Mar. 5, 2012

Hijole! It was an awesome week. The flowers are blooming, the investigators are attending church, and the weather is getting warm! I am so pumped for summer to come. It's gonna be a fun one :)

Cool story:

Elder Harris and I were tocando some puertas and we weren't having a whole lot of exito so we went to another street to contact a former investigator. The person wasn't home and we were about to leave the area but then we flipped open our planners and remembered that we planned that previous night that we were gonna stay on that street for a half hour or so as a back-up plan. We figured, well we planned it so let's stick to it. Knocked a couple puertas, nada, and then came up to this fence where this blind guy was outside (we thought about just going to the next. terrible right? we repented) and we tried talking to him but didn't really get anywhere but as we were about to go to the proxima casa a younger guy in his low 30's or so comes outside. He came up to the fence and said in Spanish, "I've been waiting a year for you guys to come." I wasn't sure how serious the guy was so I just said "hmm and why is that?". Without immediately answering the question, he opened the fence and said "Ven".

So, we went in and talked to the guy. The cool story is that he was going through a lot of troubles in his life and about a year ago, he met a guy from Peru who he became close friends with. Turns out that the Peruvian was Mormon but unfortunately he got deported back to Peru. But, before getting deported, he gave his friend (the guy we were talking to) some awesome advice. He said, "Busque los misioneros mormones y escuchelos!" (Find the mormon missionaries and listen to them!) During that sigiuente year, he didn't buscar the missionaries but the missionaries found him.

The next day, sabado, we went by and had a wonderful follow up lesson with the entire family; the wife and 5 hijos. They are all young, oldest is 5 and the youngest two are baby twins. The lesson started off pretty decent, just mainly got to know more about them. Then we began teaching and it was going alright, but it wasn't very powerful and something felt missing. We were about to end the lesson but I said, "Antes de irnos, nos gustaria compartir UNA mas escritura con ustedes." We read from Mosiah 18:21. Boom. Something hit (the Spirit?) The wife looked at us and said that this is exactly what she has been looking for. She wants unity and love, both in her family and in a church. After a few minutes of awesome-ness, the husband randomly asked if we sing songs at church (They have been attending a pentecostal church for the past few months, uh oh). We explained to them about the hymns we sing, and then he asked us to sing one! Elder Harris and I sing a song every morning before starting companionship study but by no means do we sing songs to investigators! (For fear of them dropping us) I tried to explain to them that we just sing songs about Christ and we do it in a reverent manner but nope, that wasn't enough for them. They wanted a taste of what they were going to experience at church.

This brings my cool story to a little side note: For the previous week or so, I had been trying to memorize "Families can be together forever" in Spanish. I wasn't sure why I was doing that, but I felt like I needed to. I was singing it in the car inbetween appointments, in the streets while contacting, and in the shower every morning. I was getting really good and I finally memorized it. Fortunately it's short and sweet so it was pretty easy. Anyway, back to the main story: I looked at Elder Harris and asked if he knew "Eternas pueden ser las familias". He said mas o menos yeah. So, we sang a duet of "Eternas Pueden Ser Las Familias". I have never sung so beautifully in my life. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to sing that well again (sorry Stephanie, I know I know). But, the husband and wife had tears in their eyes and are so excited to come to church.

Okie dokie, sorry for the long story. That's just a taste of how awesome the week was. We're getting together again as a district to play some more jungle uno and then maybe some basketball too. The hermanas said they are bringing ice cream. It's great to have sister missionaries in the district :)

Love you all! Hope everything is going well. Things here in Mercedes are maravillosa.

With MUCHO amor!

Elder Brett