Tuesday, June 28, 2011

June 13, 2011


Hey everybody,
Well here I am again emailing you and starting off with the answers to my mommy´s questions. Yes I went with the office elders and the quesadilla explosion salad was delicious here as it is there. I actually can´t remember too well how it tasted in the states. Also yes I run with the Executive Secretary Elder Pearson 3 times a week. We just go and run up a huge hill (bigger than the loveland castle hill) and then go back to the house. It feels really good to be running again, because while I loved the jump roping, it just didn´t satisfy me.
This week was really good. I have a new thing that I do with drunk people which has amused me. Whenever they start talking to me I just start talking to them in english. They always get confused because they know the missionaries can speak english, and then they respond in the little english that they know such as good morning or, " eey! he´s a speaking english!" It´s been fun. Also it was a great week because of an experience my companion and I had with an investigator named Felix. We have been teaching Felix since I arrived here in Boca del Monte. When we started he was just another investigator that I described last week and actually caused me to write about how if the investigator isn´t willing to change his behavior, he isn´t going to accept our message at all. All Felix did was interrupt us to tell us all the good things he does for the community and how well he knows God. He would just go on and on telling us things of no substance. There was just no sincerity or desire to change. We didn´t drop him though because he had been going to church and we just wanted to wait and see what happened.
2 Sundays ago something amazing happened. He came to church and didn´t say much at church like he had the other time. At the end of church we set up another teaching appointment, said goodbye, and we were honestly expecting the same thing in the next lesson. What we saw shocked us. We got there and from the beginning of the lesson we could tell that something was different. He was going off on tangents, he was listening, actually listening, to what we had to say. We asked him about how church was. He said with sincerity that he had felt something different, something that made him want to cry, because it made him want to change his character, how he was managing things in his home (they had talked about respect in the home between parents and children). We asked him if he felt this was an answer to what he was praying about, meaning Jospeh Smith and the Book of Mormon. He said yes and that he really wants to get baptized. Ever since then he has told us how he wants to learn more. Instead of looking for what is wrong in the talks in church and what he thinks, he has been telling us about what he learned in the church and what he wants to change. He has talked with his kids that he wants to change and he is trying to do it. It has taught me a lot about how God can touch people and cause them to be humble in ways that we can´t force, sometimes we just need to wait. He still isn´t married and this is a problem because hiw "wife" (they call everyone their wife even if they aren´t married) doesn´t want to marry him because she is much younger than him. We will see what happens in the next few weeks.
Also yes Mom the transition of Presidents is going to happen soon (about 2 weeks) and we are all very excited to meet the new president. The AP´s talked to him the other day and they said he sounds very on top of things and very down to earth which will be great. I love and respect President Baldwin but he is very rigid and slightly intimidating and it will be interesting to see how the change of personality changes things. We are going to have an office meeting this Friday about the transition and everything that will happen in the next little bit. I just hope it doesn´t mean a lot of time in the office as soon as the new President comes in.
Anyways I have to go but I love you guys and I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Good luck with Youth Conference Mom I know you will do a great job.
-Ben


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