March 12, 2012
Hey. Sorry I didn't get a letter out last week. Last week had a district activity in downtown Detroit and we had to meet everyone in time to catch a bus, and mine and elder adamson's emails to president took up more time than we realized. we looked at the time and realized we were already late so we just had to log off the computers. but it was good talking to you for a few min back and forth mom :)
this weekend was the Gladys Knight firesides. oh man that was sweet. i can't capture how cool it was, so pray that you can see the choir sometime. so there were a total of 7 performances, they added an earlier one on friday. and elder adamson and i got to assist at the friday ones which was really neat. the one at friday was at the palmer park building down in detroit. i don't know if i've showed you a pic of that building already, but it's an old greek orthodox church that we bought out and renovated only a little bit, so it's still pretty sweet. i'll upload some pics of the building i took when i was down in mack last year, we had our district meetings every week in this building. we got to talk to a lot of the choir members when we assisted and they told us they had never performed in a building like this one. for assisting we had to get there at 10 in the morning for training and to set things up, and we stayed for all 3 firesides that day and got back home at about 11:30 that night. but it was fun, we got to watch all three of those too. and we went to one of the saturday firesides with some of our investigators, and the ones on saturday and sunday were at the bloomfield hills stake center (same parking lot as the temple). the music was really good, never knew i was a gospel music fan. when gladys would sing, it was like she was declaring her testimony to the audience. she would sing at the audience rather than to the audience. and she's got some vocals. it was pretty interesting to see how Gladys would present herself differently when she was in detroit and when she was in bloomfield hills. in detroit she let her swaggah flow out a lot more, she sounded a lot like a detroiter, and she threw down on obedience. she said something like "you're not just saved, you've got WORK to do!" ha and all the detroiters would shout "amen" and "thass righ gladys". it was a lot of fun. we were standing and clapping. detroiters were shouting and hallelujah-ing. it's something i probably will never see again inside of a church meeting. and the fireside in bloomfield was sweet too. you could tell that the audience was thinking things through a little more, and the speakers could address things a little more directly with them. On the saturday performance Gladys' husband spoke too (he wasn't there for the friday ones) and he was super direct. he shared his story of how he was good friends with gladys since the 70s but thought she'd lost her mind when she joined the church. but eventually she got him to start meeting with the missionaries and they got married. in his testimony he said "I'm not here to convince you this is the true church...I'm here to inform you this is the true church." good stuff. he also said "if you came tonight to hear gladys knight and the choir sing, you completely missed the point of the fireside." and gladys was just as bold. she spoke for 20 min or so at the end. she shared her conversion story and said "it's no coincidence you're here tonight. you're hear because God wants you in His army. He's called you all here. it's up to you whether you accept that call and enlist though. if you don't, He'll let you go and serve whatever else it is out there you want to serve, but if you want to serve God in His army, this is your chance right now."
this was so cool, a once in a life time experience. we brought a family with us that's been investigating and they loved it. and two other investigators we're working with made it out and went with members. miracles were happening all over the place too. when we were working on friday in detroit, we had some extra tickets, so we started inviting people walking by the church. a couple people ended up coming to the firesides. this one guy named dion came in and we got him set up with the missionaries in that ward because he lives right across the street from the church, and i looked back at him a couple times during the performance and his face was lit up with a big old smile the whole time. our ward did a good job inviting friends too, they got more tickets than any of the other wards in the stake, so that was exciting, and members have been telling us how much their friends enjoyed it. so that alone was cool to see members way more excited about missionary work. i think i explained the request situation, but everyone who came to the fireside got a program with a tear-out request card that the missionaries collected afterwards. if someone filled it out, the missionaries in their area come by to drop off a gift bag with a CD sampler with some of the songs from the choir, a Restoration DVD, and a Book of Mormon. so our job starting tomorrow is to start meeting with all these people. the mission ended up getting about 800 of the request cards, so we should be busy the next couple months. i hope i captured as much of the fireside experience as i could just now. it was a good time, i've had gladys and the choir stuck in my head ever since. word on the street she's going to be on dancing with the stars too, she's got some moves. she was rockin out up there as she directed the choir. not only is the church true, but it's got some soul up in there.
well that was pretty much the highlight of the week. baptism coming up this saturday so stay tuned for that. her name's laura, and she's the coolest. super elect. we found out she's related to porter rockwell too, so that explains why she's got that die-hard faith.
love you guys. let's not forget to thank the lord for the restored gospel in our lives - and to share what we've been given with those who need it so badly. everyone needs it badly.
