Missionary Monday - Moville Week 20

What up.

So I'll just tell you right now, we are gonna need a bigger pool. The pool party just keeps getting more RSVP's, however it's getting rescheduled to the 26th because everyone but Tomas was unable to come to church:(. Monday night we met with Raul and he was starting to not understand why we were there, kept telling us how much he loves "La Palabra" And just thought we were there to talk about Jesus with him, which we were, but ya know. So we brought it back to baptism and invited him to be baptized the 19th and he accepted. He's pretty cool, we met with him again Friday but I'll talk about that when we get there. We also stopped by Karla (the one who told us the Bible is the book of all books) and gave her a family proclamation to the word and a for the strength of youth booklet since she expressed some concern for the youth and wanted to know the church's view on helping the youth. We showed her the a video from Mormon Channel on her TV and she loved it, she's gonna watch Mormon channel like it's Netflix. 

Tuesday we had District meeting and I spiced it up a little and introduced the "Mapstoration" which is basically a new/different approach to teaching the restoration. I went to a members house Monday and printed and laminated a bunch of mini maps for everyone so they can apply it. Everyone ate it up. Teaching with the map has been a game changer. Other than that not much happened.

Wednesday we met with Teresa to do her recent convert lessons and she pretty much taught us the restoration, it was awesome. And she's also already in Mosiah 😂 After that we had service at a members house painting. I was always so jealous of mom when she'd paint, it looked fun. I learned I wasn't missing out on anything. Painting kinda sucks haha. But it was fun, the member was cool and there were 4 other missionaries to help so it was nice to be around other people. Later we had a lesson with Eva & Felipe, we brought a member and it started out with some real potential, it seemed as though we were resolving their concerns, but then they'd ask something like "Wait so why isn't the Book of Mormon in the bible?" Right after we explain how they came from two completely different sides of the world. We had invited them to read 2 Nephi 2 about Adam and eve and Felipe told us the the Book of Mormon isn't true because it refers to Satan as a fallen angel in the BoM and a serpent in the bible. Those were just a few of the... "Problems" throughout the lesson. It ended with everyone pretty frustrated. 

Thursday, we weekly planned and other than that not much really happened...

Friday morning we taught Teresa again, she was curious about temples and baptisms for the dead so we explained that and she thought it was pretty cool, she also asked us why her book of Mormon doesn't have D&C/the pearl of great price so we placed an order for a quad with her name on it 😂 After that we went to teach a man and his wife (Nelson & Jenny) We met them tracting a few days before and they were like "Yeah we are pretty catholic but if we are here we will let you in" So we showed up and they were there and they let us in. We sat down and he whipped out his giant Bible in its fancy case ready to talk about the word 😂 We decided the mapstoration would be best, we taught them and at the end the first thing they say is ".... huh, I never knew that" They were pretty interested after that and we are trying to go to the Visitors Center with them and their kids this week. The best part about the mapstoration is it takes away the prejudice of the Book of Mormon. Later that day we met with José and Carol and taught the plan of salvation, they seemed to understand pretty well and we invited them to be baptized the 19th of May and they said if they come to find out that it's all true they will. Lucky for us it is true 😉 We met with Raul right after and brought a member, we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and emphasized baptism and he was like, so I told you I'd be baptized, but I was baptized catholic... Then the member went in on the purpose of baptism and the need for authority and he was like "Oh, well alright" so that hurdle was a breeze. 

Saturday we tracted in the morning, not much there. Then in the afternoon we had a lesson with Tomas and he is the bomb. He came prepared with questions and then we taught the plan of salvation and it blew his mind. He was struggling with the part that there's no progression between kingdoms so we had him read Alma 34:32-33 about how now is the time to prepare to meet God and how we shouldn't procrastinate the day of our repentance. After reading that he said "...Wow. So uh, how do I not procrastinate my repentance?" Haha. So he understood it all a lot better than we had hoped. He was taking notes throughout the whole thing and then asked us to help him download gospel library and he's still all in for the 19th. He's awesome. At the end of the lesson he thanked us for serving missions so we could find him. Recognition isn't a big deal for me, but it sure is nice. Oh! and Melvin and Katterin finally got married so her baptism can finally happen 🎉 

Sunday was good, besides no one coming to church. Raul was waiting on a granddaughter, Milians work schedule changed, and Jose and Carol had work as well, but next week all problems should be resolved. But church was good, Tomas was surprised by the genuine love by all the members, there's something special about the Spanish members. He's probably shaken hands with over 3/4ths of the ward. The 3rd hour for 5th sunday was up to the missionaries so we had a bunch of groups and each missionary took a group and did role plays for inviting people to church and stuff and that was pretty fun. We also had a "special musical number" and it was pretty weird. But everyone loved it overall. Despite the lack of church attendance by investigators it was a pretty dang good week.

I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Elder Beck

Pictures

The groups

The wedding

The districe