Should be Monday, March 11, but really, Thursday March 14

I can´t think of a subject line, but it´s not really that important anyway.

This week was one of the most interesting I have had in all of my mission. Seriously. Some crazy stuff happened.

For starters, we found this great family that had been listening to the missionaries in Teguc. ZL´s. one of those zls is ap right now. So they knew some pretty darn good missionaries. I was wondering what we would find, and I was thinking that they would be pretty close to baptism. They are.....sort of. We still have to get them married, they have 5 kids, and are super great. The dad´s name is Luis, the Mom is Suyapa, and three of the five live with them. The other two are older daughters.  The other three are great! One that is ten, a little girl that is 2, and a baby of less than a year. The little girl is the CUTEST thing EVER!!!! Her name is Anyelee, pronounced Angielee, and she still thinks that we are the other missionaries in Teguc. So she calls me elder Prows. haha. And Esparza is Ramirez. But it´s okay. They seem pretty positive, and even came to church today. We have a ridiculously busy few weeks, with the dedication, then district conference (where they will probably split the district and put half into one stake in Teguc and half into Danli) and then one weekend normal and then general conference. Seeing as how we have to have attendances to baptize, 3 times in church or 2 and one activity, that will make baptisms super hard, we half to transport people to the district center, and that requires more sacrifice that more people, even members, aren´t willing to make.  It is difficult but we will be working with them, and they should be baptized. They would be a great help for the branch, and we are looking at the father as the potential branch president.

The family we had for the 23?? We moved the date to the 16.  But then the ----- didn´t come to church today, so we can´t do it until the 23 anyways. What scares me is that he left for work yesterday and didn´t come home, and his wife hasn´t seen him since 6 yesterday morning. So she is worried that he is out drinking, which he had left behind, because this was his pattern when he was super bolo. But I haven´t seen or heard him yet, so I don´t want to pre judge. But I am truly scared. We even went to their house this morning to get them here, to make sure. We walked for 25 minutes and nothing. So we walked back. We had these as sure baptisms, and if he drank, I don´t think they can get baptized this month. The wife can, but I don´t want her to baptize without him. They have a daughter that could possibly be baptized at the beginning of April, but we shall see. She went to the temple, and said she wants to get married there, so maybe that will motivate her a little bit.

And I had the most incredible experience. There is a lady here that cuts missionaries hair. Has been for about 2 years. Her name is -----, and she attends another church. Like, is group leader, stuff like that. Imagine a young women's president, but for all the youth in the congregation. Big stuff. Super metida in her church. Well, she has a boyfriend who lives in Teguc, and is an RM. super pilas, this guy. They want to get married, sort of, but he told her that he wouldn´t get married in her church because her pastor can´t seal families because he doesn´t have the Melchizedek priesthood. She asked us what all that meant. I was with Elder Guzman, who is in his first change in the field, and super chill. We started chatting with her. Like, it took her 45 minutes to cut both of us, but we were there for an hour and a half. She told us that she had never let the missionaries teach her because she didn´t want to become confused. Well, we started to talk to her, and she just opened up. She told us that when she goes to church, she goes just so that people don´t wonder where she is, and that she comes home feeling empty inside. She thinks that church should be more than that, but she can´t leave her congregation. I told her that we would make a deal. She would listen to the discussions, all of them, and cumplir with all the compromisos. Dad is going to have to help, I can´t think of how to say that in English right now. And that if that didn´t fill the emptiness that she had, then no worries. But if it did, then she had some changing to do. She agreed!! We had a lesson with her on Friday night. I was super anxious to go. She is super smart, which is a lovely change, because we can explain things to her in a way that we can´t to others. She asked all sorts of questions, to which we had all the answers. She was super astonished because she had had these questions for a long time, and nobody could ever answer them in a way that satisfied her. for example, ¨what happens if a woman is going to church, her boyfriend doesn´t want to get married or baptized, but she is faithful to the religion?¨ I explained that even though the woman is making an effort, that the Atonement of Jesus Christ can´t apply to the lady because when you repent, you leave the sin behind. If she is still living in fornication, she hasn´t repented. So, in the day of judgement, she will have to suffer even as christ suffered. (DyC 58;42-43, DyC 19:16-19) She had other questions, and at the end of the lesson, she said it was all good because we all worship the same god. I said that we didn´t.

Think about it.

The world perceives God in so many ways nowadays. The catholics have the trinity, and evangelicals and baptists that he is spirit, and others believe (even though they would tell you otherwise) that we should still be living the Law of Moses because they worship Jehovah.

How many people actually believe that Christ and God have flesh and Bone???

She asked where in the world, or the bible, it was written that Christ is flesh and bone. LUCAS 24. 36-39. KNOW THAT REFERENCE, PRE MISSIONARIES. she had never read there before. And then she asked where it says that God has a body. ACTS 7:55-56. On the RIGHT HAND of God. How did Steven see that Christ was at the right hand of God if he couldn´t see god because god was a spirit??? Doesn´t make sense. And in Genesis 1:25 and 26, The Gods say IN OUR IMAGE....if they didn´t have an image, how did they create us with image, and them being spirits??? It doesn´t make sense.

I can honestly say that I felt the spirit so strongly during that lesson. The problem is is that she is super scared to leave her church. Her pastor told her that she would go to hell if she apostatized. She asked what we thought of that. Esparza said that he had no place to say that, because Christ will judge us in the end, and that if she fixes her life and repents, he will be judged with the same judgement with which he judged. I responded by saying that she hasn´t apostatized and can´t apostatize because to apostatize, you have to have the fulness, which she doesn´t have. I told her that. She was a little taken aback. We explained the Apostasy again, to try and help her see what that meant. I am pretty sure she got it. I think what will help her a lot is the Plan of Salvation. Lots of her questions have to do with that theme, and I am so happy to teach it to her.

Other than that, it was a good week. We had 30 in church today, which was super bomb, and even though me and the comp keep finding problems, we fix them. We are figuring out slowly that all of this comes from the fact that we haven´t been communicating well and that when Satan knows we can do a lot of good, he tries to ruin us, because if he can ruin us, he can ruin all that God has planned here. So we are working a lot harder at doing better with each other.

I saw in one of the ensigns that a missionary wrote to New Era a list of things to do to prepare. I couldn´t read it, but it was mentioned in the ensign. What does that list say?? I would guess that elder is serving in the states. IF that is the case, he is having a totally different mission than the rest of the world. I would like to know what the list says, and I will have to make some changes to it. Most likely.

Well, that´s about all for this week. I am just thinking that after this conference, I only have two conferences left here. Crazy.

Love you All!!!

Have a great week.

Zach