Missionary Monday - Olney Week 8

Gooodmorning! 

🛑If you read nothing else read Friday.🛑

So last Monday we had like 3 lessons that night so that was cool. The last one was with Pedro, he's a cool guy but hasn't been committed to do anything by missionaries in the past so he hasn't gone anywhere. We brought a member and layed it down and committed him to be baptized and come to church and he was super down with it all. But spoiler alert, he went to work and not church. (Exodus 31:14-15 🤷🏾‍♂️) The member we brought also told Pedro that he was a bishop (he's not) so that was weird. But we will give him a few more chances.

Tuesday (my birthday) was fun until we were tracting in the cold for hours on end. At the members restaurant they made flan (Spanish cake with the texture of snot) and sang and it was super awkward, but I appreciated it.

Wednesday not much happened, got tricked into bashing with a born again. That's a comfortable "Doctrine" that they believe. At night we talked to a HUGE Brazilian dude who didn't have a shirt on in his doorway and he was rubbing his hairy belly the whole time, at the end of the contact Elder Navarro went for the handshake which meant I had to as well, duuuuuude.

Thursday for Thanksgiving we had a lunch and a dinner. For lunch it was with one family and it was pretty good, the Hna got all put out that I didn't eat 2+ servings even though I was full, sorry bout it. For dinner we went to the Hernandez's and they had a ton of family which turns out to be like half the ward. But that was fun. Everywhere in between was spent talking to random people on the street, nothing too promising. Yet 😉

Friday was wild. At night we end up running into the English elders tracting and they are like "Hey we ran into a Spanish Bible study that was about to start 15 minutes ago, you should go." So of course we went, they followed us and watched from outside the complexas we knocked. The people let us in and as we walked in the English elders were giggling like school girls 😂 Turns out it was a youth Bible study, everyone was pretty cool. It was like 12 kids 14-17 years old and then 3 adults. We just listened through basically the whole thing, they sang some wack songs that were super long, and played minute to win it with the oreos on the face (I dominated) And then they got into their actual study. The main teacher was like 22, we'll call him King Noah/Korihor. He was focusing on the prophesies of Christ's birth and they read from the old testament in micah, they had a funky translation of the Bible and were going off of some weird packet thing, it was kind of a mess, they could really benefit from Preach My Gospel just sayin. After that snoozer they were about to end and have food then they were like "Oh I guess do you guys want to share anything?" We probably looked like the grinch when he smiles 😈. At first in my head I thought "We can't hijack these kids by teaching the restoration, the leaders will hate us..." Then the spirit was like "Pssst, but it's the truth" Then I was like "Oh yeah, you bet." So we go in with the restoration and everyone is eating it up, even the apostasy they agreed with (Ironic) but then we get to Joseph Smith and everyone forgets everything we've talked thus far and freaks, mostly the leaders though. King Noah starts asking questions left and right. They were good questions though so that ended up working in our favor. His last question before things exploded was "how can I know if Joseph Smith was a prophet?" So we start to explain the book of Mormon and Elder Navarro asks one of the other adults how she came to know the Bible was the word of God. She says "I've always believed in the bible, I know it's the word of God." Then he asks if she had to read or pray or anything to know and she was like "Nope I've always known." (we were looking more for a read and pray answer, but now we've determined no one has asked God if the Bible is true, they just accept it.) Back to the story. Then she totally hijacks us and is like "A scripture comes to mind, can everyone turn to Galatians chapter one?" On the inside I was like "Giiirl don't you dare". Then she has everyone read aloud together "if any man teach any other gospel unto you than that ye have recieved, let him be accursed." Then she starts testifying to all the kids about our false doctrine. Bruuuuuuh 😂 😂 It was wrecked. Then Korihor jumps in and said something along the lines of "I just want you guys to know that whoever has been teaching you all your lives has been leading you astray, I want to warn you that what you are doing is dangerous, your souls are at stake and you are taking others down with you." The natural man in me was like "Slam this boy with some Doctrine from his own bible" but then the spirit was like "psst. You're dumb, testify" So then I did and told them all that I knew what was at stake and I love the scripture in Galatians and that I stand next to Paul when I say the doctrine I preach isn't after the doctrine of men, etc etc. Then I close in the name of Jesus Christ and there's like a 5 second awkward silence and then they are like "Aaaalrighty, thanks" And close with a prayer.😂 Then they asked us to stay for refreshments so we do. While I was eating one of the youth comes over and asks if we can talk for a few minutes. He asked a bunch of awesome questions about the Book of Mormon and everything else and was super into it. He apologized for everyone else being so "Close minded". That was pretty dope, maybe he'll turn out to be my Alma. Things wrap up and they told us they hope to see us next week. We will probably go and try to add our 2 cents as much as they will let us. We want to bring an RM from the ward who looks like he's 12 so they can see we aren't the only ones who believe what we do. So yeah Friday was cool.

Saturday was finding all day, we walked around in the morning and it was super cold, then it started pouring rain so that was kind of the worst 😂 Then tracting the rest of the day.

Sunday was the usual. Had a coordination meeting after church with the elders quorum presidency. There were a lot of generic plans made that won't get started until January though so that wasn't super productive. Had dinner with the Orellanas. The wife is American and she made roast, potatoes, rolls etc. It was my first Sunday dinner like at home since I was home 😂 Then we knocked a bunch. Met some cool people but we'll see if anyone sticks around.

Today we've got a whole lot of nothing and then like 8 followup lessons tonight if everyone confirms so we'll see how that goes.

I hope you all had a great week and I look forward to hearing from you!

Elder Beck

Pictures:

"Bishop" Guillen

Birthday date

Too many people at one thanksgiving

Video of me winning