Hola todos,
I told Dad a little bit
in the email but I'll say it again, we've had a bit more success this week.
An ex-missionary has been helping us out this week and he was able to
show us where less actives live and even where a couple old investigators live.
We found two new people this week and we'll see how that all goes down.
One of the new investigators is
named N., and he is such a hoot. He is about 70 years old but he is still
working like a champ. When we arrived to his house he was out front with his
shirt off, short shorts, a sombrero, and some sweet sandals
while he was repairing his wall. We offered to help him but he said he wanted
to do it by himself. We waited for him to finish and then we shared a message
with him. He had listened to missionaries before and he told us he wanted it
clear that he was [a member of another church] and that he didn't want us to get any ideas. I
started asking him why that would give us ideas, why he was so set on being [a member of his faith] and things like that. He talked to us a little bit about his religious
background and after we got an idea of his viewpoint, we started to teach him
the restoration.
He really understood the part of
Jesus establishing his church and even more understood the Apostasy. There was
even a point in the lesson where he put his head down with a confused look on
his face and said something like, "Well if there is no authority on the
earth, and no prophets, we don't have the true church of Christ." He seemed
right there for a moment to forget everything he had ever learned from [his] church. We explained to him the Restoration and invited him to pray to
ask God if Joseph Smith was a prophet and he said he would. We're going to keep
going with him and I am keeping the faith that he will be able to be baptized.
He is a little hard of hearing which makes lessons difficult but he makes me
laugh.
We also have been teaching another
investigator named A. for a few weeks now. He is the only investigator that
has come to church and he is really great. He always has a lot of questions and
that is something I really like. I love trying to help people find answers to
their questions. We found out last night that he hasn't been reading his Book
of Mormon and instead is reading parts of the Bible that go along with a class
he is taking. (I don't know from whom) I had to [tell him strongly] with some
love that he would never be able to decide if he wants to be
baptized in this church and would never know if this church was true if he
didn't read it. We invited him to start reading and to pray and ask God if it
was true. I find that that almost always seems to be the problem with
investigators. They don't show the faith to just ask God, who giveth to all men
liberally! He doesn't even upbraid! It is interesting to see that sometimes the problems that
investigators have are related to my own problems. I sometimes tend to think
that I can do it all on my own and that me asking God shows weakness or shows
that I can't figure things out by myself. A lot of times, I will tell an
investigator something and then think, "I need to put that to better
use too!"
A. says he will baptized the 3 of
August but he isn't very sure about it all. He says he wants to make sure that
it won't be something he does and then doesn't stick with it. He understands
that baptism is something very serious and important and as such, doesn't want
to take it too lightly. That is a good thing really, but he tends to think things
through TOO much if that makes sense. We're trying to help him understand that
spiritual things are understood better through searching, pondering and
praying. He is a really good guy and I hope that he can be baptized soon so
that his wife can see the changes and then want to listen to us too.
As a side note... They have the
cutest little daughter ever! She always has her
little doggy in her arms, swinging it around like a rag doll.... (No
seriously." That poor dog looks like he has a miserable life but she sure
makes it look cute.) She always comes into the room and makes the cutest
comments to her dad. I'm so happy that I can understand little kid Spanish now!
haha at first, I couldn't understand it at all and it frustrated me. But I digress mis queridos
amigos...my dear friends…
As far as I have heard, we might be
able to play soccer this next month. President Garcia is really adamant about
us doing our exercise and feels that lack of exercise is leading to a lot of
stress in missionaries.
This next week we're going to try
and do a ward activity on Thursday because we are in a desperate situation. The
members don't
really have any excitement. We're gaining the trust and friendship of about one family
every two weeks so at this rate we should have almost the whole ward here soon!
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