Wednesday, September 25, 2013

"Un diezmo para la iglesia..."

Family!

This past week has flown by!  Probably faster than any other week that I've been out.  I can't even believe it's time to write again...

We had a couple cool experiences this week, mostly focused around church attendance.  Church attendance has been our big focus this past week.  In all of my time here we haven't had any investigators at church.  Or at least we hadn't until yesterday...  We have been working with a family ever since I got here, the same one that we lost contact with for a few weeks and just recently got back into contact with.  Well, the wife (A…..) is inactive, and the husband (D…..) is not a member, so we've been working to try and get her back to church and get him baptized.  The progress has been slow, but they finally came to church yesterday!  It's amazing how having an investigator at church changes the whole focus of the meeting for the missionary.  The whole time I was thinking about what questions D….. was having and what things I would need to explain to him after the meeting.  It was really cool though!

We had another lesson with the T….. family this past Friday.  It was probably the best lesson we've had with them!  We learned two weeks ago that they didn't really have as solid an understanding of the restoration as we had previously thought.  When we asked T…. what he remembered about Joseph Smith, he told us the story of Nephi and how he had to kill Laban to get the plates...  He was a little confused about which plates were associated with which person...  So anyway, we decided we should probably clear that up.  So we brought along the Restoration movie to watch with them.  They are a little bit older and they don't really know how to work any technology, so I had to set up the movie.  And instead of a DVD player, they had a PS3 hooked up to the TV.  So yes, I, Elder Foote, have used a PS3 while on my mission... =).  Anyway, we watched the movie, and it brought the Spirit crazy strong.  It was absolutely amazing.  Just another testimony builder that the Restoration really did happen.  But even better than the Spirit coming during the lesson was the fact that they felt it!  T…. told us after that while he was watching the restoration, he felt a really nice feeling, and he wanted to be there in the grove with Joseph.  It was so cool!  After that lesson they were both willing to come to church with us.  The only obstacle is that R…… (T….. wife) works Sundays.  So that'll be our next challenge.  But they were nonetheless excited about it.  T…. went and got his tie, and Elder Graf tried to teach him how to tie it, but I'm not sure how much he actually learned...  And at the end of the lesson as we were leaving, R…… offered me a 20 dollar bill and said "Un diezmo para la iglesia."  They actually tried to pay tithing before we had ever taught them anything about it!  I don't know, maybe I'm making a bigger deal of it than it actually was, but I thought that was awesome!

Other than those two experiences, not much else happened that I'll take the time to write about here.  We found some new potential investigators, and we got back in contact with a family of 9 that we will begin teaching this week!  The coolest thing that happened this week outside of teaching was at our Branch President's house.  I don't know how it happened, but we somehow got on the topic of Lord of the Rings, and we found out that our Branch President is a huge fan!  He's read the books, seen the movies, and we had a short discussion about it, in Spanish!  Never did I think that I would be discussing Lord of the Rings in Spanish in my entire life, let alone my mission!

And that's it for this week!  Thanks for the package!  The blanket will come in handy, the cookies are great (even though they got a little smashed), and the poem was a work of art!  Thanks for everything you do!

Love,

Elder Foote