25 April 2011

Hey fam.
This week was a decent week, we didn´t have bikes, because my chain full on broke while I was riding, so we did a lot of walking around. Two investigators came to church, N, who´s son and boyfriend are members, they just are waiting to get married so she can get baptized. They said they were going to put a date today at the judge place. And the other person was D, yeah, his name is Sunday, you´d think he would be better at keeping the sabbath day holy hahaha. The meetings were pretty good, me and my companion had to give the gospel doctrine class so we watched the movie Lamb of God, being Easter I thought it was appropriate.

Lets see, this week we ate pizza, had some really great lessons with our peeps and saw some miracles. One was an investigator named N. She had told us that she didn´t feel ready to get baptized because she didn´t want to obey some rules, and it was hard to make the change and get in the habit of going to church. But then later in the week we visited her again, because we thought that maybe we could still visit her kids and get them wet. But something had changed. She was always good for listening to us and had wanted to keep listening, but baptism freaked her out. But this time we went back over the first lesson, The Restoration. It was really nice to go back over the basics, and she sincerely said that she would pray to know if it was true, we could tell she hadn´t done that before, she had prayed, just not for a testimony. But she said that thanks to us she had started praying and that she had received answers. Her 15 year old son had been in drugs and he had quit them and was even trying to quit smoking, and the father of her baby had come to visit like three times. It had been months since she had seen him, and she had been praying that the baby could have a father figure. I was so happy to hear that she realized that these things came as an answer to her prayers, all we can do now is wait for an even better answer to come, one telling her that its all true. Then she shouldn´t have too many issues changing. Things change when you have a real testimony.

So here is a scripture I read today in my scripture study, 2 Pedro 1:3-8.

3. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

5. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

6. And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

7. And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

8. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was a suggested scripture in the Preach My Gospel section about virtue. I decided that I want to memorize it in Spanish so that whenever I have a bad thought come to my head I can recite it. It's pretty long so I´m sure the bad thought will be loooong gone by the time I finish hahaha.

So I don´t know if you remember but in the April 2010 conference there was a talk about a kid who had cancer or something like that and died, and they showed a picture of him and his brother who had recently received his mission call. Well, my companion is that brother. Yeah i have a Mormon celeb as a companion.

So Easter Sunday. Here they don´t have the Easter bunny, but some of the parents wrap up chocolate eggs and hide them for the kids to find. They eat a lot of chocolate eggs, and pretty much everyone gets the whole week before Easter off of work and school. They call it many things, originally the holy week (semana santa), but also tourism (turismo), la semana criolla, which is like the week to celebrate country folk, and even la semana de la cervesa, beer week, hahaha. Don´t you love how commercialized the holidays become. From holy week to beer week.

By the way HHHAAPPPYYYYYYY BBBBIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRTTTTTHHHHDDDAAYY MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!! you are the best mother on the face of the planet I hope you realize that I love you a buttload. On the 30th I´ll buy you an alfajor, then eat it because its illegal to send it to you and it would go bad in six months. But anyways, happy 44? holy cow. you are not that old. yet.

I love you all, have a great week.
Elder Barry
ps. i hit myself in the face with my phone today, i think Jim is responsable.
pps. my fingers are dying from having no guitar, its been a whole month now :(