25 Abril 2016

Hijole...se me va volando el tiempo...It's gotten to the point that when I do something that miffs another missionary, they ask me "hey, how much time do you have left?" Good grief.

Some highlights from this week.

We checked everything with the records and everything for Yessica and her daughter. According to the records, she was never baptized. We asked President Rodriguez what to do in the situation, and he said to have her write a letter to somewhere (he said the bishop should know where) explaining the situation with her baptismal date, place, who did it and all that necessary information. We told her that and she said "Nope, I don't got nada." Then she smiled and said "I guess I'll just have to get baptized again. Oh darn." And well, okay, I'm not going to complain. So we called up the president again to ask him and he said "Well...shoot. I guess you're going to have another convert before you go home." So we're going to baptize both of them next week. Grecia (the daughter) and her mom are both very excited.

We've been teaching this kid who lives in front of the church whose name is Juanito (well, Juan Mauricio) and he's nine and a little slow at times, but he's really sweet and wants to get baptized. And he came to church this week! Yay!

This other lady named Beatriz also came to church. She's recently gotten married to the dad of a recent convert who was kinda starting to wander a little, so she decided this last Sunday that they were going to church. She came and participated in Gospel Principles and LOVED it. We have an appointment on Wednesday with them.

And a few other people came to church but they belong to other wards.

We've been teaching this sweet, spunky old lady named Zulema in her little store by the church and every time we go she's more and more interested. This last time we went, I recognized one of her workers. It was Rocio Ibarra, a less-active lady that I knew in Frontera. So we got on Rocio and committed her to tell Zulema to go to church. And then Zulema didn't go, but this morning we went to go buy the groceries and Zulema said that she talked with her kids and they said "do whatever you want, mom." So she's decided to come to church this next week.

We had a really sweet experience yesterday while working. We were sitting on a park bench in a plazita while I was asking for and passing the numbers for the week and a young woman with a baby in a stroller sat down on a bench across the plaza from us. We went over and started talking to her and it turned out that she was pregnant and that her husband wanted to separate, so she was in a bad shape. She looked like she was about 16, but she said she was 23. We taught her a small lesson, invited her to be baptized and she said yes, but then it turns out that she just barely lives outside of our area by about one block. We stood up to leave and she thanked us, telling us that we left her feeling in peace. We thanked her and went to go finish asking for and passing the all-important numbers. We're going to pass the reference to the other missionaries and hopefully they go and teach her well.

My companion has been teaching me a little Portuguese. Actually, all my last companions from Ninataype onward have been studying Portuguese. I'm starting to think that God is telling me something, but I'm feeling "let me get a good handle on Spanish first, then we can worry about other things."

Mayela just walked into the cyber. Had to say hi. Also bumped into Rodrigo, Carlos Moreno's son a few seconds before walking in. He said they're still going to church, but that he didn't know anything about going to the temple. We'll have to see what strings I can pull in the next couple weeks...

Interesting thing that happened this week:

I was on splits in Tecnológico with Elder Espinoza from Puebla. In the morning we visited a lady that said that she'd basically been traumatized by a Christian church around the corner, something about too much dancing and screaming and shouting. And, she mentioned, they had a menorah out front. We walked past later and I saw a pile of meat cooking on what looked like an altar in the patio of the church and some men wearing skull-caps and shawls. Then a young man in a skull-cap and a shawl with a beard stepped out of the church and saw us and said something about "Sons of Israel" and something something something and then blew a horn that was obviously made from the horn of a goat or sheep. We just kept walking and I asked Elder Espinoza about it. He said that the day before he and his companion saw a goat tied up outside the church and that it looked like they were going to sacrifice it. And that one time they were contacted by some of the members of the church that refused to recognize the name "Jesucristo." "No," they say, "We have the celestial language, and His name is Yeshua." Good grief. I've bumped into these people before but had never seen them sacrifice a goat before. Welcome to Monclova, it told me.

I think that was it...well, I'm reading in 2 Corinthians now. It's making a whole lot more sense that the first few times that I'd read it, even though I'm reading it in Spanish. I REALLY liked 2 Corintios 4:7-10:

"Pero tenemos este tesoro en vasos de barro, para que la excelencia del poder sea de Dios, y no de nosotros; estamos atribulados en todo, pero no angustiados; en apuros, pero no desesperados; perseguidos, pero no desamparados; abatidos, pero no destruidos; siempre llevamos en el cuerpo por todas partes la muerte de Jesús, para que también la vida de Jesús se manifieste en nuestros cuerpos."

Yep, I liked it a lot.

Well, see you all around!

Oh! About talking on Mothers' Day: is it fine May 8th after 5 o’clock Monclova time?

Elder Taylor