Elder Sackley goes to the West Indies: week 42

Bonjour

ok skyping home is really weird. i cant really describe it but it was good to see the family.

The picture with me and mini Mike Tyson: We have a member named mike mastey that comes out with us a lot so we go over to his house to pick him up many times a week. There is a little kid who loves me and hates Elder Chidester that lives there. He always fist bumps with me and shows us how many push ups he can do. He's 4 years old and has a six pack and back muscles. Then after he's done his little show, i egg him on and he beats up elder chidester. So of course he's cool.

We have been praying for a miracle the past few weeks, and as odd as it sounds, it came in the form of a recent convert being hungover and broke. It was weird, but exactly what I needed...I'll back up so you can understand a bit more:

5 weeks ago i was sitting in Fréré Manuels house. At the end of the lesson he said he had a dream that God told him to leave the church and of course, that triggered the most intense conversation of my mission thus far. He knew the Book of Mormon was true and that the church was true-he knew it all. Because of that, I didn't buy his story of wanting to leave, I just felt like something else was up. We worked for the next few weeks with the Branch president and anyone else that would volunteer to help, but nothing worked. So thats when i started praying for miracles and one finally came.

We go over to Manuels house one day and find him looking the same as the day we found him for the first time. Hung over and broken. He spilled his guts drinking, fighting with his wife, lost his job, broke.

We sat down and said a simple prayer and had a simple conversation with him. All was not lost contrary to his thoughts at the time. We talked about his conversion and he admitted to me that this was the worst he's ever felt. Even worse than the day we first found him.

We talked about how he could get it all back. Yes, he fell hard into sin but with God the rise would be even greater. We gave him the same chapter to read that we gave him the first day we met him and we're restarting his conversion. We're going to re-teach it all and get him back to what he was and even better.

So I guess in one way or another, I am thankful that he fell so low that he could get back up again. That being said, I am thankful for the opportunity to restart with hung over recent converts.

Elder Logan Robert Sackley