MIssionary Monday - Moville Week 10

Catholicism.

That sums up the week pretty well. But we will get to that later. Tuesday we gave a blessing to an inactive lady, she was pretty cool. Her brother is super active so we will have to talk to him about helping her along. Later we had dinner with Jose and Alondra, Alondra is like 2 weeks pregnant and she thinks she needs bed rest. It's all in her head. That's going to be a loooong 9 months for Jose. 

Wednesday we had an exchange with the zone leaders up until we had splits with the members. The zone leaders speak French so we were basically unstoppable. We street contacted in the morning and then tracted in the evening. Nothing to special until we knock on a door and an old is lady answers and doesn't even say anything and turns and yells for her husband to come talk to us. He comes out and just starts going off about Catholicism. What I got out of his 15 minute rant to us is that Catholics have a blind faith. We tried our best to make it a productive conversation but the baseline for truth was skewed for him. He wanted to see the original plates for the Book of Mormon, I asked about the original transcripts of the Bible, he said there are absolutely original transcripts. (That's when I realized he didn't know what he was talking about since the original "Bible" is long gone) He also talked about how the history of the Catholic church is "so strong and sound" (Never thought I'd ever hear that).  He said "There have been bad popes but the church stayed strong" No comment needed. He ends with telling us we should investigate the catholic church so that we can find more beauty. I asked him what it takes to be saved in the Catholic church and he said "You have to be baptized, and continually seek conversion". So I said "So, where I stand right now, whether I'm LDS, Methodist, Protestant, or Lutheran, I'm still saved since I've been baptized and am seeking conversion" He thought for a minute and said "Yeah probably, but you'll have a better chance if you're Catholic" So good news, even if the Catholic church is the true church, we're still good 👍 Splits went well, I went with hermano Espinoza and Elder Castillo went with hermano Muniz. Taught only 3 lessons this time but it was still great.

Thursday we had zone conference, it was the first normal zone conference since October haha. That was pretty good, it was all about the first and great commandment. The trainings were pretty good as well, lunch was pulled pork sandwiches and that was awesome. After zone conference we had a lesson with Melvin and Katterin. That went pretty good, they are awesome. The hadn't been reading pretty much at all a few weeks ago and we apologized that we hadn't taught them well enough to understand the importance of the scriptures and now they are at 1 Nephi 11! 

Friday was pretty good too. For all of you who have been fans since the México dry cleaning debacle, the damage has been undone. Shout out to the Chinese cleaner. I couldn't have been more skeptical of dry cleaning after Mexico but I took a chance on it here and picked up my suit Friday and it is good as new, they fixed the buttons for free and fixed the misaligned creases and it doesn't smell funny. Best $11 I've spent. Also shout out to mom for being obsessed with Vera Bradley, I've ran into several ladies with Vera Bradley bags, they are all so closed off until I ask them about their bag 😂 Later we had dinner with Hermana Nieto and it was salmon, unfortunately she was the first member meal I had in this area and that first time it was fish but Elder West took one for the team and ate mine too. BUT that was before I became allergic so it's too late to go back with her. Salmon is the only one I can sort of handle so I didn't quite die. 

Saturday we had interviews with President and Sister Johnson. Those went well. After we went out to lunch because while street contacting before interviews we tried to talk to this old white lady but she was like "I'm from the Bethesda ward!" Then gave us 20 bucks, we tried to turn it down but she wasn't having it. So we treated ourselves to McDonald's. Later that night we had a lesson fall through so we were knocking doors, met another Catholic, she was a lot nicer though. She is basically a respector of all faiths and has been a Catholic missionary all over the world. She said she loves Mormons but just can't get on board with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We talked about that and basically she wants a sign. (You know how Heavenly Father feels about that) She said a lot of the same things as the other guy concerning the "Strong" history of the Catholic church. She told us about the lady of Guadeloupe in Mexico or something and that's how she knows the Catholic church is the church for her. Somehow mother Mary leaving her face printed on Juan Diegos poncho makes sense but not the restoration of Christ's church. But hey, at least she knew what she believed. I had always wondered how Catholics felt about their history, now I know. It also snowed a ton and that was awesome, after talking to the Catholic lady we helped another lady shovel her sidewalk, her husband is handicapped so she had no choice. She was pretty thankful for the help.

Sunday was ward conference and it was awesome. The stake presidency was speaking so it was all in English and they did Spanish translation for everyone. It was the first sacrament meeting I've been able to understand in 6 months. Just kidding, but normally I have to really actively listen otherwise its just noise. So it was nice to be able to listen without trying. The stake president starts out telling everyone to take out a pen and paper and to answer "What am I doing that I shouldn't be, and what aren't I doing that I should be" Then he basically said "With all the other wards I talk about missionary work but you guys know what your doing so I won't beat a dead horse" Then at the end of his talk he had all the missionaries stand up and told everyone that we've been set apart and have power to convert their friends and then he told them to get out the piece of paper again and think of someone that they want to introduce to the missionaries. It was pretty sweet. Right after the meeting Melvin gave us a Refferal and we will be meeting with them tonight. The rest of Church was the usual. Last night after dinner José calls us and is like "Hey my wife is out of town, can I go out with you guys?" So we picked him up but didn't have any lessons or anything so we went tracting for like 30 minutes then we went to stop by someone we had met with the week before but she wasn't there when we had scheduled to come back, and some other lady answers the door and I was in front of Elder Castillo and Jose so she tells the lady we were looking for that some gringo is here (She couldn't see the other two) Then José steps up and says, uhhhh actually just one gringo 😂 She let us in once she realized who we were. We followed up and she pretended she had read the introduction but we all new she hadn't, which was to be expected, she said she had never read scriptures before so she has a hard time with it. We explained the Book of Mormon more in depth and read a little bit from 2 Nephi 31 and she pretty much was like "Oh, so I need to be baptized" And we were like yeah, you do. She accepted to be baptized but wanted to wait for her husband to have the lessons too before she settled on a date but we were pretty thrilled.

Today we will be going to the Clarksburg mall and looking at stuff there, other than that we are wide open as usual... Hope everyone else had a good week!

Elder Beck

1- We still knocked

2- the exchange

3- the split w/ Hno Espnoza

4- snow

5- with my mission presidents