Bill Clinton once said...AGAIN...“Success is not the measure of a man but a triumph over those who choose to hold him back.” Once again, Bill did a great job with this one, its true!
Those that hold missionary work back---the hard hearted, Satan, disobedience, etc. Bill---great. Well nothings been holding us back this week. All 11 baptism dates we had were dropped for various reasons. Some bc of husbands, some had no time, some born-catholic-die-catholic, but the greater part were those who are LAZY!!!! It’s ridiculous actually, the laziness I’ve seen here. We tell them that all they need to do is pray about our message, but they can’t find the 2 minutes in their PACKED FULL OF THINGS TO DO lives to say a prayer...wonderful right :) I started using them as examples in other lessons, how people sometimes don’t put in the efforts to just say a simple prayer and maybe read a little, and then explain how if this REALLY is true, then HOW MUCH OF A MIRACLE IS IT THAT YOU HAVE HEARD IT NOW and then I explain how important it is again to pray and ask. Some, or pretty much all, are too lazy.
Those that hold missionary work back---the hard hearted, Satan, disobedience, etc. Bill---great. Well nothings been holding us back this week. All 11 baptism dates we had were dropped for various reasons. Some bc of husbands, some had no time, some born-catholic-die-catholic, but the greater part were those who are LAZY!!!! It’s ridiculous actually, the laziness I’ve seen here. We tell them that all they need to do is pray about our message, but they can’t find the 2 minutes in their PACKED FULL OF THINGS TO DO lives to say a prayer...wonderful right :) I started using them as examples in other lessons, how people sometimes don’t put in the efforts to just say a simple prayer and maybe read a little, and then explain how if this REALLY is true, then HOW MUCH OF A MIRACLE IS IT THAT YOU HAVE HEARD IT NOW and then I explain how important it is again to pray and ask. Some, or pretty much all, are too lazy.
There were some good things about this week though. For one, we pretty much worked our tails off every single day, which is normal, but like MORE hard-core. One day we visited 6 different parts of our area. I swear I’ve climbed Everest twice while I’ve been here. We’ve knocked every single door in the surrounding pueblas and all around the center, it’s been crazy, but it’s been fun. I love getting rejected, LOVE IT...it actually humors me a little, because of the repetitiveness of the excuses that people have. I will tell you them. I’m about to leave. I’m busy right now. Oh this ones the best---the kids ALWAYS answer the door and then say their parents aren’t home when we ask...then I have my fun...I say, hey will you just go tell your mom that the missionaries want to share a message about the gospel of Christ and they GO and tell her and they come back and then they say she’s busy or something. hahahahahah happened like 5 times this week. One time I saw the mom in the reflection of the door and the son was like, oh I’m at home alone right now...pshhhhhhhhhhhh. But anyways, their loss.
We were knocking in this little puebla behind centro, all dirt and little houses up on the mountain and we found this FAMILY of 5. We gave the whole family a first lesson and then talked to the dad 2 days ago about the plan of salvation. He/they need a lot of work, so we’ll be working with them and hopefully we can baptize them in these 2 changes. We also put dates with 11 other people, but I don’t know how many of those will fall through. A lot do. People are lazy. We were talking to this one guys wife and when we came back he was there and told us they were catholic, then we invited him to read Exodus 20, about the 10 commandments and when we left he started reading....he will see...thou shalt not worship any other gods before me... I can really see how Catholicism really captures those who don’t know a lot, can’t read, or debil personas. People just don’t want to change. We also found another person this week, Maria--WEIRD RIGHT, THAAAATS A FIRST--and she was totally awesome and she GAVE the closing prayer. Usually people reject the invitation but she’s awesome, only problem is that she is never in her house cause she vends stuff every day and on Sundays it’s like HUGE MARKET so she’s for sure there...big problem...everyone works on Sundays. The second coming will def for sure be on a Sunday. We visited a bunch of inactive members too, and tomorrow we are going to ones house to give his wife a blessing, We really need to activate all these people who had testimonies and fell away...or they are kinda screwed you could say...in the grand scheme of things. But there are some AWESOME inactive members who I think are stronger than some members, but because of all that stuff I talked about last time a lot of them don’t come...but we’re working on them.
We walk A TON…so, we were walking from the cuñada to la soledad, which is like 45 minutes and right before we got on the combi to go back from soledad I saw this old guy, and at first my comp was like nah lets just go then I was like NO...we MUUST so we went over there and talked to him and asked him if he wanted to be baptized after like 2 minutes and he said yes, but he’s really old and has a lot of health problems and lives with his catholic family...BUT we are really going to try to help him out because EVERYONE needs this, especially him I think, and I promised him that the Lord would help him with everything he needed and we taught him how to pray real fast before we had to leave.
Sunday we changed buildings for church. Bad---the president SKIPPED priesthood meeting and Relief Society to move everything---pretty sure you can’t do that, but he doesn’t listen to me. We moved to this warehouse thing right next to the Catholic Church, it USED to be a disco, and has those ballerina bars too bc it was a dance studio afterward, and I totally seshed the ballerina bars and showed my comp my moves. In regards to moving, I’ve never carried heaver things....the president thought it would be a better idea to carry everything cause he didn’t want to use his car...um...ya. But, we carried this table with a bunch of books on it and there were four of us...it would have been easier to move cars. Seriously.
Oh another thing I have started doing. You know that movie "mafia" that I totally think is hilarious and I think dad does too but NOBODY ELSE DOES but I LOVE IT… well, there’s this one part when he’s a kid and tries to catch a boat to the US and jumps in the water and starts swimming after it and then they arrive at Ellis Island and he gets out---he never caught it---and he’s like doing that overly heavy breathing for like 30 seconds... I love that part. Anyways, I do the same exact thing at the top of all of the hills that we climb every day, and I explained this part of the movie to my companion and he though it was hilarious so we always do it now...IT IS SO FUNNY HAHAHAHAHA maybe it doesn’t seem like it...but it is, it’s my favorite thing to do. Just picture it. It’s wonderful.
Ya but this week was sick in the work aspect. We worked so hard and knocked a bazillion puertas---got in to some more houses, and got pretty much rejected the whole week...IT ROCKED!!! And one day everyone bailed out on our appointments which was a first for my comp...gonna have a lot of that here in Puebla, but the people we do have are cool. I love talking to people. Claudia is AWEOSME!!! She stared reading the D&C We found one for her, and I made a list of my favorite chapters and versus for her to read. It’s sooo good. She’s such a good member. Paco left for Mexico yesterday. It’s been SO HOT HERE THIS WEEK!!!! SOOOOOOOOOO HOT!!! I wear my sun screen though, I’m convinced that God blesses me by refilling my sunscreen every day cause it NEVER runs out!!! I have one of those weirdo tan lines on my arms. Get to talk to you guys next week which will be sweeeet! Have a wonderful summer everyone. Remember your favorite missionary here in Tetela de Ocampo Mexico! LOVE YA!!!
ELDER BERTHA
Oh yes, and family... Elder Palafox says hi to you guys :)
