Monday, February 4, 2013

Hola familia!! y todos.

I hope that you all had a fantastic week, and that the super bowl party was a blast. I don´t want to know what the food was, that will only make me jealous. I had chorizo, beans, eggs, and cheese with tortillas and some orange juice. I am sure that what you had was better.

Well, the weather up there sounds crazy. I am a little jealous, I want to see some snow so BAD.

So, this week was good. A little sad, but good.

This was the hard part of the week, and then I will talk about the good.

This week I learned what it means to be stiffnecked and heardhearted.

Heardhearted.

Well, we had a cita with the half family we are teaching. we watched the hour long restoration movie with them, hoping that that would change or soften the mother´s heart just a little bit. and it didn´t. Not that I can see. She won´t pray to get an answer.  She is sure that her answer will come just at some random moment. She also got mad at us because she doesn´t like it when we say that this is the only true church. Well, she is sort of angry at us for the main point of our message, my comp apologized for it sounding like that, but I didn´t. Christ never apologized to the Pharisees or the Sadducees that they couldn´t accept his message, and that they were in the wrong. So, I don´t apologize for saying truth. She was sort of offended, but I wouldn´t take it back. She asked me if her mother would be saved (her mother is a baptized Jehovah´s witness.) I said that she hadn´t been baptized by the proper authority, and in the correct manner, and so as of right now, she couldn´t enter god´s kingdom, following Juan 3:5. Well, she then asked me if that meant her mom was wasting her time. I said yes and no. I said that she wasn´t looking in the right place, she didn´t know where to find the truth. She got more offendded, and then we left. She won´t ask God. She talks about this great faith she has, but I have yet to see evidence of it. James 2:17-18

Stiffnecked.

We were teaching a staunch ------- about the restoration, and we got to prophets. The words that came out of his mouth, and I quote, were ¨I don´t know if I can believe in prophets, it seems too confusing.¨ Really?? No offense to -------- reading this, but you believe in Trans-substantiation, superogation, praying to Mary, indulgences, papal line of authority, beatification, the trinity, and that God is a mystery, and Prophets, something outlined in the BIBLE very CLEARLY is too confusing?? Amos 3:7, Ephesians 2:20 and 4:11-14, Exodus 33:11 and hebrews 5:4. And then the fact that God has been the same yesterday, today and forever. Hebrews 13:8. Well, we asked him if God had changed, and he said of course not, so then we said, sir, you just contradicted yourself. If god hasn´t changed, then prophets still exist. If you don´t believe that prophets exist, then you are saying that God has ceased to be God, due to a change. He responded with something irrelevant, and then we brought up the plan of salvation. He was a marriage counseler for the ------- church, but doesn´t believe in marriage past the grave. So we asked that if God had put families together, why would he give Peter the power to seal on earth and in heaven if there was nothing in heaven?? He said that we were just going to be spirits, but I said that if Christ said to be like his father who is perfect, and Christ has a body, and is perfect, and is the SAME as the father, then the father has to have a body, and by default, we will have bodies. He just said, well, the priest said it wasn´t like that, soo.....it can´t be. So entrenched in his own stuff that nothing can possibly ever change.

Now, the good stuff.

We found new investigators!!! We set dates for the 16 of February, and are working with them. Seven and two would be a family, so it´s good!!! I will include more about them next week, or when I have sent you pictures with them. So next week, hopefully. Don´t have a whole lot of time left.

Also, the bishop invited us over for dinner,. we got there, and there was nobody home. WE WAITED FOR 30 MINUTES AND NOBODY SHOWED. and we went back at 830 and still noone. Then, they show up at our apartment, with obviously bought food, and the wife says, ¨So why didn´t you show up, elders?¨ Excuse me? I waited for 45 minutes, knocked, and nobody. I told her that, and she didn´t seem very happy. Oh well. When you tell four elders to come over for dinner, and then nobody is clearly home, and then we have to go invent food because we were planning on eating something good, you have four unhappy elders.

I know that it sounds like I was sort of angry this week, but it´s quite the opposite. I have actually been really happy, just sometimes I need to vent to people. So that was this week. I LOVE being here, and working and doing the things I am doing. I am so excited to be moving on to a new place, even though this is going to be hard to leave. I wouldn´t want to be doing anything else with my life. Its sort of weird. I am pretty much happy all the time, but the times when I get frustrated or angry are so few and far between, and generally make pretty good stories. I learn alot from looking back at myself and recalculating. It´s something I learned from a talk by Elder Wirthlin, or an article in the Liahona. To be better disciples of Christ, we have to be constantly changing and growing. The gospel is a gospel of progress. If we don´t progress, we aren´t living it right. And we measure progress personally, not against other people. If we do it like that, against other people, we are like mason driving in the car- always in 3rd or 4th or 5th place, and never in first. I am honestly in 1st place right now, because I am a better person than I was yesterday, a week ago, a change ago, 8 months ago, and a year ago. (its been a year since I got my call, fyi) So always try to progress. It´s what the Lord wants.

Oh, and Family. Isn´t it about,....time?? I thought that "Progress, it´s what the Lord wants" would make a good slogan for the church. So that´s where that comes from. And that, ladies and gents, is my blue coming out.

Tell everybody thanks for writing me a little, it was super great. I need some help from uncle dave.....As of late, people have been asking if I speak English, and I say yes, and then they talk to me in something that resembles chinese ( I think.). So, I am just going to tell people I am German. So I need German phrases in order to hold up the facade. A little help? Just some simple phrases. Thanks.

Love you guys, have a fantastic week, and see you in about 16 months.

Zach