Training Part 3

    Well everyone this week has been a crazy week for sure. As the subject of the email says I will be training this coming change. And Elder M. will be headed off to Belize tomorrow. I don´t know quite yet if I will get a brand new Elder or if I will just finish the training of an elder like I did With Elder M. I guess we will find out on Wednesday! Because I am training and he is going to Belize we had to go to all kinds of meetings throughout the week which really got in the way of proselyting, which was pretty frustrating. We really need to work hard right now. The M. family has been having a somewhat hard time. All the churches here once they see that the missionaries are coming to someone´s house start to gossip about people, and tell people all kinds of lies about our church, this week it happened with two different investigators. It´s really frustrating sometimes, it reminds me of the parable of the sower. Where some fall into hard grounds and never take root, others fall on rocks etc... The M.´s this week got "macheted" about how the Book of Mormon isn´t needed and how our church teaches doctrines of men. We had to do damage repair for most of our visits, and only the less active grandmother came to church. Which in many ways is still a success. 

     The other example of persecution was with C. some members of the church she used to go to before confronted her about how she was going to church with the Mormons and having the missionaries come over to teach her. They came over saying "that we believe that Jesus Christ was re born in Joseph Smith and that we only worship him", and that we don´t celebrate Christmas, and then when she told them that we do, they started to tell her about how Christmas was Satanic, and all other sorts of dumb stuff. I am happy to say that she defended the small testimony that she has. She let them know that in her time going to church we only talk about Jesus Christ. It was great. And yesterday we finally got to talk to her husband. Who through a Mormon high school teacher, has read the book of mormon and doctrine and covenants. He actually knows a ton of stuff about church doctrine but has never told his wife. Hopefully we will be able to start teaching him as well. 

     Also the mother of a member, M. that we have been teaching came to church for the first time. She was been a Prophetica church her whole life, (ill tell you about the prophetica church some other time) but basically there are a lot of things we need to work on. She has been visited by several pairs of missionaries but this is the first time that she has ever been willing to go. It was great, unfortunately the talks in sacrament meeting were really boring and not well given but the Sunday school class was awesome so that was good. 

    Okay funny story time... so we were teaching this less active member, and we asked her if she had been reading the Book of Mormon. She told us that she had. We asked here if there was any part that called her attention, and asked what part. She spent a few minutes looking through Alma and went to Alma 31. She said " I like this part about how its describes these people praying, they go up on this tower raise up their hands and read this prayer. It's just beautiful! Listen to this, "Holy holy God, we believe that thou art God and we believe that thou art holy, and that you were a spirit and are a spirit, and will always be a spirit, that's just so beautiful! What is it talking about here?" I was genuinely a little freaked out as I explained that it was the Prophet Alma teaching the apostate Zoramites who were denying Jesus Christ and how they built this tower... etc.. etc... I think she was a little confused at the end. But basically we explained that the Book of Mormon has good examples and bad examples and that was a bad example. I laugh about it right now but I was a little worried at the time. 

     Well it sounds like its been super cold over there in Idaho/Utah, I'll make sure to soak up the 80 degree weather and eat lots of mangoes, avocados, and tangerines for all of you. Have a good one! 

Elder Schriever