Tuesday I had a great trade off with Elder Waters. We met with one of their investigators. Elder Magalei and I picked up a man named Jose. I think we met with him twice before I was moved to this side. Turns out he is doing really well. In less than a month he read the entire Book of Mormon and has a pretty impressive understanding. He talked about the Book of Mormon like a member would. He said he didn't even like to read but that something drew him in. Unfortunately he still hadn't prayed about the Book of Mormon. We talked about that and committed him to do so. It's pretty amazing that he finished The Book of Mormon and his comprehension is even more amazing. At the end of the day, however, it doesn't really matter how many times you read the Book of Mormon but how those principles found in it are applied that bring us closer to Christ and help us become better disciples.
The Sarmientos are doing well. Wednesday we had a lesson in the Pinas home. We taught the shortest lessons we've ever with them, I think just under 45 minutes. We try to be short but it's so hard when just golden questions are being thrown left and right. We taught the Sabbath day and it turned out really well. I figured I would never use Exodus 31 because how intense it is with the law of Moses, the whole "whosever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death" felt like a little much. For our lesson it proved to be just the right thing, well just verse 13, which says,"Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you"
Thursday we passed by a member who recently had fallen and broken her back. The family let us in and she was asleep but her inactive sister and non-member husband were home and we had a great visit with them. The lesson was short but powerful. The thing was at the end Elder Rencher went to the bathroom leaving me with the two. The wife asked me if I wanted a Guatemalan sweet juice called "calientito," who am I to say no? She ran off to get a little for me. She came back and I took a big sip. Calientito translates to a little warm and oh my gosh it was so hot, it immediately burned my tongue. Still I finished pretending as if nothing happened, sacrifices bring forth the blessing of heaven, right?? My tongue is almost back to 100%, still hurts alittle
Friday we had another escapade with Carlos. We knocked on his door and he welcomed us in and sat down. We talked for a minute and started with a prayer, as usual. We planned on watching the restoration video to make it easier to share a restored truth, which turned out to work pretty well. After the prayer the idea came to mind to sit more defensively. The geography of the room had me sitting more angled towards him leaving my side to a hallway, where the mad chiwawas charged from the week prior, which I changed putting me in a more oblique position to fend off the little critters if they were to break free. This turned out to be an inspired change. Towards the end of the video Carlos got up to blow his nose. In that process he opened the door separating us from the tiny monsters bent on attacking us. I heard the sound of running coming our way and immediately knew what was coming our way. This week he had two chiwawas bolting around the corner towards us. For some reason both came at me practically ignoring Elder Rencher. They both charged and jumped at me in full fury. As I fended off the beasts, Carlos stumbled around the corner yelling at them saying we were friends. It brought to memory the scene in Finding Nemo when the sharks unsuccessfully try to change their disposition to, "fish are friends, not food." Carlos scooped up one but the other slipped loose then proceeded to charge full force around the coffee table, jumping on the couch and at full speed charging as if to jump from the arm rest at Elder Rencher. Rencher was able to then stop the dogs progression with my meeting the dogs face with the underside of his boot. Carlos was then able to grab the other and throw them in their previous room. Seriously those things are crazy. Like I've seen jumpy dogs and dogs that like to bite but never anything which such fury.
We had a good miracle on Saturday. We felt like we needed to visit with a member currently suffering with cancer. We knocked on the door and one of her roommates, who also is a former from a few months back, name Javier opened the door. He invited us in and we talked for a minute. Turns out he and his extended family are going through a lot right now. Basically the toughest Mexican rancher I've met practically broke down in front of us and asked us to share something with him. The lines "a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall," which I recognized to be part of Helaman 5:12 and the line "And ye cannot bear all things" which is a line from D&C 78:18. With what I had from the spirit I figured that Javier needed the part about how a life built on the foundation of Christ cannot fall no matter what trials come their way. After we read verses 9-12 and asked what he thought he pulled out the lines on repentance and explained a bunch of coincidences that gave our visit to him greater significance than we though. The whole experience reminded me of 1 Nephi 4 when Nephi was led by the spirit not knowing before hand what he would do. We were given just enough information to proceed and had a greater and different effect than we imagined.
Sunday church canceled again, but hopefully won't next week... Apparently waking up to 7-8 inches means no church, but it does mean lots of shoveling driveways.
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