March 28, 2011

Hello everyone!

This week was great! We went on two exchanges this week, the first being with Elder Arevalo (I went to his area and worked with him for a day). He is from El Salvador and he is by far one of the greatest missionaries I have met out here. Throughout the day he taught me some spanish and I taught him some good english phrases. We had a pretty crazy experience with one man that we knocked into. The man came to the door and we started to talk to him, I asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ and he said "Who is that?" and I then asked him do you believe in God?. He said "That is personal man.", Elder Arevalo and I didn't really know what to say but before we could he said "Do you want to see my religion?" and then he reached for something behind his door and we got a little nervous and he pulled out a full sized Katana (Very sharp sword) and he quickly pulled it out of the sheath (he opened it scarily close to me) and then said "this is my religion". Then he put it back in the sheath and said have a good day and slammed the door. We both had no idea what to think about what just happened but later on we thought it was pretty funny.

This week we did a lot and lot of knocking and talking to everybody we saw. I love talking to people on the street because we meet so many people and we really learn a lot because each person is so different. We had a referral given to us from other missionaries and we went by the mans house to say hi. He let us in and we taught him and he has a baptismal date for the 10th of April and he is working towards it! His name is Todd and he is one the nicest guys I have ever met. He really absorbs the scriptures when he reads them and he came to church this Sunday and loved it. I am excited for him! By far one of my favorite investigators we have right now is one named Davi, he is from Brazil and he has come to church twice now and is reading the Book of Mormon, I just felt an instant connection with him when we met him. Every time he sees me he says "Hey man!" with almost a Jamaican type accent to it ;). The work has been going so well and it really has been such a neat experience to work as a Zone Leader.

This Sunday was the baptism of Guo Jiemei (sister Guo) from the chinese branch. She is the lady that I started teaching when she moved here. It took her a very long time to finally accept a baptismal date but sadly it was after I had left the branch. She kept telling the chinese elders that I had to come to her baptism, and I wanted to so bad but we have a rule that if we want to go to a baptism we need to bring an investigator with us...this is how the story happened.....So we asked our investigator Todd on Saturday if he wanted to go to the baptismal service and he said yes. But on Sunday he told us he wouldn't be able to make it, so I started to get a little sad because I really wanted to be there for Guo Jiemei (because she told me she thinks of me as her son she never had and I needed to be there) hah. So we tried a few other investigators but none of them were able to make it to the baptism. About 15 minutes before the baptism we had an idea of trying to ask one of our former investigators to come to the baptism. We went to his house and asked him and he said he would be glad to come. So we quickly called a member to come pick him up and take him to the church building and we would meet him there. We were able to attend the baptism and rekindle the testimony in the former investigator! I know this is the Lord's work and I feel so blessed he helped us out in two ways! I love this missionary work so much! I know this church is true! Until next week!

PS. Transfers is next Monday, I doubt anything is changing with my companionship but it is going to be exciting this next transfer!