Friday, September 26, 2014

Week 11



This week was pretty slow, but it was good. Tuesday was district meeting, and then we met with a few less actives and our investigator.  It’s going well, trying to get them married so they can get baptized. Then Wednesday we had a zone conference.  It was good, but it went waaaay over time.  We started at 9am and didn’t end until about 7pm!

On Thursday we went contacting, with some success, but it was hard because there are these fences around every house, and it is completely enclosed. Me and my comp have a game when we are walking to look at houses and see which ones would be ok in a zombie invasion, because so many of these houses it is impossible to get into if you don’t have a key.

And then on Friday it was some more meetings for district, and we taught the niece of one of the members, as she is going to be baptized. On Saturday we walked around and invited everyone to come to church, and tried to get all the less actives to come. On Sunday, we taught some more, and got two investigators to come to church, which was awesome. Today, we had a huge multizona sport day, we all played basketball, volleyball, and soccer, was pretty fun.

Week 10



Wow, another week went by so fast! It was a good week,
On Tuesday, we went and taught some members, and basically just went around sharing some messages and contacting.  It’s hard, but going well. We had the district meeting, which was good, and had to do some training as well. This training was for our fathers as well as us, and the focus was on companionship study, so we came up with ideas to improve our comp study, such as to say a prayer in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the study, and to use the Preach My Gospel manual more.
On Wednesday, we taught our investigators, and we taught them about faith, and that they need to have some faith, or at least try to exercise faith. They had also read the Family A Proclamation To The World, and they are apparently starting to become a lot more open to the idea of getting married, which is pretty awesome.
On Thursday, we went and tried to get some referrals taken care of, but could not get a hold of any. One we went with a member and went to the house at 9 in the morning, and nothing, the guy said that she was supposed to be home all day, but apparently not, and that we should try again. Later, we went to another member’s house to go through the references, but he was not there. So we ended up going back to the first house, the one at 9 am, and still nothing. So we then went to a recent converts house and shared a message.  It was pretty awesome, felt the spirit. then we went and taught one of the members nieces, as she is going to be baptized in a few weeks, and needs the lessons, as she does not quite know all the stuff about the church, but she goes to primary and all that, so that is going well.
On Friday, we went and taught a less active a lesson, basically shared a message with her, and invited her to come to church, she said she would, and she did! During the prayers and hymns she was crying and had cloth over her face. Anyway, also on Friday, we taught our investigators again, and it was pretty powerful. I shared that we need to pray with a faith that we are going to receive an answer, and that we should pray with our families, the dad seemed really touched, and I know that he felt the spirit. On Saturday, it was mainly with less actives, inviting them to come to church. On Sunday, we had church, and then had to go teach another little girl who will have her 8th birthday in a few weeks.
Overall a pretty good week!


Sunday, September 14, 2014

Week 9



Welp, another week!  I swear they are going by faster and faster!

Cool story about this week.  Last Sunday, we were walking around, and we were going to go visit this less active lady, who we have talked to a lot about coming back to church, and she sometimes comes. Anyway, we went to her house, but she was not home, which was a bummer.  But, I felt that we should go back on Tuesday, to talk to her.  Well, we came back on Tuesday, and lo and behold, she needed us. We talked with her, and she was going through a really rough time, and wanted a blessing, so we gave her one.  She said she had wanted to call us but just hadn’t and was really glad we showed up.  Another point for the spirit, guided us right to her and we helped her. 

On Thursday, we had splits, which were scary for me, because I don’t know this area, but it’s all ok.  In our area, we have a lot of little stairway walkpaths things and a ton of little streets.  It was a good day of splits, as we had a lot of meetings with less actives and investigators.  We talked to some guy about the church while we were just walking around, and it was cool, but the guy was a bit crazy, and would keep changing the subject if we tried to ask him what he believed.  Apparently he thought that we believed that Jesus Christ was a liar, and I was really confused.  But it ended up being good.  And we went and gave a blessing to another member on the splits.  It was pretty sweet!  So far all I do is just the first part of the blessing for the sick.  I get too nervous for the actual blessing part, but I think I will get to do one soon.  

And on Friday, we were buying some food because the guy for our dinner apparently doesn’t like to cook and gave us some money to buy stuff to cook.  But it’s funny because they are people who are mad when they are left out of the missionary feeding schedule, because apparently it’s a huge deal in our barrio to feed the missionaries.  So we were in line at a super market, and these two guys in front of us kept looking at us really weird, and eventually one of them started talking to us. He asked if we were from a church, and we said yes. Then he asked if we believed in prayer, and we said yes. Then he gave my companion two dollars. Kinda loco. 

One of the members in our ward brought a friend to church, and we are going to go teach her on Wednesday, and we have three more really good references.  One of the families was taking the lessons, had a firm baptism date, and then the missionaries, for some reason, never returned, so tomorrow we are going to go with a member and talk to them. A good week, but it was a bit hard.  But hey, the work is never going to easy, but it’s worth it. I hope you all have a great and blessed week!


Sunday, September 7, 2014

Week 8



Well! Another week gone by. It was kind of slow, but it was good. This week, we have been teaching our investigators, and been working with a ton of less actives, and trying to get the members to be strong. It’s hard, a lot of the members love the church, but don’t know a lot, as in if me and my companion have doctrinal questions or something, we have to figure it out for ourselves, because none of the members would know. But that is all good. So when we meet with members, we try to teach them new and also very simple principles, it’s pretty awesome.

Story time! There is a man in our stake, who everyone loves, and is super friendly with the missionaries and all that awesome stuff, and he is also from Venezuela, (shout out). So one of our other missionary friends took him for a member lesson with an investigator, and apparently the member and the investigator got into a fight, and they lost the investigator. So that is nice. I asked my companion about it, and he said that a lot of the members are not good for lessons, because they always want to teach over the missionaries, so I guess we really have to pick and choose who we will use for our lessons really carefully.

Anyway, we were teaching an investigator, and his name is Antonio, and he is old and is really catholic. Anyway, he was reading the Book of Mormon, and he said that because Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon in the 1800´s, there is no way it can be true, because in the book of Revelations, it says that no one can change anything of this book of prophecy. So, I tried to explain to him that it is talking about the book of Revelations, not the Bible. He didn’t like it. so then I asked him that if anyone added to the Bible, then they would be damned, and he said yes, so then I said that John finished his Gospel, his second epistle, and his third epistle after he finished Revelations, so according to his theory, we should not have all those. He didn’t accept my answer. So we told him that we would go research it more and come up with an answer. And my companion found a scripture in Deuteronomy that says the exact same thing, so we are going to try and explain it to him. Hopefully it goes well.

Our other investigators are progressing, the ones who aren’t married but are living together. they are now a lot more interested with us teaching than with the other missionaries, as now they are taking it a little more seriously, which is really awesome. and our super-duper less active is reading the book of Mormon, and will hopefully come back, I don’t know if she needs to be re baptized, but if so, then so be it. I don’t know. But a great week! I hope you are all doing well!