July 9th, 2008

Note from Amy: This email came to Pop and I with the following:
I'm gonna send this email to you guys, and if you could just remove the part about guns and gang wars and forward it on to Mom, that'd be great. Thanks.
But, Mom already found out, so I guess it can all go in the blog now.

So things are going pretty well.
On Thursday, Elder Allen's first day, we were walking through the middle of the ghetto part of our area and he saw this guy run by with a gun in his hand. He turned to me and was like, "I think that guy had a gun!" So, we turned the corner and started walking down the hill. Not a minute later we heard a volley of gunshots coming from not too far away. I became concerned. More gunshots. We went to a members house who lived on the street we were standing on and she said this kind of thing is normal, but if we really wanted to get out of there we could go down the hill and to the right. We went down the hill, and when we turned right there were three police officers with guns drawn sitting crouched around the corner getting ready for more volleys of gunfire. We went back up the hill and waited in the doorway of the members house. Things only got worse the longer we waited. More police cars. More cops walking by with huge machine guns. More gunshots. They even sent a helicopter. After about an hour, it all ended, and we went and got ice cream. Apparently it all started with two kids who had tried to steal a car.
This issue of discrimination and prejudice in our ward is not getting better, but it's becoming recognized by the bishopric. Last week we had a great experience with the Area Book. After study, I picked it up and started leafing through it, and the teaching record of an old investigator of an elder who passed by here two years ago caught my eye. I wrote down the address and we went there the next day, a Saturday, at night. We talked to him really quickly in his doorway, but he said he had been thinking about the church lately and even asked if we would come by and pick him up the next day. He went to church on Sunday, loved it, and on Monday we went to his house again. We taught another quick lesson, and marked a baptismal date with him, and asked if he would say a prayer for us. In his prayer, he asked Heavenly Father to remove the doubt and fear he had about baptism and to help him have courage. The Spirit was so strong that he even shed tears- even we almost did. Afterwards he said that not only had he been thinking about coming back to the church, he had also been praying to know the right path before we showed up at his door. It was really clear that we had been instruments in the Lord's hands.
I'm hoping that his baptism will help clear up some of this "the missionaries only baptize ghetto folk" idea that has been floating around the ward. He's 19 but seems well off.
I haven't had to give a training yet as District Leader, because we had Zone Conference this week. I think next week I'll have to prepare something for our district. It's a little intimidating with sisters...
Anyway, that's all that's going on with me lately.
Love you all,
Elder Sisco