This Crazy Week

Hello everyone,

I take it everyone signed off since I haven't gotten any e-mails back. this week has been awesome. I have loved it a lot. We have been very blessed. Before I begin, there were a few questions. I did receive the packages both from Mom and from Grandma Green, thank you both for that. We have enjoyed all of it. My companion and I are both in the middle of reading President Monson's biography, which is really cool. He has so much quotable stuff in there it's amazing.

Dad, to answer your question from your e-mail, this area is much more receptive to me than the last. There seem to be many more people who are listening and interested than I could find in Bloomingdale. To illustrate my point, here's an example. Last friday we got a call from Sister Curtis who is serving in the Loop. She had just received a call from a man named Benny who had apparently had an odd circumstance, but that made him more willing to listen to us, the missionaries. After having met with Benny every possible day since, I can tell you that he is the very elect of God and has been preserved for a divine purpose. On Oct 12 he had a surgery on his back done. On leaving the surgery he had a terrible fever, and his brother who is a member of the ward in Woodstock came and gave him a blessing. After receiving that blessing, he still had the fever, which didn't abate until midnight that night. At midnight, Benny said that he was woken up by a man in a white robe that to him looked like a doctor's outfit. The man told him that it wasn't his time to die and that he was going to be able to leave the hospital in the morning. Then in the morning when he woke up, benny had the nurses check the register log and the cameras to see who had visited him that night. They told him no one had. He came to the conclusion that it was our Savior or one of His Angels. Well after that he came to realize that it came because of the blessing which his brother had given to him, and so he wanted to learn more. Benny has been searching for the truth for about 15 years now, and has been to just about every religious denomination, but was detained from ours by the thought that 1: Joseph Smith had allocated to himself the rights and powers of Christ, and 2: The Book of Mormon was a book written by Joseph Smith to compete with the Bible. After fixing those two errors of thought, he decided he wants to get baptized. Just like that. Go figure. So we're going to his doctor's appointment tomorrow to figure out how to baptize the guy.

Also, on our way home from one of our appointments with him, we discovered that my brakes don't work in the rain very well. My brake quickly became the sole of my shoe on the pavement. It looked ghetto and funny but it saved me from a gruesome accident. Then we decided we should adjust my brake pads (funny conclusion, I know). So we did, and now they work fine enough.

Along the same lines of weather and funny stories, today and yesterday have been rather blustery days and we've been seeing crazy weather. So I was standing at a bus stop, and I decided to take a step forward toward Elder Carroll. The moment I lifted my foot from the ground this huge gust of wind rattled through the street, physically stopped my forward momentum and just about threw me backward onto the pavement. Another proof that God has a sense of humor. Freak out Elder Green on the sidewalk.

Okay well, I've got to go now. I love you all very much. I love being on the Lord's errand and I love doing this every day. I have gotten a few letters started, and a few finished. Lauren, Amy and my family should be receiving some soon.

Con Mucho Amor,

Elder J. Green