So. In English wards, the dinner
calendar for the Elders/Sisters is always full to the brim. There's always
enough members to go around, and there's only one companionship per ward, so
there's never a shortage of dinner appointments. With the Spanish branch, there
aren't that many members, and there's more than one companionship of
missionaries, so there's a double-factor that goes into this. We, as the
Elders, don't hardly ever eat with the members, because the members are more
compassionate towards the sister missionaries. SO, we have been setting up a
lot more dinner appointments down in our area with the members of the wards
there, and have even set up a way to get a dinner calendar passed around to the
members that speak Spanish.
Along with that, we've met some new
less-active members in our area. One of them is L G, whose ancestors
were the first members of the Church in Mexico. His cousin runs a museum in
Provo that has all of the historical information about the first members in
Mexico. From what it sounds like, he's received a lot of persecution and hatred
from members of the church in the past, so it sounds like he's not all too
eager to come back to church. We're hoping to merely focus on getting him set
to get a stronger relationship with Christ, and no one else. That way, once his
relationship with Christ has been strengthened, we can then work on getting him
back to church to partake of the sacrament.
And as a cherry-on-top miracle, we were
able to add a new investigator this week. He was brought to church by one of
our members, and sat with us during all three hours of church. The whole time,
he told us that he just felt happy being with us at church. He especially liked
the classes, and enjoyed sacrament a lot because of the fact that the members
of the congregation are the ones who give the talks in the sacrament meeting.
We went to meet with him on Saturday, and he wasn't home, so we went and got
some Carl's Jr. burgers for cheap. Right as we sat down to eat, he called us
and told us that he had just run out for a quick errand, and asked us to come
back and teach him. So the burgers had to wait. But, as we taught him, we made
sure that he understood the significance of everything that we taught. Elder
M hasn't taught the lessons very much, so he was a bit rusty, but we were
able to teach it well. He told us that everything made sense, and even told us
about how he went to the Catholic church, sat there for ten minutes, said he didn't
feel anything at all, got up, and left. Then he said that he felt something
really good at our church. (AWWWW YEAAAAHHH). We've set up an appointment with
him this Saturday.
We went to meet with this less
active man, B, and his son, N. He's in his 50's, and his son
is 26. We arrived, knocked, and were invited in to eat some food with them.
They gave us some frijoles and carnitas in a red sauce, and after that, we
scooted outside because it was cooler. We sat down with them and their neighbor
M. M has met with the missionaries before, but he likes us anyway, so
he stuck around for the lesson. Our goal was to teach about the Atonement,
which we did. Then, B, out of nowhere began to bear his testimony about
the atonement, and how powerful it is in his life. M then had a bunch of
sincere questions about how one can be completely free from sin. From there, we
taught the gospel, with the atonement as the key power that makes it possible.
B then bore testimony about the gospel, the importance of faith,
repentance, baptism, and the gift of the holy ghost, and even went into the
sacrament. I don't know where our less active B was, because
really-active-sounding B was giving some powerful testimony.
Later last night, we went to have
dinner with some members of an English ward. We showed up, and they were with
some friends of theirs. J was the man's name, and he was flippin'
hilarious. He was big, burly, bald, and white with a little soul-patch beard.
His wife was this African-American woman that was very talkative and friendly
with us. I ended up playing with their kids, and keeping them distracted as
they all laughed at us playing and made conversation. After a few minutes,
J and his wife left with their son, and we ate dinner with the members. It
was really interesting to see how they interacted, since the members can barely
speak English. It didn't seem to matter that they couldn't speak very well,
they were still very good friends with these people. Our members, the
C's, then told us that their car had been stolen the night before, so
we weren't quite sure how to react. After a bit, they started talking about the
current world problems with the Middle-East and Ukraine with Russia, (which
Elder M can't get enough of), so I went to talk to their son, who had
gone to sit by himself on the grass and mope since his friend had left. We sat
there and talked about games and school and super-powers and explosions and
Mario Kart 7. He was a cool little kid.
To be honest, the Lord has been really
merciful with us this week, especially with me. I've been extremely thankful
for all of the tender mercies that He's given me. I've had some very revelatory
experiences this week, that have pushed me over the edge and caused me to feel
over-blessed, if that's even possible. I was hoping to be able to go to the
temple this week, but because of last-minute circumstances, we won't be able
to. So I'll just have to wait to go until next week.
And have a great week everyone! I
love you!
-Love, Elder Crook
P.S. I'm letting virtue garnish my
thoughts...
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