August 7, 2017

fam,

Long week. The first week of the transfer is always so long. We also had like no food because the P-day to P-day was super long and the proximity to the end of the month meant we didn't have a bunch of money. We had a lot of burgers this week...

The last two Sundays were really good. The first we had the Aguilars as usual but also Carmen. Carmen had a really good time from what it looked like. She has two young kids who came to Primary with Elder Rencher and me and they really enjoyed the songs and everything that goes on. Carmen had to leave for work during the third hour and they came out of Primary with huge smiles on their faces. 

In the following lessons we talked about their Primary experiences a little and that really sat well with Carmen. A lot of her motivation is to help her kids be better than she was/is. Once you know why someone needs something or what they need, teaching becomes so much easier. The Gospel is for everyone but can be hard to apply in your life if you don't have something pulling you to it. Christ said it best, "they that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance." 

This week we did a fair amount of work with former investigators. It was great. We had two days in a row where we prayerfully picked people out to go visit from the old records and we caught nearly all of them as they were walking into their homes. Most weren't really interested in us coming back but one let us come back a few days later. The guy is a non-practicing Pentecostal and we talked about our message. He had a really good memory because he met with missionaries like two years ago. They had three lessons and he remembered the one chapter they left with him to read. He talked about why he didn't believe our message and by the end of our little visit he left it with "I like the Bible a lot and won't read the BoM." He didn't want us to come back which was unfortunate but even though he wasn't willing to try we left on good terms. I left him something to read in Mathew 21 to read which has a great parable about God sending servants to work in the vineyard and something else in the Book of Mormon. We left with a prayer and as we got in the car Elder Rencher saw through the door the guy opening up the BoM and starting to read. That's great but also unfortunate because I would want to come back and follow up on what he did but he asked us not to come back. Not everyone will accept our message, but not very many people accepted Christ when he taught.

Two highlights of the week 

The first was our lesson with Chris and Caryn. They were out of town for a little bit so we weren't able to pass them off like we planned. I don't like holding on the English people because they get attached and it makes the transition to the English Elders much harder. We planned to finally pass the first lesson with them, but they haven't had a solid enough foundation for us to feel like we could move on. We had a warm welcome as usual and after talking for a bit opened in prayer. Chris said something that sounded like he may have read all the way up to Third Nephi but I didn't notice at first and I failed in following up to make sure. He probably just read the first few chapters of Third Nephi, but still that's awesome. He kind of got off on a tangent on the whole day and a half of light prophesy coming true and then the new star in the sky at Christ's birth and at first it was hard to tell if he was bringing this up as some attempt to prove the BoM false but it turned out that he really really liked it. He kind of geeked out about that for a few minutes. That was funny. Caryn had some questions about that, mostly because she didn't read. Her questions were good and sincere for the most part in the first half of the lesson. We planned on going through the plan of salvation but with no time left, mostly because we had very little time to begin with, we decided to share something short. We read through the first 5 verses of Moroni chapter 10 and covered that again. We bore testimony on the BoM again and Chris and Caryn seemed touched by what we said.  That warm good feeling that always comes with the spirit was there and I could tell Caryn was feeling the same thing as we shared how the BoM has affected our lives. After that there was a little silence and Caryn was clearly thinking, but in a different way than before when she was contesting the points of doctrine we taught them. She asked us if she could ask us two questions. We told her we really had to run but we would love to hear them anyway and give answers when we would come back. She asked us, "Why do I need the BoM if I'm already saved?" and "Why do you need to teach me the plan of salvation if I've already come to Jesus Christ and been saved?" Two really good questions. The spirit has been working really hard with her the last few days and she has a whole new demeanor. It's been really interesting to watch her the last few visits we've been with her. I really hope she allows the spirit to continue to work with her and that she really starts to progress. They have been such a great example to me in the importance of the spirit. Caryn tried to pull the Bible on us to prove us wrong but couldn't, which for the most part only means we've done our homework. You can make an appeal from the Bible that nearly every church is correct and all the others are false, but with the spirit you can't do the same. The spirit testifies of truth and is the single most important factor in conversion. 

The other Elders also had a baptism this week! This kid named Diego had a great service yesterday. I played the piano as usual. We came extra early to practice for the special musical number I was going to play and Elder Barrows was going to sing and one of the English sisters was going to sing as well. They sang a duet of A child's prayer in Spanish, it came out so well. We also had great speakers and like 50 people show up, many of whom weren't members. We started about 40 minutes late and I started the prelude 30 minutes before it was supposed to start. Mistakes were made. (editorial note: sounds like Pres. Monson). The piano seat was really hard and after an hour of prelude I was dying, not to mention the hour and a half of practice we had before that. 

29 July 2017 Service, Soup, Sabbath, Supplemental Food, and Several types of conversion

fam,

Not a whole lot has happened since Monday. It's the end of the transfer so the usual Saturday P day.

