Monday, February 23, 2015

Stake Conference

This week was Stake Conference, and that was a pretty cool ordeal. Elder Villalobos of the 4th Quorum of the Seventy came down to talk. Great guy. Love him already.

INVESTIGATORS

Alejandra - We're just about ready to leave her. She just isn't progressing at all. We can't get her to read, no matter how much we try. It's getting annoying to go over to her house and see little to no progress each day.

Fam. Guissar - We had to leave them. They keep putting off the appointments. They are really cool, but if we can't teach them, we can't get anything done.

Lupita Meza - A lady we tracted into. We actually managed to get into her house and teach her and she says she REALLY likes the message. Best part is that she lives literally one block away from the chapel, so it shouldn't be hard to get her to church. We're looking forward to teaching her more.

Antonio - A good friend of a member that is really nice. He speaks English and Spanish, as well as the member, who is a good friend of ours. So basically the whole time we're just talking between Spanish and English. We start in Spanish and end in English. Pretty funny. We've got appointments only on Saturdays with him until we can get him to let us talk to him more during the week, since he works from 7 PM to 7 AMas a security guard every day.

EXPERIENCES

1.) Some Jehovah's Witnesses contacted us on Friday. That was an ordeal. They started saying some REALLY dumb stuff.

It started fairly normally. They just kinda came up and read a scripture in Ecclesiastes that says something like, be wise in your youth or whatever. Basically, just an excuse to come and start arguing. This is what then ensued:

"Who is Jehovah for you guys?"

Elder Rose answers, "Jesus Christ."

That was just the start. They then whip out Isaiah and read in... I think it was 47:3 or something like that, where it says MY NAME IS JEHOVAH or whatever.

Then (we were together with our entire district) Elder Munoz whips out a bunch of scriptures in Isaiah that say that Jehovah is our Redeemer and Savior, and then asks:

"Is God our Savior, or is it Jesus Christ?"

They ignore that and move on and pull out John 17:3. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

And then they said, RIGHT THERE IT SAYS THAT JEHOVAH IS GOD.

And I just said:

"But it doesn't say Jehovah. It says God."

"But remember what we read? God said his name was Jehovah."

Then I slapped down the million dollar question:

"If that's the case, why then, in all the New Testament, there is not a single reference to Jehovah? At all?"

They said that the verse in 17:3 said it, and I just answered:

"But that only says God. It does not say Jehovah."

And then, Elder Munoz began to share his experience and Testimony about how he came to know the truth, and they started attacking him, saying it was all fables and crap.

Eventually, we worked down to the point (after about honestly 10 minutes of just wrecking them with the Bible) to where we determined that Christ did in fact call Apostles. Then we asked:

"Why is it, that in all the Old Testament, it doesn't say Peter even once? How do we know he was a prophet if in the Old Testament, his name isn't there?"

They then said this tonteria:

"Peter wasn't a prophet."

At that point, we just got frustrated with how dumb it was and left by getting into a taxi.

Poor guys. They aren't even armed with a Bible.

2.) The reason we were with our whole district was because we went, on Friday, to see Meet the Mormons! It was a pretty cool film. Not gonna lie, it kinda let me down because it seems more like a documentary than a film, but it was still pretty cool. I felt like a boss when the people from Costa Rica began to speak, and they didn't have to dub them with English. That was cool.

Anyway, we watched that, and I saw Elder Hilton again. I managed to talk with him for a bit, and I also saw a couple of other companions. It was quite a fun little thing.

The only bad part was the very end, when the Missionary Mom started in. Holy moly I got SO TRUNKY. That whole day I didn't even want to work. I just couldn't keep my mind focused. It reminded me so much of my home. My mom. My dad. My family. All that stuff. It made me almost cry when at the end, in the airport, the missionary picks up his bawling little sister. That was hard for me.

Not too good. But I'm over it now. We're good to go again. I just can't see it until I go home. Great.

3.) During Stake Conference, Elder Villalobos (pictured) talked a lot about the keys of the Priesthood, and he changed my entire outlook on them. Before, I just thought of keys like, well, just things that people have. Stuff that you use to say you have authority. But he explained it SO well. To the point where I finally understood how that all works. He explained the whole organization and stuff. It was really cool. My testimony with the Priesthood and the keys and stuff is just so much stronger now.

4.) When in Stake Conference, I noticed something hilarious:

No one knows how to sing hymns, except for the chorus.

For example, we were singing a hymn, and during the actual verses, we heard a little bit of singing and stuff, but then, when we got to the chorus, it just exploded with "OUT IN THE DESERT THEY WANDER". It was so funny to hear everyone like, "mmmmefffeeedreefffehhh" and then burst out in the chorus.

5.) This last experience is pretty insane. I went up to Elder Villalobos to say hi, and he looked at me after I talked briefly with him and asked me:

"Are you from Idaho?"

I honestly have no idea how he knew that. Everyone, and I mean literally EVERYONE south of the border asks FIRST if I'm from Utah. I honestly believe that the Spirit told him where I was from. That, or it was just a SUPER lucky guess. Either way, it made me respect him a ton. Great guy. Super awesome.

Okay, that does it for this email. It's kinda short, but that's all that happened this week. I'm trying to think of other cool things, but they aren't coming.

Have a good week everyone. Miss you all dearly, and love you all even more dearly.

Elder Carter