Missionary Monday - Week 12 in Moville

What's up? Crazy that I've been here as long as I was in DC, time flies.

Last Monday after dinner with the Marencos we had a lesson with a 20 year old black lady that we tracted into the week before, that ended up being a really good lesson. We will be having a pass-off lesson tonight with the English Elders.

Tuesday we had a meal with a member but we had a lot of time in between studies and that so we tracted her neighborhood. Everyone answered except like 2 people it was nuts, usually no one answers except 2 people haha. But anyways, the last house this catholic guy answers and let's us know all about it. (you know how I feel about that) He tells us how he was fighting God all his teenage years and then decided he would try and investigate the catholic church to prove its wrong then he found out its the true church with no flaws and so he's been "a devote catholic ever since" He said he knows all about our church and has done research on the Book of Mormon and doesn't buy it cause there's no evidence of the stuff it talks about (Which is Bologna) But he also hadn't even read it, he said we had a copy and we invited him to do his research in the actual book. He was pretty closed minded:( But the dinner was good. We told the family about the guy and the mom just laughs cause she knows him.

Wednesday we had a lesson with a Spanish guy that we had tracted the Saturday before, we thought he was going to be solid cause when we talked to him on Saturday he was like "Yeah I used to be catholic but now I'm evangelical because I think they have more truth, and I always want to learn more" So we were all excited, then in the lesson he asked us a million questions about eternal marriage and polygamy, once we got over that we start teaching the restoration, it's all going good but at the end when we start extend commitments and talking about the Book of Mormon hes like "yeeeah I just wanted to learn more about the Bible and I don't even read my Bible so I probably won't read years either but thanks" A Bible! A Bible! So we were bummed about that, I don't think he was really listening to anything we said. He also wanted to go to the English ward? He didn't make much sense.

Thursday we had specialized training part 2 at the Visitors Center, it was a lot better than the other trainings. They did a Q&A and one Elder who came out with a phone (since the church switched to phones instead of tablets) asked how he was supposed to cope with having a smaller screen than the entire mission, he got an ear full 😂 During lunch Elder stolk walked into the VC and he definitely misses me 😉 He also leaves in April and he's counting down the days 😂 After the training we had a lesson with Patricio (Recent convert) and we've been trying to help him get to the point where he will read every day. So the time before this we read about when Abinidi is roasting king Noah, then committed him to read the chapter where he ends up getting burned, on his own. Normally when we have him read something specific when we follow up he says "It was good" or "I liked it" or some other vague description, or something from the chapter summary. BUT this time he was alllll kinds of excited to talk about it, it blew his mind that there is stuff like that in the Book of Mormon. So I was pleasantly surprised. 

Friday we were street contacting in the morning. Remember the big black guy with dreads that smelled like weed I talked about a few weeks ago? We found him again. I was all excited to see him cause last time we talked he was going to order a book of Mormon and see what it's all about. We walk up to him and he's like "alright I gotta question for you guys..." I'm like sweet it's gonna be about the Book of Mormon. Then he says "So in Genesis chapter 9:20-27, Noah gets drunk and passes out naked in his room, his son walks in and sees him and tells his brothers and his brothers go and cover their dad up. Noah wakes up and is pissed and curses his grandson (canaan) and his seed to be slaves indefinitely, what's the deal with that? How does a just God let a drunk prophet curse his grandson cause he's mad his son saw him naked?" I had never read that before I guess it wasn't apart of the "selected readings" for seminary. I feel like God didn't honor the curse cause where are these "Canaanite slaves" today? And in Deuteronomy 18:22 it says: When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

That didn't seem to help him at all though. We tried to bring it back to the book of Mormon but he said "The book of Mormon is like, step ten for me right now until I figure out this Noah thing" So we parted ways and it was super unproductive:( However he had Elder Castillo pull up the scriptures on his phone and allegedly "it opened up to the camera" so he took a few pictures first, lucky for you guys now you can see what I mean with how he looks. He's pretty passionate about the Bible and philosophy 😂 

Then we had lunch with hermana nieto, she had her niece there who isn't a member and we ended up teaching her and will follow up this friday, that was awesome. Then dinner with Jose cruz, his wife still thinks she's the first person to ever be pregnant.

