and sip from my cup of high-grade sobolo and feel sophisticated. Or when I'm taking care of finances at my desk and I drink like two liters of it. Beautiful. The snacks last week were exactly what they look like.... small fried fish. And yes, I bought more and made a small stew that lasted me the entire week. It was good.

We had zone conference this week where we were able to watch the worldwide missionary broadcast all the way through because we didn't the first time. It was a good experience. It also made the conference last forever and a half.

There have been several times this week when investigators sucked at keeping their commitments and made life hard for us, but when you look at it from the point of view of God, we all suck at keeping our commitments. One day in particular, I was feeling pretty grumpy but I'm a servant of the Lord and servants of the Lord can't afford to be grumpy. So I said a prayer that I would feel happier. It worked. My mood immediately started to lighten and the next lesson we went into was the best one of the whole week. The man (a former investigator) was really interested about the Holy Ghost. We taught him pure, basic doctrine about the third member of the Godhead and felt the Spirit bear witness to everything we said. It touched him so deeply to finally learn about what the Holy Ghost feels like and what His role is. And then I had the opportunity to teach and testify about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It's such a blessing to have peace, joy, and guidance from our Heavenly Father constantly throughout our lives. The man's interest in being baptized and receiving this gift was suddenly renewed. We left the lesson smiling. Later in the day, he called us to ask where to find some of the scripture references we used, so I suspect that his interest was genuine.

Another instance was at the end of a long, hard day when we stopped by a stubborn Roman Catholic family that we've met (and argued with) before. We spent a while chatting with them. Pretty soon the subject came to the Law of Chastity and we were informally teaching them about the dangers of pornography. They were as stubborn and contentious as ever, but at the end of everything one of them told me quietly that she had been considering pornography use but after what we had taught, she decided against it. It made me really happy. Even if they never get baptized, I've at least helped somebody's marriage not to fall apart.

Have a great week!

Elder Nelson