Dear Grandchildren,
The week was essentially defined by two events. The first was the move of two of our YVs into a new apartment (well, new to them) and the second had to do with our visit to some members in a distant city. First things first.
The week before, the new apartment came into view with the help of a willing pair of realtors who actually wanted to help these young fellows find a place to live. The capstone was one of the realtors attending church services last week and then meeting with the YVs for a gospel lesson at a later date. Cool. She also showed up at our church meetings this morning for her second week in a row. What is more, for the second week she was the first person to arrive except for the YVs and myself. She might be a keeper. We shall learn later in the coming week when she comes to our apartment for a second lesson.
Last Monday was moving day. The two YVs showed up at an appointed hotel with their big bags stuffed into a taxi. The Church’s representative and I went with them, in another taxi, to the realtors’ office. There they took care of the formalities of signing the lease and paying two months’ worth of rent as a deposit. The landlord and landlady could not have been more gracious. He remembered me from an event that honored our illustrator member and she, with the YVs in her car, drove them to the Metro stop near the new apartment to show them where they can catch rides to different parts of the city. Except for a couch that crowds their study area, they are happy as clams in the sand. And that’s really, really happy. I know. I used to ask clams how happy they were when I dug them up on New England sandy beaches.
For the visit to the distant city, we went on a weekday which cut our attendance a bit. We stepped on the train at 8 a.m. and walked into our apartment just before 9 p.m. A long day by any account. We went to the apartment of a member couple who have been faithful attenders at our Sacrament Meetings via Skype. Her sister joined us, the one who speaks good English. And one of their Iranian friends who, with is wife, has been meeting with a Farsi-speaking YV in Ankara, also was there. This fellow and his wife have also been with us regularly by Skype for about four months. By whatever expression I might choose to describe them, they are the salt of the earth, the cream of the crop, the top of the mark. And they are all refugees from Iran. The sister of our member now has information from the UN that she and her husband will be relocated to the US six months hence. She asked about Trump and then declared that he does not like people from her country. I sensed a bit of worry in her words. Even so, the others in the room are hoping for similar news.
We were slightly off our game today at Sacrament Meeting. But only slightly. We were twenty-seven total, compared to thirty last week. Seventeen were in our hotel room and another ten joined by Skype. The part that impressed me is that five in the room were serious, adult investigators. And two joining by Skype are golden investigators according to the YV who has been teaching them in Farsi during the past couple of weeks. The YVs in our branch have set three baptismal dates for Christmas day. Let’s see whether they hold. I think that the possibility is good, even excellent, that we shall see three new members join our branch that day. At last!
We are waiting for our second pair of YVs to show up with an investigator for a lesson. The other pair came right after church services to meet with a young woman, married, who became a Christian after growing up otherwise. She stepped into a Christian church a few years ago and felt a friendship and love that she had not felt before. She came to our branch this morning. Her husband grew up Christian but is now an atheist. She was nice, very polite. She apparently enjoyed our services. She met with other YVs in Istanbul but is here for a short while.
The YVs who are coming are bringing a fellow who asks a lot of academic-type questions about the Bible. I spent a good deal of time with him during the first lesson. We shall see what this second lesson brings from him. I am hoping that he feels satisfied about the issue of the inerrancy of the Bible and such questions.
I love you and pray for you each day.
Grandpa Brown
No comments:
Post a Comment