June 18, 25, July 2, 2012

      

                                                                              July 2, 2012

So… it was a cool week. We had divisions twice and I got to stay in the area so it was a bit chaotic but it was ok. A few cool stories though. A long time ago when we had the changes, I forgot to mention that Elder Badillo (my companion before Elder Sosa) came to the zone. I got to work with him on Friday and it was pretty cool. It made us remember some of the old times.
On Tuesday we had a pretty cool experience that made me remember a lot of one of Dad’s stories. We were looking for members that we don’t know and asking for referrals. . We were looking for a specific house number but we couldn’t find them, so we figured that we would start asking around the neighbors. Ok well first I have to explain a little bit of Mexican culture. In the states, you would normally go up and knock the door as if it weren’t anything. But here in Mexico, it’s a bit different because they always have big fences up so you stand outside the fence and yell and if they want to talk they come out. So we went to the first house and we asked if they knew anything about the person. They came out and said that they didn’t know and didn’t want to listen to the message either. Then the next door we yelled and the guy just said, “Come in.” He sat us down and gave us a glass of water and told us to wait a second because he was eating. We figured we had found the member that we were looking for but we found out he wasn’t. He talked about how he didn’t let just whatever person in and that he knew who we were; baptismal date! That was pretty cool. His favorite hymn is Nearer my God to Thee, and we sing it every time we go over there, but it’s cool. We’re also working on his wife and his kids. The only problem is that his “wife” isn’t actually his wife. He has to get divorced and married before he can get baptized. But we are getting there. He went to a baptismal service and he really liked that.
We also had four people show up to church in the middle of nowhere this Sunday. There is one that we already knew that he didn’t want to get baptized, there is one that his girlfriend is in the ward and there are two that are part of a family that they just showed up with a member friend (him being from another stake). Happy early birthday from the Lord.
This week I was watching a movie from my comp about Zion's camp. From the Lord’s point of view it wasn’t exactly the fighting what interested him. To men maybe they were supposed to fight but not to Him. The Lord sent them there and back without firing a single shot at another man. They went as a bunch of men but the came back united, humbled, dependent on the Lord and decided on doing what the Lord would have them do. And I understood that lot of the time that’s why we are allowed to go through tough times, or that actually that is the reason for our existence. I remember the phrase, “and now we will see if they will do the things that their Lord would have them do.” That phrase was made before mankind existed, and it applies to us every day. Every day we are given the challenge to see if we will do what the lord would have us do.
Con Amor,
Elder Mackay