I loved this week. :D It was full of the gospel, adventure, and near-death experiences.
We found a new investigator a couple weeks back who is super awesome who is named Daniel. We found him by looking up the records of his wife, Tereza. We went to their house and found Tereza who told us that she hasn't gone to church for 4 years and told us straight up that her husband doesn't like to hear about God and wouldn't want to listen to us. So we went back another day... Tereza wasn't home but we talked to Daniel (her spouse) and he told us we could enter and he listened to a lesson and then accepted a baptismal date (he was the exact oposite as what we expected from the discription of his wife). Tereza stopped going to church because someone told her that if she were to continue in the church she had to chose to get married with another member of the ward (we don't really believe her... but it's whatever). Anyways she told this to Daniel... we were kind of afraid of what the reaction would be from Daniel but he just told us something among the lines like this "Maybe it did happen but people make mistakes. I'm going to go to church because I feel that it is right." What the heck!? Who is this guy? He went to church and loved it and brought his 3 kids with him as well. Daniel is just awesome. He is Daniel the Great.
We were walking at like 4 o'clock in one of the Colonias (neighborhoods... kind of) in our area and all of the sudden a man riding a bike turned the corner and saw us and stopped right in front of me. He said "I was looking for you!" I find myself looking at a man with a huge gash in his nose that looks like it was just bleeding a whole bunch moments before. I just said, "Oh you were, that's great! We're missionaries and we share messages about God." He then told me, "I don't care what you say about God. It's not true." I said, "God loves everyone and loves you too... We'd like to give you one of our cards." He then yelled at me and said, "I don't want your card." Then this man, pulled out some big scissors, like the scissors that Dad has for sewing but larger (I believe they were the kind that the gardeners use here), snapped them in front of my face and said, "How 'bout you give me your pesos or I cut off your head?" I calmly reached into my pocket pulled out the change I had and gave him the money. I just said, "here you go. We'll see you later" and we went on our way... turning the corner just laughing our heads off. I'm pretty sure I got assulted but the funny thing is that I just gave him 6 pesos (less than 50 cents). He didn't say anything to my companion and just took 6 pesos... but it's all good. I'm sure he needed the money more than me. About 10 minutes later someone yelled at me telling me to go back to my country with some other vulgar words and about 30 minutes after that my companion and I were walking and somebody tried to trip my companion while I watch 2 other young men trying to get ahead of us to block us off. We just walked calmly but quickly while hearing a swarm of swear words passing our ears. After that we had an awesome lesson with Daniel the Great with the Bishop present. It was a fantastic day... full of adventure but pretty exciting. Elder Vargas is a really good sport... even though he is new to the mission he takes everything really, really well. And that was the relato [story] that started with the close encounter with Edward Scissorhands.
On Saturday night at like 6 we went and contacted one of our future investigators that looked kind of interested when we talked to him in front of his house the other day. We planned to teach the Restauración but then, after following the Spirit, we discoverd that his wife had passed away about 14 years ago. We then quickly changed to the Plan of Salvation. He was very interested and said he would go to church the next day "si Dios Quiere (if God wants)". I hate this phrase that they use here... of course God wants us to follow the gospel and go to church... plus when the people say that it usually means that they don't want to be rude and they aren't going to follow up :( To our surprise we were in the Sacrament Meeting and Pedro showed up to church and came to sit down by us. He loved the himnos [hymns] and
We found a new investigator a couple weeks back who is super awesome who is named Daniel. We found him by looking up the records of his wife, Tereza. We went to their house and found Tereza who told us that she hasn't gone to church for 4 years and told us straight up that her husband doesn't like to hear about God and wouldn't want to listen to us. So we went back another day... Tereza wasn't home but we talked to Daniel (her spouse) and he told us we could enter and he listened to a lesson and then accepted a baptismal date (he was the exact oposite as what we expected from the discription of his wife). Tereza stopped going to church because someone told her that if she were to continue in the church she had to chose to get married with another member of the ward (we don't really believe her... but it's whatever). Anyways she told this to Daniel... we were kind of afraid of what the reaction would be from Daniel but he just told us something among the lines like this "Maybe it did happen but people make mistakes. I'm going to go to church because I feel that it is right." What the heck!? Who is this guy? He went to church and loved it and brought his 3 kids with him as well. Daniel is just awesome. He is Daniel the Great.
We were walking at like 4 o'clock in one of the Colonias (neighborhoods... kind of) in our area and all of the sudden a man riding a bike turned the corner and saw us and stopped right in front of me. He said "I was looking for you!" I find myself looking at a man with a huge gash in his nose that looks like it was just bleeding a whole bunch moments before. I just said, "Oh you were, that's great! We're missionaries and we share messages about God." He then told me, "I don't care what you say about God. It's not true." I said, "God loves everyone and loves you too... We'd like to give you one of our cards." He then yelled at me and said, "I don't want your card." Then this man, pulled out some big scissors, like the scissors that Dad has for sewing but larger (I believe they were the kind that the gardeners use here), snapped them in front of my face and said, "How 'bout you give me your pesos or I cut off your head?" I calmly reached into my pocket pulled out the change I had and gave him the money. I just said, "here you go. We'll see you later" and we went on our way... turning the corner just laughing our heads off. I'm pretty sure I got assulted but the funny thing is that I just gave him 6 pesos (less than 50 cents). He didn't say anything to my companion and just took 6 pesos... but it's all good. I'm sure he needed the money more than me. About 10 minutes later someone yelled at me telling me to go back to my country with some other vulgar words and about 30 minutes after that my companion and I were walking and somebody tried to trip my companion while I watch 2 other young men trying to get ahead of us to block us off. We just walked calmly but quickly while hearing a swarm of swear words passing our ears. After that we had an awesome lesson with Daniel the Great with the Bishop present. It was a fantastic day... full of adventure but pretty exciting. Elder Vargas is a really good sport... even though he is new to the mission he takes everything really, really well. And that was the relato [story] that started with the close encounter with Edward Scissorhands.
On Saturday night at like 6 we went and contacted one of our future investigators that looked kind of interested when we talked to him in front of his house the other day. We planned to teach the Restauración but then, after following the Spirit, we discoverd that his wife had passed away about 14 years ago. We then quickly changed to the Plan of Salvation. He was very interested and said he would go to church the next day "si Dios Quiere (if God wants)". I hate this phrase that they use here... of course God wants us to follow the gospel and go to church... plus when the people say that it usually means that they don't want to be rude and they aren't going to follow up :( To our surprise we were in the Sacrament Meeting and Pedro showed up to church and came to sit down by us. He loved the himnos [hymns] and
then stayed for the second class in Principles of the Gospel, this class was about tithing. He asked a lot of questions and pretty soon we found ourselves showing him the tithing slips and he then payed tithing - having it be his first time in church and his first tithe as well. And that concludes the story of Pedro the Chosen. Today we took a tour of Morelia - seeing a lot of historical sites. It was awesome! I love this city... it's just beautiful and the people are just great...well, some people try to hurt us but it's okay... they just don't know any better. I have faith that the gospel will touch their hearts one day... if accept my card about Jesus Christ or not. Love, Elder Summers |