This week was great! we had two amazing lessons back to back right after an awesome district meeting on Tuesday. The spirit can do amazing things, if we try our best to be effective instruments in the hands of the Lord carrying His message to open hearts. it's amazingly easy when you do things right, but it's stinking hard to get the hang of doing things right. Ultimately it depends on the person and their hunger. because if they really want to find out, they'll read and learn for themselves.
This was evident in our lesson with a mother (50s) and daughter (20s) we are teaching. We had left the Restoration and Plan of Salvation folletos and a Book of Mormon. We asked them if they read any of what we left, and they started asking about and angel Moroni, and why our Bible had a different name. The daughter, who got expelled from school in 3rd grade and never finished, and her Mom who can't read at all, had read parts of the folletos and the testimony of Joseph Smith! The daughter can read really slowly, and the Mom has her 8 y.o. grandson read to her, but they had read!! We hadn't taught anything about the restoration, but they were asking questions about it! So we told them about how the Book of Mormon doesn't replace the Bible, but is more of God's words. They were prepared to accept this as the Bible and throw away their old Bible, but we told them they should absolutely keep their Bibles. They're very poor, but asked how much it cost, and we told them it's a gift. this reminded me of the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, and how the person gave up everything to have the Pearl. That was their attitude when they found a glimpse of true joy. We could not give them enough to satisfy their hunger. we taught all the content of lesson one and the rest of Lesson two in about 5 minutes, and they were enthrawled the whole time, and their expressions looked like their minds were being introduced to the light that had been missing their whole lives. Hopeful is what describes their attitude. The daughter wants to better her life, and she knows church and baptism is what she needs. It's so frustrating how Heavenly Father can let such enormous obsticales like hunger, and poverty get in the way of someone that wants to follow Christ. But it's part of the perfect plan to better us, we just gotta fight through whatever is thrown in front of us or our investigators, and ask for God's help through it all.
This was evident in our lesson with a mother (50s) and daughter (20s) we are teaching. We had left the Restoration and Plan of Salvation folletos and a Book of Mormon. We asked them if they read any of what we left, and they started asking about and angel Moroni, and why our Bible had a different name. The daughter, who got expelled from school in 3rd grade and never finished, and her Mom who can't read at all, had read parts of the folletos and the testimony of Joseph Smith! The daughter can read really slowly, and the Mom has her 8 y.o. grandson read to her, but they had read!! We hadn't taught anything about the restoration, but they were asking questions about it! So we told them about how the Book of Mormon doesn't replace the Bible, but is more of God's words. They were prepared to accept this as the Bible and throw away their old Bible, but we told them they should absolutely keep their Bibles. They're very poor, but asked how much it cost, and we told them it's a gift. this reminded me of the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, and how the person gave up everything to have the Pearl. That was their attitude when they found a glimpse of true joy. We could not give them enough to satisfy their hunger. we taught all the content of lesson one and the rest of Lesson two in about 5 minutes, and they were enthrawled the whole time, and their expressions looked like their minds were being introduced to the light that had been missing their whole lives. Hopeful is what describes their attitude. The daughter wants to better her life, and she knows church and baptism is what she needs. It's so frustrating how Heavenly Father can let such enormous obsticales like hunger, and poverty get in the way of someone that wants to follow Christ. But it's part of the perfect plan to better us, we just gotta fight through whatever is thrown in front of us or our investigators, and ask for God's help through it all.
Navidad
I just love Christmas Music! And only having my hymnal, I´ve learned to really love the carols we sing in church. The tunes are old and classic! we´ve gotten to sing as missionaries, and tomorrow we´re singing for the multizona meeting, and because we only have two sisters singing, I got recruited to sing alto! so that´ll be fun. I miss getting to harmonize because I always get stuck wrangling everyone to sing the right melody kind of in tune and on rhythm. Christmas here is not many lights (only because they´re expensive) but lots of cheap, dangerous fireworks handled by kids way too young. so combined with the weather and the festivities, I might as well wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July!! |
People put up their Christmas trees really early, like before Thanksgiving. And they celebrate it by staying up partying the 24th, and shooting off fireworks and loud bombs after Midnight. New Years is pretty much the same, but CRAZIER. We spent Christmas at our house with Elder Campbell and Elder Pirir, and New Years at their house. All the missionaries say that they eat TONS of tamales during La Navidad, but I only ate 3. Mostly because I didn´t leave the house the 24th because I was sick with Dengue. I didn´t have it too bad but at its worst, but my whole body was weak, and I had a wicked headache that didn´t go away with Ibuprofen. Luckily, Elder Montecinos had Chikuncunya, who had been sick for the week before Christmas, so our companions got a good idea, and stuck us two together in their house so the elders in good health could go do work. being around someone sicker than I was made me feel a little better haha.
I got permission to Skype twice, with Alice on the 25th and with Mom and Dad on the 29th