It was a pretty basic week. I have a few things to talk about.
First, we went down to Orlando on Saturday for a baptism. It was someone who Elder Taylor taught in his last area. It's actually a Chinese Branch which is super cool. The lady's name is Ming and she is adorable. Cute little old Asian lady. Her smile was super contagious. It was a really great service. The branch president and his wife are both from America, are fluent in Chinese, and adopted two girls from China. I talked to the branch president's wife and daughters who were super nice. They give every missionary they "like" a Chinese missionary name. So I am now "Bǎo Zhǎnglǎo" which basically sounds like, in a rough way, "Po Chong-Lao". It was pretty funny. After the baptism, our member ride had to stop at Costco to get his hearing aids fixed. Id say about 80% of our ward wears a hearing aid. Anyway, while Elder Taylor and I were waiting, we walked around and tried all the free samples, and I kid you not, we ran into 3 separate member families. We'd just hear, "Hey, Elders!". Elder Taylor and I were just laughing about it because, A, anytime you're in a store or restaurant on a day that's not Monday, you always see members. I guess it's just God's way of keeping us on track. B, they all probably thought we were just chillin' at Costco on a Saturday afternoon. Dang, these Orlando missionaries are scrubs.
We had one really cool finding experience this week. Two Sundays ago, we stopped by one last person for the night. We went looking for a woman. We knocked on the door and a guy came to the window and said "We're good." and walked away. We left the house and drove down a few houses, and pulled over to report it. I opened the area book on my tablet and was about to stop teaching this woman, but my tablet wouldn't work. We waited and waited for it to work, and then a car pulled up to us. I don't know how, but he knew it was us. It was the same guy who said they were good. He told us to come back during the day and that he'd be open to talking to us. It was a miracle. We went back this week and had a lesson with him. His name is Jeff. He was extremely receptive. Probably the most receptive person I've met on my mission. He asked so many key questions like "why are there so many translations of the Bible?" and "why don't church's do missionary work?". Elder Taylor and I feel like the lesson went very well. It flowed and the Spirit was present. Not once did Jeff have a problem with what we said. He was so agreeable and receptive. It was too good to be true. Elder Taylor and I were hyped for the rest of the day. It was complete divine intervention.
That's all I have, hope you have a great week!
Elder Poulsen