Saturday was a whole bunch of nothin. Had like 3 appointments cancel so we were doing a lot of tracting, in the morning there was a guy picking up sticks and branches out of his yard from the huuuuge wind storm the day before. We offered to help him and he's like "So you must be Jehovah witnesses?" And we were like "No we are Mormons! Can we help you with your yard?" And he says "No thanks, I've been born again so I'm good" Then he says "I respect you guys, but here are our differences..." he ruined the conversation before it started. He went in about the trinity and the book of Mormon and how the Bible is sealed in Revelations and how if Joseph Smith had read the Bible he would know that he couldn't add his book to it thousands of years later. We told him that's weird because most of the Book of Mormon was written before Christ came so... (and also the first epistle of John was written after Revelations anyway so if John was talking about the Bible as a whole he's gonna have a whole lotta plagues falling on his head) He then changed the subject back to the trinity and asked how we could possibly restrict God to the body of a man. He talked about all these different things and then brought up Moses and the burning bush, so with a little bit of spiciness I said (this was after like 15 minutes of false claims and other nonsense about our salvation so I couldn't help it) "So it makes more sense to you, that God would be a shape shifting burning bush that when hes in the form of Christ he repeatedly refers to the Father/Holy Ghost which would be himself himself, than to believe that they are two separate men, with Godly powers nonetheless?" He changed the subject again. Come to find out he's in a nondenominational church, and isn't even sure how he feels about it. If he would've had a softer heart right off the bat I think we could have answered a lot of his questions, all we were trying to do was help pick up sticks and he had to get all defensive 😂 

Sunday there was no coordination so we tracted before church, we finally met someone who gets it. We talked to this lady about the Book of Mormon and she says "I'm not surprised there's other scripture out there, I just learned how many books are missing from the Bible and how the Bible was made" That was a breath of fresh air. She said she was happy as a Methodist but would definitely order a book of Mormon. A few doors later this suuuuper old guy answers with his walker and he's like nah. Elder Castillo asks if he can give him a card, the guy opens the door a little and Elder Castillo extends the card and the guy reads the back and then leans out of the door way all up in Elder Castillos face and I'm like, oh shoot he's about to end Elder Castillo. Then the old guy starts yelling about the catholic church and how it's the only true church and how all the other churches talk of Christ but they are all doing it wrong and going to hell. He just keeps going and Elder Castillo is petrified, he tried to testify a few times but the guy wouldn't have it. (I figured it was a good experience for him to have) Then the guy starts yelling about how God never changes and we are like, yeah, that's exactly right. That made him more mad so he starts insulting Elder Castillo so I'm thinking, this was great but we gotta get outta here. Since he wasn't letting us tell him about the unchanged restored truths we have I asked him how he was baptized (I knew this would be an alley oop for Elder Castillo to throw down) the guy says by immersion of course. Then Elder Castillo  says, well I was baptized catholic as a baby by sprinkling, why did the catholic church change baptism if God never changes? The guy yells "BLASPHEMY!!!" and yells other nonsense, sooo loud. I thought he was about to seal his testimony with his life, he was shaking the whole time. We said we had to go and to have a good day and he said you too. 😂 It probably looks like we just bash with people based off of my letters but these are just the most entertaining parts of the week. We try our best to keep it civil, but people keep taking the fight to us. Later that day we met an old catholic lady who converted from being a jew! (Book of Mormon prophesy being fulfilled) She was pretty cool, she loooooves the bible, she said it's what converted her. We tried to tell her how much she'd love the book of Mormon but she just loves the Bible too much. "It's gotten me this far so I think I'm good" A Bible! A Bible! She was friendly so that was nice and she actually has a book of Mormon from a coworker but she's never read it. Hopefully we sparked some interest. 

Today we will be grocery shopping and looking for short sleeve shirts for Elder Castillo at the mall. The transfer also ends on Wednesday so maybe Elder Castillo and I will get a call tonight and get split, probably not though since he's still in training. He's been the best to get along with so far and we've had the most success together so I have no complaints. Hope everyone had a good week! I'd love to hear from yall.

Elder Beck

My pictures are kinda lame this week, just the black guy (yes the knot on his head is his hair) and a farewell party, they go way too hard with the farewells here, it was Saturday night and they had speakers and testimonies and everything, we had an investigator going so we went as well. So there's pictures from that. Wheres waldo/Elder Beck?