Another solid week of missionary work. The weeks are already playing all sorts of games with me. I'm pretty sure this week felt like an eternity, but now I look back and I feel like it flew by. But I'm getting adjusted to the life and more to the language. I don't feel so helpless and I feel like I can add to the lessons and contribute. I'm able to understand the problems and concerns of investigators then respond in time. And I feel comfortable thinking in Spanish most of the time, as well. I'm not entirely sure why the Lord has helped me so much with the language, but I'm certainly thankful for it. I've been here for 4 months now, and I have no idea how I'm speaking and understanding another language. It's pretty miraculous, when you think about it.
So some odd stories of things I've never seen before in my life:
There was a restaurant that serves people and their dogs. The dogs sit outside in the street (like they would at any normal restaurant), but the waiters bring dogfood in one of those styrefoam leatovers box to them. So that was pretty entertaining to see.
I also saw my first street side preacher-screamer. He had a microphone and a crowd listening, and he was just standing on the street side screaming at the top of his lungs. He was "calling the people to repentance." But as I've learned, he was doing that completely wrong. Repentance is change, and you invite people to change their lives and follow Christ through love and suppot. You don't stand on a street corner telling everyone that they're sinners and need to confess. It just doesn't work that way.
As for investigators, we've unfortunatly dropped our investigator Paul. We've done everything we can to teach him and share our message, but he won't do anything about it. We've invited him to pray a thousand time if the Book of Mormon is true, but he refuses to do it. And he has now let us know that he doesn't want to be baptized either. He's stuck in a slump in his life right now, and we thought the Gospel would get him out, but we've come to realize that he can't accept the Gospel until he gets himself out first. So we'll only be visiting every once in a while to say, "HI" and see how he's doing.
But our investigator, David, is doing very well. He's accepted the commandments we've taught him so far and has completed almost all of commitments. He's getting excited for his baptizmal date and wants to change his life to follow Christ. So we're very enthusiastic with his efforts and progress. We invited him to be baptized if he came to know that this was true, and he responded, "Well, that's the idea, right?" Usually they look at us with wide, scared eyes when we invite them to be baptized, but he actually understood the point! So that was great. And he prayed to know that Book of Mormon is true four times in one night because he really wanted to know. And, of course, he got his answer. We watched the Joseph Smith video with him, and when we asked him how he felt during the video, he responded, "Convinced." So he should be baptized once Febuary 3 comes around. The Lord definitely prepares people to hear His Gospel.
Hope everyone is doing great! I'm working hard and keeping busy, so all is well here.
Elder Seth
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