So what happened this week? I put my first fecha! Or, in
other words, I asked someone to be baptized, and he said yes! It was
the first time that someone had actually accepted the invitation when I
extended it. I was actually really surprised, because we had just
contacted him, but he felt the Spirit and was ready and said yes, so
hey, I´m all down for it. It felt so good.
I tried turtle for the first time. It was actually really good. Super tough, but flavorful. I highly recommend it :)
We
had an interesting experience with an investigator this week. He used
to be taught by the missionaries, but they stopped visiting him. We´re
like, hey, let´s go teach him. We found out why the missionaries before
stopped going. What he basically wanted to do was listen to us talk, and
then drill us with questions and try and get us to argue, or to prove
us wrong. It was really irritating, listening to him ramble about how
the bible doesn´t say anything about the church disappearing from the
earth (it does, but, you know. We´re not supposed to bible bash ;)). It
just gave me a headache. But Hna Miza did really well, and just bore her
testimony, and did her best to leave on a good note and get out of
there as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there are people like that.
But all we can do is bear testimony, and try our best to leave them with
no bad memories of us. We still are representatives of Jesus Christ,
whether people are ready to accept His word into their lives. That
definitely was an interesting experience.
Oh, and another
funny story. We had an investigator with a baptismal date when I got
here, but he stopped reading and going to church so we dropped him. We
randomly decided to go visit him again, and while we talked, we found
out something very important. He doesn´t speak much Spanish. He´s from
Puerto Cabeza, which is up in the north-east part of Nicaragua, where
they speak Miskito. Some people also speak Spanish and English there,
but he happened to only speak Miskito and was learning Spanish. So,
basically, the reason he wasn´t progressing was because he wasn´t
understanding us. Hna Miza was so frustrated with herself. "4 months!
We´ve been teaching him for 4 months and I had no clue!" It was pretty
funny, but now we know and we have members in the ward who speak
Miskito, so we´ll be able to teach him again and hopefully he´ll get
baptized soon :)
So, we found a special Book of Mormon in the
copies to give out. I carry one with me to use, and to give to people if
we find someone positive, and we were in a lesson with a RC. She´s 10,
and super cute. We left her something to read in Mosiah, and I was
looking it up to read with her. And then I burst out laughing. Why?
Because that special BoM didn´t have Mosiah 4. It did have Mosiah 11-27
twice. right next to a single page of the book of Alma. And we have two
of those bad copies of the BoM. I literally just laughed out loud for 5
minutes in that lesson. With our RC and Hna Miza of course. I just
wanted to preach the gospel. Be gone, Satanás!
So, I did some
good studying on Charity. It´s more than just love. I´d share all I
know about it, but then I´d deny you all the opportunity to study it for
yourselves ;) Plus I´ve only got an hour on here, so you know.
Priorities.
I also read this really awesome little book on
missionary work. It´s called Member Missionary Work: Finding the Elect
of God. It´s not published by the church, but it´s this random talk
given by Brother Scott Marshall. It´s amazing. Honestly, reading that
book converted me to the gospel again. President Collado gave it to me
when we were studying with other companionships, and it´s a super fast
read. I´m not sure how to find it, but if you don´t mind knowing the
dirty secrets of missionary work, and coming to have an intellectual
testimony of the gospel, give it a read. You won´t regret it.
I
also reread the conference talk from last April on Music and the
Gospel. We can teach our kids (or investigators) how to dance, but if we
don´t also teach them how to hear the music for themselves, they´re
going to quit dancing eventually. I absolutely adore this talk, so go
ahead and read it again. I think it´s on the front page of lds.org right now.
Alright.
Time to go. Thank you for all your prayers and love and support. I feel
it every day. Have a good week, and remember always how much you are
loved by our Heavenly Father.
Feliz semana!
- Hermana Oliphant
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| Sarah's Neighborhood, La 14 |
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| Our Heritage in Spanish, current personal study |
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| Sarah and Hermana Near on divisions while their comps were at training |
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