The week started off on bikes. Our P day afternoon we biked around a lot and did an hour of unplanned service for this couple we met. They were shoveling dirt so we jumped off our bikes and asked if they wanted help. They kind of laughed at us a little and told us "this won't be one of your victories we are (insert religion) and you won't convert us," so we offered service and they pointed out our white shits, but we persisted and they agreed. It was pretty great, they were a little nervous at first but after a few minutes we were all good. We came back the next day and shoveled dirt for two hours. Their lawn has these weird dips and holes so we had a lot of work to do. We moved around 5 square yards of dirt to contour their lawn. It felt really good to do some less typical missionary work for a few hours. 

Wednesday Elder Rencher woke up sick so we took a slow day. We had a few hours of finding mid day that we just cut out and he took a nap the whole time. Our apartment is small so there isn't much I could have done. I basically read through the scriptures until I got bored and took a nap as well. Later that night we went to a member's home for dinner. They gave us a soup consisting of beans, eggs, green bananas, and pig skin. It wasn't very appetizing.  

We had a good lesson with a less active part member family. We talked about the Sabbath day. Somehow the whole Seventh-Day Adventist doctrine stuff went over my head when we planned for the lesson. He has never said he was an Adventist but has mentioned Ellen White a few times and I just totally forgot. We walked in had a good chat and we brought up the Sabbath day after the opening prayer and he went on a huge spiel about preparing for the Sabbath on Friday and doing nothing on Sunday.  Adventists are often some of the most devout people when it comes to keeping the Sabbath day holy. We spent the whole lesson on why we worship on Sunday. It went well, and we finished with the fact that all of his questions rely on the question of if Joseph Smith truly was a prophet. The introduction to the Book of Mormon is really good, specifically the last two paragraphs. All objections to our church rest on whether he was or wasn't a prophet, the proof of that is the BoM. If you gain that witness of the Holy Ghost that the BoM is true then you learn a few things, including that Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer and that Joseph Smith was the first prophet of this dispensation. Reading, pondering, and praying are key to that process. Pedro has started to read, which an important step in the right direction. 

Carmen is doing really well. She said she is coming this Sunday. We had two really good lessons the last few days with her. At the most recent lesson, we had a great member come out with us. It's sometimes a little nervous bringing new people out who we have never taken out but it turned out really well. The member teaches the gospel doctrine class and like most of the members in our branch is a convert, and better yet around the same age as Carmen. We also taught her the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy. We focused on the sacrament and taught out of 3 Nephi 18. She said she wants to come to church and asked if we ever fast. We obviously said yes and explained a little about what is and she asked us to fast with her to help her find a way to stop working on Sundays. It was pretty awesome. The member talked about how her job didn't let her come to church and after a few weeks of praying, looking, and fasting she found a way. 

On the topic of bringing new members out to lessons. We brought someone to one of our lessons with the Aguilar family who doesn't speak Spanish because we wanted to focus a little more with Aldo and the BoM. It was a good lesson but at the end it got slightly side-tracked. We talked about some of the BoM stories and she went off telling about Nephi cutting Laban's head off, Ammon cutting people's arms off which devolved into various Spongebob stories. 

We pulled it back into prayer somehow but only after a significant detour. 

The Aguilars are very interesting. They have definitely become socially converted and aren't nearly as solidly spiritually converted to the church. Someone told me for someone to join our church they need at least 2 of the 3 different types of conversions, which includes spiritual, social, and secular. They are at the moment loving church, love the people, living all the commandments, reading their scriptures everyday but struggle to recognize the spirit's influence in their lives. Our plan is to set them up with dinners with specific members so that they can go and the members can share their conversion stories. So far we have one dinner set up. 

Today we are going on a bike ride to some Indian graves and that's about it, we have like no money for the rest of the month. 

Also, I almost forgot. Our ward had a picnic last week as well as the English ward so our church's freezer was filled with food. They were like, "just give it to the missionaries." So much free food. That is how to make missionaries happy, outside of solid referrals and good lessons. 

24 July 2017

fam,

Monday we cooked again with the Aguilars. I'm not sure I'll be able to replicate what we did, but we made dessert empanadas which were really good. We basically feasted. 

As a family, the Aguilars are still progressing. Natividad is really where he needs to be and has progressed a lot, but as a family we think they lack a strong foundation on Christ. They still read as a family and know and have a strong foundation in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith being a prophet. What they need is a stronger foundation of Jesus Christ and everything he did but more importantly why it's important. Anyone can say Christ died for us, but once that sinks in you won't change all that much, commandments stay rules and testimonies don't really grow.

We had an unfortunate lesson with Enrique. He is slipping back into what his progress record has shown for the past five years. He says he wants to change but won't do the last few things we asked him to do to help him in that process, so not a whole lot we can do. Everything about receiving a testimony in the gospel is by experimentation. To know if the Book of Mormon is true you have to read it with an open heart and pray about it. God will not force anyone one way or another.

