"Scots are good at being bold, blunt, and straightforward."

So first off, we are going to watch BOXING today at the Commonwealth Games!
It's at 1:00 pm and so I may not have as much time as usual for emailing. But it's worth it! And maybe if it's televised in America you can watch it with me!
Last week didn't seem to eventful, but it seems like most weeks I say that I end up thinking of cool things that happen as I type. So here we go.
We did a bit of service--painting--for a couple that the sister missionaries are teaching. It was kind of fun I guess.
We're still teaching Alistair. Hard to tell if he understands what we teach.
Also Frank (the guy who had cops at his house)...he was high during our appointment. We're pretty sure he smokes a lot of weeeeed.
We had a guy from the ward come with us, and he was straight up with him. He basically said "you need to repent of your sins, come to church, and get baptized.
It seemed a bit harsh, but at the same time perfect because the guy was raised in the same area of Glasgow (kind of a rough area) and he knows how these people think.
Scots are good at being bold, blunt, and straightforward. But yeah, Frank was straight up as well and said he can't desert his Catholic faith, even if he got an answer that our church is true. So we'll see where we go with him.
We keep finding more and more good potential investigators, and some end up being too "busy" or avoiding us or just never home...but eventually we'll find someone golden!
On the 24th of July we had dinner at the McKenzies' house. The mom is a member from Utah, and her husband is a non-member from Scotland. They invited us and all the other missionaries from the ward over for a Pioneer Day celebration. We had burgers and such. It was a lot of fun.
We played some football again on Saturday.
The stake president organizes it every Saturday, unless there's not enough people planning to go. It was fun, but I injured my NECK doing a throw in!
I guess I threw it too hard and it felt like I pulled a muscle. For the day it was very painful to move my neck, but when I woke up yesterday it was not as bad and now it's good as new.
We started teaching a guy from Sudan who is Muslim. He kept saying "Prophet Jesus" so we told him that if he reads the Book of Mormon he can gain a testimony of Jesus as more than a prophet, but also the Saviour. That is one of the purposes on the Title Page of the book, so we'll see if it works with him.
I heard of a Jewish lady who had such an experience last year somewhere in our mission...the Book of Mormon convinced her that Jesus is the Christ. Pretty cool.
Last night we were knocking some doors, and an African guy answered. After a couple minutes on the doorstep, he invited us in. He, his wife, and a friend of theirs were all there and seemed happy to see us. I was very hopeful, because it seems like a lot of missionaries in our mission have great success teaching African families.
The man who let us in, Freddy, offered to say an opening prayer. And it sounded exactly like the way we pray. And then he started talking about how he believes in Prophets, and that he would like there to be a prophet today who God could speak through.
He went on about this for about five minutes, and then said he would like us to tell him about Joseph Smith. He already knew the name, and they all three said they had a copy of the Book of Mormon from past encounters with missionaries.
So I kinda had a suspicious feeling that he wasn't as genuinely searching for the truth as he said he was, because if he really was then he would have embraced it when he first learned of the Restoration.
So yeah he asked us to tell the account of Joseph Smith, and immediately this led to a lengthy discussion/debate about the nature of the Godhead. It ended up a bit frustrating.
He and his friend were quoting scriptures off by heart, and then when it was almost 9:00 he went to get his Bible. I told him no, we don't have time for that, because I know from experience that once the Bible comes out, it will be hard to leave.
They were insistent that they share a few scriptures "just for 10 minutes!" but of course it went longer.
So we told them that we don't have time, but to be polite we said if they want we can come back another day. They wanted us to (so they could teach US) so we're going back later this week.
I feel like just lending them my copy of "A Marvelous Work and a Wonder" and telling them that we are called to teach people who are seeking the truth, not to argue or to be taught. We'll see how that goes.
It would be nice to bring Prince, a member from Greenock, who would be well-matched with them. Although Bible-bashing is sometimes fun, it never works because we all have different interpretations of the same verse, and there are verses that support both arguments. Every time.
Oh one cool thing.
We were going down this semi-busy street GQing (street contacting). We stopped a young man and young woman about our age to talk with them.
They were really friendly, and once I asked if they were familiar with our church, the girl said she had been to Utah, had toured Temple Square, had Mormon friends she met there, etc.
She said she worked at a scout camp at Bear Lake. I said "Camp Hunt?" And she was excited and said yes! So of course she knew Logan, she loved Bear Lake, and she said she went to a church service and loved it!
But she said she was too busy to meet with us, and wouldn't give us her contact info to teach her. Dang it!
But she has our number, and maybe she'll contact us. It was a fun conversation though...It's a small world after all!
Alright well that was my week. I guess it wasn't too boring after all. Now time to go watch some men beat each other up!
Have a great week. Love you all!
Spencer

Here's a few photos of that weird hill thing on Plean Street!