Missionary Monday - Moville Week 11

What's up.

Last Monday we went to Clarksburg and I got some under armour shirts and Elder Castillo got some new dress shoes, other than that it was the usual, nothing too special happened. Tuesday we had a video lesson with Bryan, it was kind of a one last shot to get him interested enough in the church to seek it out in Spain, hes in New york right now and leaves from there Wednesday. He said he would send us his info on Facebook when he gets there though so we can refer him to missionaries there.

Wednesday they had a District Leader Skype in the morning with all the district leaders and that was a long hour, I don't think those are as productive as they think they are... Then Wednesday night we had a lesson with the friend of Melvin and Katterin that lives with them, his name is Javier and I like him a lot. He's "Catholic" but he said he has never been to church and never read the Bible so everything we were talking about was new to him.  So he loved us and it was a great lesson, we had Chris Marenco with us and he loved it too, he's come with us for quite a few bum lessons 😬 so he finally saw what a good lesson is like 😂.

Thursday we had District meeting instead of Tuesday cause they had departing temple trips for people leaving between now and the end of the summer since the temple is closing this week and most of the district would be at that. But then 2 companionships ended up having things come up Thursday as well so it was the zone leaders, a set of sisters, and us. D'oh. That night we were teaching Rosa the 11 year old recent Convert and her grandma always sits in on the lessons and we had always assumed she was a member cause she reads the Book of Mormon with rosa but in the opening prayer she was whispering her own prayer at the same time and that's a pretty Catholic thing to do so we asked her if she was a member and she said no but she goes to church with them in the neighboring ward. So we committed her to being baptized and she was so happy. I'm glad we asked. Then we had a lesson with a guy we've met with a few times, he used to come with his wife and kids but was never baptized and she's divorced him since then so he's kinda depressed. We've been trying to help him see the happiness that Christ's church has to offer but he's just too content to go to his other church with his "muchachos".  He pretty much said he knows this is the true church but is too content where he's at (miserable). So we'll have to bring some new "muchachos" from our ward for him. Also for call ins, the sisters had 3 people on date for Saturday but two of them backed out.

Friday we had a lesson fall through at 5 so we decided to do dinner then and halfway through the sisters called us to do the baptismal interview for one of the people that backed out like, right that second. So that worked out that we were super available.

Saturday we had the baptism of Juan Carlos! I think I talked about him. A few weeks ago Elder Castillo and I accidentally went to a members house out of our area but it was a sisters area and they needed a blessing too so it worked. While eating a guy walks in and we end up teaching him the first two lessons and then refer him. He's awesome. His life took a complete 180 and he's got an awesome testimony. We had a lesson that night but it wasn't anything special.

Sunday was long. We had coordination, then a lesson in between coordination and church, that was pretty cool. The guy says he likes to hear about all religions, but he's never had lessons with the missionaries before so I think he has some potential. Then in church, Juan Carlos was confirmed and he wanted Castillo and I in the circle so that was cool. Then we had to go straight from church to a Stake Coordination meeting with all the missionaries in the stake (Like 30) and President Johnson, and the stake presidency. That was good, but I don't know if it was as productive as they had hoped. Then we went to eat with hermano Monroy and that was awesome, Sister Monroy is an amazing cook. She made chicken fajitas and we were in heaven. We hadn't eaten since 9. They told us their conversion story and it was crazy. He used to go to other churches that were big on "The holy spirit"   And he talked about how he walked in to one where they put something in the air and it made everyones extremities dumb so everyone was falling over and there was a guy up on the stage yelling that it was the spirit, then another one where the pastor told him to come up with a bunch of other people and one by one he'd put his hand on their forehead and then smack their forehead and they fall back and "faint".  He said when it got to him he was all excited for "The spirit" and the guy smacks his head and he said his head rocked back but he didn't fall over so he just stood there and so the pastor does it again, same thing, then the third time he felt someone pinch his pressure point or something so he finally fainted 😂 😂.  It was a lot better to hear in person, I don't think I'm doing it justice. So he wasn't to hard to convince once he saw our services were normal. But his wife was just stubborn but she came around eventually. They were talking about getting divorced one day and some missionaries knocked on the door later that day and told her they felt like they needed to come and tell her families can be eternal. She had met with missionaries before but they moved so she didn't bother to search out the church. But when the missionaries said that she figured that was God reaching out to her. 
Later that night I suffered some persecution. We were in a complex of some rundown townhomes and we saw these 2 "Barachos" (drunk Hispanics) they were listening to music and shooting the breeze behind their truck. We figured we might as well talk to them, it was a good conversation, they've heard a lot of false stuff about our church so we were clearing some things up. Then after a few minutes this guy walks out of his house to walk his dog and we were blocking his way on the sidewalk so I stepped up on the lawn and as he passed his dog ran behind me and I kept talking to the drunk guys, then I look down and it was PEEING on my suit pants and shoes. And the owner is just standing there watching, then him and his dog trot off. What the flip!? So yeah, we took a trip to the dry cleaners this morning... I'm only a little bitter. Today we shopped then went to a driving range for our district activity, that was pretty fun.

Hope you all had a great week as well!

Elder Beck