Transfer 8, Week 4 December 30th, 2013

I feel like I start all of my emails like this, but this week has really been a crazy one.  It started out with Christmas.  Honestly, it was really strange talking to you guys.  Everyone talks about getting to call home and talk to family, but it is really weird.  Being able to call home, and then to realize that I only get to do it a couple more times.  And that is even more strange.

But it was good.  Things happen, and we move on.  But the really strange thing happened on Sunday.  We went over to contact a potential investigator on a state corrections facility.  We have tried to contact him before, but we needed to go through a background check.  One of the things needed was our social security #, but when I gave it to them, later, they called and told me that it was an invalid number.  I brushed it off at that point, and gave it to them again, plus the place where I was born.  Now when we went over today, the only person that had been able to pass the background check was the member that had gone with us.  My social was invalid, and Elder Ogden's paperwork had been lost. So we weren't able to go in and contact him.  

Brother R, the member, started joking around with us about it.  It was kinda funny really.  You see, he had lived in several different countries when he was growing up, and he would always joke around with the kids that he would be with that he was a man  without a country.  Then he said that he was truly honored that he could meet a man that really didn't have a country.  We all laughed at that.  But at the same time, it brought up a rather serious note.  But I am not worried.  I have gotten a drivers licence, taken out student loans, gotten jobs, and gone to college using the social security number my entire life.  

I talked later to President Morby about it, and he said that the office would start to work on figuring out what was going on.  So he asked that I send him my social, so I broke it up, and sent it to him in a text, then deleted it from the phone.  But another thing that he said was really interesting.  He said that we weren't going to be able to visit the P.I. while he was in the facility, and that maybe the Lord had a hand in preventing us from going to see this man.  President Morby said that only the members would be able to visit this man, and talk with him, but the missionaries would have to wait until he got out to be able to speak/teach this man.  We were able to get a Book Of Mormon through security with some scriptures to read for the guy.

Love Elder Peterson