Tortoise Hunting & Umbrellas Can Bring People Together

The Logan District: me, Elder Johns, Elder Yocam, Elder Lane (comp),
Elder McCrae and Elder Caldwell

Neighborhood Free Library...

Looks like a good place to add a Book of Mormon to...

I'll trade you a Book of Mormon for a Hobbit. ;)

May 16, 2016

Dear Alley Family & Friends,

How's it going y'all? First off, a big congratulations goes to Kayli Kirchhoefer and her new husband for getting married. Best wishes go to them. I'm glad everyone had fun at the wedding. Is it just me, or have there been a lot of weddings lately? I think my cousin Nicholas was the first to be married, then my cousin Rachel, then Jarom Abel, then Ryan Larson and now Kayli Kirchhoefer. If that's not enough, two of my former companions, Elder Barney and Elder McMullin, who have been home for a while are also married! One of them even sent me a wedding announcement. Is everybody getting hitched these days? Ha ha. Still, I'm happy for all them. Congratulations everyone!

Now, you're all probably wondering about the meaning of the title. Well, what happened this week was that we found a couple potential investigators this week, and in the most unusual but also hilarious way. I already shared this story with my mission president so I'll just show you what I wrote to him. I hope you all get a kick out of it. Ha ha:

"The first potential we found was a lady named E. We found her while we were tracting around this apartment area and we found a tortoise on the sidewalk. Figuring that it was someone's pet, we knocked on this one door, asked the people there if they were missing a tortoise and then they called their neighbor E over and helped her get her tortoise back. She was very grateful for helping her find her pet and she said that we can stop by her apartment later. We haven't been able to catch her home yet to set up an appointment but we'll keep trying."

"The other potential was a girl named T. We met her when we were walking back to our apartment while it was raining. She saw us, parked her car and gave us an umbrella to use (we told her that our apartment was not far but she wouldn't take "no" for an answer). She then met us outside our apartment the next day to pick up her umbrella and, thinking that this could be a good opportunity to teach someone about the gospel, I asked her and her boyfriend K, "Have you ever heard about the LDS church before?" This opened up to a great conversation where we actually got to teach a little bit of the restoration message. They told us they were busy most of the time but they gave us a phone number so that we can follow-up with them. It was awesome! I hope we get to meet them again soon."

While hunting tortoises and giving back umbrellas are not the first things that come to mind when I think of methods of finding new investigators, I'm definitely not complaining about it. The tortoise hunting story is my personal favorite and looking back on it just puts a smile on my face. I thought it was funny. "Preach My Gospel" specifically says that "There are many honorable ways to find those being prepared for the restored gospel" (see section "Finding Through Your Own Efforts"). I guess helping people find their pet tortoises is one of those "honorable ways". Ha ha.

Well, that's all I got for this week. I love you all and miss you all. Take care everyone.

Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Elder Michael Alley