Teaching

twas a long week. the weathers been a bit weird here this week, on tuesday it was as hot as blazes, and then it was raining on and off for the rest of the week. the rain is super nice, just because it means i wont be sweating very much. unless we're in somebody's house, cus then it's still hot. the stone roads are actually kinda nice when it's raining, cus you walk on the stones and your shoes are generally kept away from the mud and water.

we had zone conference this week, which was pretty cool, except for the fact that it was on the hottest day of the week, we had to wear our suits, and it was at the stake center, so it took a long walk and a bus ride to get there.

my companion felt that we could have more success if we started using the area book and visiting old investigators, so we pulled out a few that we felt we should visit. the first one we visited, marcelo, was awesome, he invited us in right away and asked if he should grab his book of mormon, which looked pretty well used. from what i could tell, he was basically ready to be baptized, so we set a date for this saturday, the 19th, and invited him to go to the english class we have every thursday at the church and also to attend church on sunday, and he agreed to go to both. we planned to call him before the class to remind him, but when the class rolled around, i realized we had forgotten. i was on splits with elder lambert for the class, since his companion needed to do a baptismal interview in a different district, so either i had to call him and remind him or i just had to hope he came. i decided i would call him and try my best to understand and communicate my message, but when i pulled out the phone to find his number, there were two marcelo's, and no way to distinguish between them except by the numbers. i decided to try my luck and call one, and i ended up calling the right one. he was busy, but he showed up for the last ten minutes or so and for the spiritual thought which i gave at the end. afterwards he asked to talk to me about the scriptures and stuff, and he told me he knew he needed to get baptized and that the church was true, and it was just awesome. when we went to get him to bring him to church on sunday though, he said he had talked to his friends from his church and they talked him out of it, and he didnt come, and i just felt so discouraged walking to church, and now have no idea what's gonna happen with him. either way, he can't get baptized this saturday anymore.

another solid investigator we had been teaching, ernan, seems to be faltering as well. we stopped by to bring him to church (he had said he´d be waiting for us) and he was asleep. his mom woke him up, and he said that something else had come up, and that he wasn't sure about all this anymore. one of his excuses was that he's catholic, which just about made me cry, cus we hear that from street contacts all the time, but he's been so solid and has wanted to learn and grow closer to God this whole time, but now he pulls that out.

so the two investigators that i was sure were gonna come to church didnt come, but we were able to get someone else to come, and when we got there, there was another, who's only sort of an investigator, and whom we didn't even visit this week. she lives with her grandma, who's an inactive member, and they always want us to stop by their house, but never show up to church. when we saw them in sacrament meeting it was just like 'woah!' a recent convert in the branch, francisca, who's super awesome told her she needs to get baptized, and she said that she's been baptized in a different church but francisca was just straight up and told her you need to get baptized in the church of Jesus Christ. francisca has a super strong testimony and is always super direct with people about it; she just tells 'em how it is.

in a sense, it's sometimes kinda hard to teach effectively here, cus people are generally a bit timid and can't express their feelings or thoughts very well, so it's hard to tell whether they're understanding what you're teaching or not, and to find out what their difficulties are. we've been teaching a family who seems pretty solid, and they always let us in if they're home, but it's hard to get them to talk a lot, so it's hard to find out exactly where they are in their understanding and progression. on the other hand, there's also people who just talk a ton and don't give you any time to teach. we're teaching an old guy, who seems pretty receptive, but he'll just go on and on, about his knowledge of the bible, about his sins, about anything really. he's always willing to hear our message and read whatever we give him, because he says if he rejects us he's rejecting God, which is cool, but we don't even get to speak until like 10 minutes in. he says he used to be a preacher or something of the sort, and he'll talk about the bible forever; i think he's just trying to show off a bit, and show us that he's intelligent and understand. it's funny though cus sometimes he just gets things completely wrong, but has no idea and just goes on and on about it. he's cool though, and seems willing to learn. it's gonna be interesting trying to fix all the misinformation though