"I presuppose..."

At church yesterday a girl in her early 20's that I'd never seen

before came up to Elder Davis and I after sacrament meeting and asked

us for a blessing. Turns out she's from Maryland and is down here for

a Shakespeare camp at Blackfriars Playhouse which is a really nice

Shakespeare  theatre in downtown Staunton. She didn't really give us

any details about what she was struggling with but we told her we

would be happy to give her a blessing. I was able to give her the

blessing and as we were finding an empty room to do it in I was a

little worried about what I was going to say, I mean she didn't really

give me much to work with. Usually when I give someone a blessing I

feel like I'm fishing for words and don't know quite what to say. This

time however I knew exactly what to say and how to say it, it was so

cool. She was in tears by the end of the blessing and the whole room

was filled with the spirit. She had to leave after that but asked us

for 3 copies of the Book of Mormon just in case anyone was curious at

the camp.

That night we went and saw Cehyla and she had finished Ether!! We were

able to read the first 7 chapters of Moroni with her and talk about

them so she should be finished by next week. I know I say this every

time I talk about her but it has been such a cool experience to watch

someone read through the whole Book of Mormon and see how it changes

them. On our way out we said hi to this guy that was definitely

wearing eye shadow, he called out to us a few seconds after we passed

him and said "Tell Joseph Smith I said hi!" We laughed and then he

added "that's right, I know who you are", it was pretty funny.

Then on Saturday we were street contacting downtown when we walked

past this guy sitting on some steps. The best way I can describe him

is a black Albert Einstein with a grey Afro. We offered him a card and

all he said in reply was "let me ask you a question, what does it mean

in the Bible when it says 'in the beginning was the word, and the word

was with god, and the word was god'?" We thought about it for a moment

and gave him our best answer, he agreed with us and then starting

asking more questions. It was at least a 20 minute conversation that

quickly turned into him telling us we were wrong about the Book of

Mormon. He kept saying things like "I presuppose the Bible is the word

of God, therefore the Book of Mormon is false" or "I presuppose that

God would not give more scripture" and all this other stuff. Near the

end of our conversation he got really serious. He stood up and got

really close to us, like nose to nose, and told us that we better be

very confident of our beliefs because if we're wrong, we're going to

hell. Then he smiled, shook our hands, told us he'd pray we found the

truth, and went on his merry way. People like that used to make me so

mad but now I just laugh and keep trying to find the people who are

ready to listen to us.

Alright now an update on Dawn, we are 88.7% sure that she is in fact

NOT a member. So hopefully she will be baptized in the coming weeks.

She came to church again yesterday but was only able to stay for the

first hour since she was tired from working all night. She also came

to the ward party Saturday night which was so fun. There was plenty of

food and a ton of games. I got my butt kicked in ping pong by the

Young Men's President and Elder Davis is the new stick pull champion

of the Staunton ward (I'll include the video). We also played

kickball, and let me just say that if anyone thinks ward basketball

gets heated, you should see kickball with the Staunton ward.

We also helped Brother Johnson, a member in the ward, start building

his chicken coop, that was fun. That's the nice thing about Staunton,

everyone has a ton of land and they can build whatever they want on

it. We also helped him build part of his patio, there's gonna be some

bench swings with a big fire pit in the middle. He said he'd invite us

over for s'mores once it was finished so hopefully I'm still around

when the time comes.

On Wednesday we went to the old branch building that's in Staunton for

district meeting since we had gotten the keys the day before. When we

got there though we realized that the Bishop had given us the wrong

key, so we had to sit there for 20 minutes until the 1st counselor

came to unlock it for us.

That's about it for this week folks. Transfer calls are this Saturday

so if you're going to send me something after this Wednesday I'd hold

off until I know if I get to stay here in Staunton. I love serving the

people here in Virginia and I meet someone each day that makes the

whole experience worth it. Love y'all!!

Elder Critchfield 🙏🏻

107 Community Way

Apt. 522

Staunton, VA 24401

Pics

1. Sick hammock on a members deck

2. Waiting for the branch building to be unlocked

3. The YW had Utah cookies since one of them is leaving for BYU

4. Stick pull champ

5. Cow Whisperer