This week could be best described as a train, popping a wheelie, going 100 MPH, and wrecking into the side of Microsoft HQ. Let me explain.
So there's this man that my companion and I were teaching named J. We've been working with him for about 3 months as he comes closer to God. Last Sunday, Elder H and I warped over to his house at a predetermined time to go over more of the scriptures and the Gospel, but he was nowhere to be seen! We gave his phone a call, but it went straight to voice mail. No good.
For the next couple days, we visited his shed (he lives in a shed) in hopes we could catch him home, but our efforts were in vain. Not only was he never home, but the shed was in the exact same state every time we went by. By the fact of him not being home corroborated by his phone being dead, we could only assume something happened to him. We said our prayers and had the ward look out for him.
It's once again that time of the month where all the tech missionaries assemble at the Mormon Battalion to put on the best darn show in all of San Diego: Inspire. I've been live streaming this event with my trusty machine that my parents were kind enough to ship out from Utah, but this time had to be different.
If you have lost track of time, it's August. I'll be returning to the land of my inheritance in just a few short months, and I sure ain't leaving my fancy hardware behind. As such, the mission had to buy livestream hardware themselves. They bought a mid Acer laptop to replace my machine, that came running Windows.
Elder M, my partner in crime, has been using his digital interface to pipe the mics into the livestream for the last year and a half, but he is also leaving soon. The mission had to buy a replacement for his equipment too. So here we are, setting up for the Inspire with 2 new pieces of critical hardware. What could go wrong?
We set up all the cameras without a problem. I've been running cameras for so long now, I could do it in my sleep. Audio has always been handled by Elder M, but this time the band that was playing brought their own mix. They were gonna mic themselves and then run an XLR into our digital interface.
The band took a long time sound checking, and wouldn't let us start working on audio stuff until they were done sound checking. They were too busy to hook us up with their audio until about an hour before the show started. Once we got the audio from the band, we realized that it wasn't getting piped into the laptop properly.
For the next hour, Elder M and I tore out our hair (metaphorically, of course, I don't have a lot of hair to lose) trying to debug the silly new hardware. We could not, for the life of us, figure out why no sound was coming from the soundboard to OBS.
In the end, we couldn't get it working in time and had to kill the livestream. Needless to say, the Merritts were very unhappy. We took all the new equipment to an apartment the next day and tested it against my known good computer. My computer runs Linux, while the new laptop runs Windows. We determined that it was a problem with either Windows or the default Realtek drivers that came pre-installed on the PC.
After learning that Windows was behind the failure of our livestream the night before, a unanimous vote was made to abolish Windows from mission hardware and install Linux/GNU. The soundboard works with no fuss on Linux. We should have put Linux on that laptop first thing, but hindsight is clearer than foresight.
Now I will go on a rant about Windows and list all my grievances with Microsoft as a company and their crappy OS. Oh wait, wrong soap box... Ask me later.
As Sunday wrapped around, I reflected a lot on my goal of being more forgiving. I wrote last week in my email that it was my goal to forgive quicker and more often. The sacrament is the best!
We went over to J's house one more time to see if we could catch him before we gave him a drop... It had been a week since we had been in contacted, and we weren't sure how or if we could ever contact him. As we drove over, it started to rain.
We pulled up in the rain, and saw J shoveling mud out of the gutters. Why was he shoveling mud out of the bottom of his big gutter? Not sure, but he expressed that he had to get it out. I looked at my companion, and then over at the shovels and we knew what we had to do. We each grabbed a shovel and started removing dirt in our white shirts and ties.
After we got all the mud out, J was very grateful. He kept expressing how long it would have taken him to get rid of the dirt if we hadn't shown up, and told us all about his busy week. Turns out he had just been super busy the whole week trying to find a job and getting his Obama phone service working.
The first thing he asked us is if he could still be baptized this Saturday, and we told him unfortunately not, but we could move it to next Saturday. He was ecstatic! He's so excited to be one in the fold of God.
After that little miracle, we went over to Lorna's house. We taught a little about the plan of Salvation. I love teaching about God's plan, and all these ideas and concepts were new to her. She grew up in a Christian home, but had never considered the Fall of Adam and Eve to be a good thing and an enabling part of God's plan.
Mid way through, she stopped us and asked how we know all of this is true. It was so different from what she knew, and wanted to know what makes us unique. We told her it's because we have living prophets and additional witnesses of Jesus Christ. We invited her to pray about the things we've shared. How exciting.
Whelp, it's been a week! Thanks for reading all this nonsense. I hope you too, can avoid Windows and come closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ.
On to eternal perfection
-- Elder Coxson
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