Week has been good! some interesting experiences.
Investigators are coming well. "R"s baptism is this Saturday! We're super excited! We met a cool family! We were actually in Robert, getting pizza, when a car pulled up to us, asking if we preached the gospel. We said that we did and she went off about how much she wanted us to come teach her and her son, who's 18. She said her son is starting to hang around the wrong crowd and she wants to keep him on the right track. We said we'd love too and said that we were his age. She freaked and thought it was the coolest thing that the Lord has such young, faithful servants. She said she wanted to feed us and be our "mom" here in Martinique. Haha She's great! We taught her family and they're really cool, definitely going to baptize them!
I've gained a new respect and understanding for all the traveling Dad does. It really takes a tole on the body and mind. I'm am truly grateful for his selfless sacrifices. They're is a good mormon message and talk given called, "Let Us Be Men" :
Years ago, when my brothers and I were boys, our mother had radical cancer surgery. She came very close to death. Much of the tissue in her neck and shoulder had to be removed, and for a long time it was very painful for her to use her right arm.
One morning about a year after the surgery, my father took Mother to an appliance store and asked the manager to show her how to use a machine he had for ironing clothes. The machine was called an Ironrite. It was operated from a chair by pressing pedals with one’s knees to lower a padded roller against a heated metal surface and turn the roller, feeding in shirts, pants, dresses, and other articles. You can see that this would make ironing (of which there was a great deal in our
family of five boys) much easier, especially for a woman with limited use of her arm. Mother was shocked when Dad told the manager they would buy the machine and then paid cash for it. Despite my father’s good income as a veterinarian, Mother’s surgery and medications had left them in a difficult financial situation.
On the way home, my mother was upset: “How can we afford it? Where did the money come from? How will we get along now?” Finally Dad told her that he had gone without lunches for nearly a year to save enough money. “Now when you iron,” he said, “you won’t have to stop and go into the bedroom and cry until the pain in your arm stops.” She didn’t know he knew about that. I was not aware of my father’s sacrifice and act of love for my mother at the time, but now that I know, I say to myself, “There is a man.”
Reminded me of Dad. Really inspiring talk.
We're hangin' in there! Everything is great! We are very blessed.
Love you too!
Elder Fraley
