Connor Poulsen of the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Mission and the Maryland Baltimore Mission: Riding a sort of Stolen Bike

Hey everyone! Transfers was this week, me and Elder Cuthbert are
having a good time preachin dat word yahmean! On transfer day I was in
Harrisburg all day with some other missionaries, and instead of us
sitting at the church all day they sent us out to work the Harrisburg
elders area! It was sweet. I was with Elder Camp for the day and the
zone leaders sent us to tract this apartment complex that apparently
had a lot of Hispanics, and Elder Camp speaks Spanish so I was
preparing myself to not have any clue what was going on. So we went
and the first door we knocked was this lady from Africa that didn't
speak English, then we met some Spanish speakers, then some other
people from Africa, then from Asia, and all sorts of places! It was
crazy there was so many different types of people there and the
hallways had like black mold & stuff it was way gross haha. So anyways
we met all these people and had some doorstep lessons and only 2 of
them were Spanish where I just stood there nodding my head while Elder
Camp taught haha. And we set up like 5 appointments for the zone
leaders! It was sweet we handed them the list and were like your
welcome guys haha.

So the first week with Elder Cuthbert was good! We met a lot of
people. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing leading out this
area & all that but it was a pretty good week. When people asked me if
I was ready to lead out this area I was just like yeah whatever I'll
figure it out and then it happened and I was like oh shoot I really do
need to figure this out hahahaha tryna figure out what I'm doing! It's
going good though.

The other day we were going to contact a less active who ended up not
living there anymore, but we met his dad Randy! Who quickly pointed
out that the bike I was riding was his...apparently him and his wife
LENT bikes to the missionaries like 2 years ago and never got them
back, and he described the other one and we don't know where it
is...so yeah I offered him his bike back and he said it's fine but we
do plan on returning 2 bikes to him to replace them haha. So that was
funny. Anyways, he said he used to be a member of the church and he
was open to us coming over sometime but wouldn't give us an exact
time, so we'll be stopping by there soon.

So on our way to Randy's house as we were riding our bikes, we rode by
a restaurant where there was a man sitting on the front steps and he
waved to us and said "good evening gentlemen". He was really nice to
us and I felt prompted to turn around and go talk to him, but I didn't
which was lame of me. So the next day we were walking by that
restaurant and he was outside throwing some trash away and I was like
this is it my second chance! So we started talking to him, offered to
help throwing the trash away, and offered him a pass along card. He
then said "I know all about it I was baptized Mormon 10 years ago!"
And we were like oh! Haha so we talked to him about his history with
the church and why he stopped going and he invited us to come to his
restaurant (he owns it) to have a lesson with him next week! So that
was pretty sick and it was awesome that even though I blew it on my
first opportunity to talk to him, I was given a second chance. His
name is Sean by the way

This week we had another lesson with Sister Zoeller, the less active
super awesome war vet. She struggles with thinking that Heavenly
Father is disappointed with her because of all the things she did in
Vietnam and that she is not worthy of Gods love. Brother Harlacher,
who joined the church almost 2 years ago and changed his life
completely for the better, was there with us. He usually doesn't say
much when he comes out with us, only when we ask him questions, but
this time he threw down! As she was expressing her feelings on why she
isn't worthy of Gods love he was like "who's will is stronger, yours
or Gods?" And Elder Cuthbert turned to me and mouthed the words "oh
dang!" Hahaha he said that and it was like boom! It was so perfect and
the lesson got better and better from there. Brother Harlacher had
plans to go camping that night, but felt like he should come with us
instead. After the lesson he took us out for ice cream and told us how
happy he was with his decision with coming out with us instead of
going camping. He knew he had done what Heavenly Father needed him to
do.

The family we found last week unfortunately cancelled this week :( but
they rescheduled to this next week so hopefully that is able to
happen. On Saturday we spent all day trying former and potential
investigators and we met a lot of nice people and some not so nice
people. It was a tiring and long day.

So overall it was a pretty good week! Love you all