On that point we had an interesting lesson with the two people who speak English we've taught a few times. We haven't felt like we could pass them off like we normally do because they are just not at that point. Chris and Caryn have been really fun to teach because they come with hard earnest questions. That's starting to change though which is really unfortunate. We had two lessons with them over the last few days and Caryn just picks things apart. Her idea is to compare everything with the Bible, which isn't bad but the ultimate test of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is not if it lines perfectly with everything in the Bible and contains nothing new. The spiritual witness from the Holy Ghost is the key to everything. Our first lesson this week was really good. We covered the importance of the Book of Mormon and answered all of her questions, the spirit was there and we were able to have a good time. She said she will do some research on the Book of Mormon so obviously I told her there is a ton of anti material out there and most is flat out wrong and the rest is twisted half truths. I read the line in the Joseph Smith history that says that Joseph's name will be known for good and evil around the world and also told them to read the first chapter of Nephi. 

We came back a few days later and they said they read alot. Interestingly there was a visible difference between their two countenances. Chris was reading the Book of Mormon on the porch as we pulled up and almost looked like he was glowing. He looked way better than the day before and Caryn just looked angry. I didn't think much and we started talking about how they were doing. After they prayer we asked them what they read. Chris said he read the whole book of Moroni, I thought that was funny and asked why. He said that our last visit we answered the majority of their questions from various chapters of that book so he figured it was important so he read it all and really liked it. Caryn said she read all of First and Second Nephi and said there was good bits of advice about Joseph Smith in there and that she had some concerns about some of the incorrect things she found. In my head I though, "Oh so you didn't read..." The Book of Mormon is not about Joseph Smith, and anyone who reads the first line would know that. I didn't call her on it though. We talked with Chris first and he talked about how everything he read so far is really good. He thoroughly outlined what he learned and said that nothing struck him as wonky. He said that Moroni 8 actually confirmed a lot of things he has thought about and that he thinks the Book of Mormon is true. He pulled out a few bible scriptures that he liked that affirmed a few points he liked. We moved to Caryn and asked her which points she didn't like. She opened up her phone and read out of an anti website. "The Book of Mormon teaches xyz while the bible very clearly teaches abc" kind of stuff. So we opened to each individual verse she was "worried about" and oh my gosh anti material is so dumb. We just went verse by verse. She wanted to so we let her. Every single point she brought up we answered with scripture and testimony. We were able to for the most part keep contention out of it, but she was really pushing so it wasn't super easy. She then asked us about the necessity for baptism and tried to catch us in a lie. I didn't want to but the spirit said to so I did and mentioned baptism for the dead and how there is a way for everyone to accept that ordinance in the next life, this was the only contentious part of the whole lesson. She pointed at me and in an elevated voice said, "okay that is not scripturally based." Not going to lie I sighed a bit. The killer point is that it's not mentioned in the Book of Mormon but it is in the Bible. We opened up to the verses in Corinthians and First or Second Peter and read them together. 

The Bible is a great book of scripture, don't get me wrong, but the spirit is far more important than anything. The spirit has all truth and through him we can know that truth. We told them we can answer all their questions with scripture but it's through the spirit that we really know what the truth is. Chris understands and has done what we asked. I turned to him in the lesson and asked him what he thought and he thinks the Book of Mormon is true but that he wants to know more about the prophecies of Joseph Smith. It took me a minute but I pulled out one from the Doctrine and Covenants that I knew. I also told him my testimony is not in the prophecies of Joseph Smith but by the spirit I feel when I read the Book of Mormon and other books of scripture. I worry for Chris. He won't progress if his wife won't let him. There is a big gap between their spiritual progression and that is a hard ravine to cross. 

Also interestingly if Caryn actually read like she said she did, Chris added something important to the lesson. He said, "together they are Readers Digest." He explained that by saying she can read a whole book in a day and he goes slow and ponders things. If Caryn told the truth it's important to notice that just reading the Book of Mormon isn't sufficient. Moroni 10:3-5 says we need to read ponder and pray. Key terms being ponder.

I spent more time on that than I should have and am near out of time. They have one lesson for us to turn Caryn around. We will see what happens.

We had a crazy powerful church tour with Carmen. Like my most powerful lesson possibly. Pathways was going on and I was worried that was going to mess the tour up but it was better this way. She met a few people and got an in-depth explanation of the program and how awesome it is. We then finished with the Bible video of Jesus' baptism. It was awesome. We talked about baptism and bear testimony and we asked her if she thought this was the path God wanted for her and she said yes. It was a powerful moment and we put her on date. I think she will actually make it. We had a good lesson on the Word of Wisdom and she said she is coming to church. In our WoW lesson in her closing prayer she said she knew the Church and the Book of Mormon was true. Hopefully everything lines up like it seems to be.