Can you all believe that it's August already?! I have heard that It will be cold again in 6 weeks and in 10 snow will start falling again. It already gets to the low fifties after sundown up here. I don't want summer to ever end but I am sure that all will be fine.
This week has been a good one. On Monday morning we celebrated Pioneer Day by eating pancakes and other assorted breakfast foods. I can't quite determine the direct relation between the early saints and breakfast food but we always need an excuse to celebrate something.
Later in the week we held a community supper at our church building. It was really awesome to see all of these nonmembers come and visit and enjoy the interior of our place of worship, mostly in an effort to dispel any guise or misconceived distrust within people of the community.
We were able to talk to a lot of people, some of them being coworkers of our own members. Later they mentioned that they had a great time and it was wonderful to help raise our organization from obscurity within the community.
I got to speak on Sunday. I spoke for a whole 20 minutes with just a few notes that I had taken. It was awesome! It is really cool to see they way that the Gospel has become integrated so deeply within myself that the spirit helps to expound and teach the Gospel so easily. This is such an increase from what I once was and I can testify that as we seek for gifts of the spirit that we are given them in abundance for the uplifting of ourselves and others.
I guess I need to explain the subject line. Elder O'Rourke and I saw a really cool miracle the other day. One evening at about 6 we were driving in Jonesport. We didn't have much time before we had to leave and we were thinking of something that we could do quickly. While driving down main st Jonesport, elder Starr had an impression, it distinctly said "do something dumb". Now let me explain, I mean dumb like uncomfortable, not dangerous or idiotic or not conducive to the sacred nature of my calling, just thought I would clarify. So I told elder O'Rourke, "let's just contact the first person that we see. He said "k" so we saw a guy on the side of the road walking next to his son on a bike. At this point I think Elder O'Rourke didn't expect that elder Starr had disabled the higher functions of his brain that managed appropriate social interaction. So he was undoubtedly surprised when, without warning I pulled over next to this man and yelled at him "do you want to be a Mormon!?" The man looked with a confused face and asked what I had said, so I reiterated "are you interested in being a Mormon?" Still not quite sure in my own mind what was happening. The man looked at us rolled his eyes, than stuck his arm in the window of our car. At this point I was 100% certain that he would give us an old fashioned one finger salute right in our face, but much to my surprise he was showing us his tattoos on his arm, Many crosses and a Jesus face, but to our shock ornate lettering that clearly said "latter day saint"
Now at this point I was certain that I was going crazy, so we asked if we could walk with him and he said that was fine. It turns out that this guy was the son of the organist in the branch that was walking home with his son. The previous elders had a very difficult time finding him and he just happened to walking on the side of the road when we drove by. He said that we could come by and see him whenever he was home and that he was interested in taking the discussions again.
I know that it is by our faith and our diligence to do what is right that we will plainly see the power of God manifest in our lives. Our duty is to exercise our faith that people are prepared to receive the gospel. We know that we receive no witness of God until our faith is first tested.
I hope that you all had a wonderful week and that the next one will be even better.
I love you all and wish you the best.
Until next time.
- Elder Starr
Just some photos of the blueberry country.
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