Just another day in paradise and we've had a good week! We keep finding like mad and praying that people can come to church! It's a work in progress, but it is going to happen no doubt. Hope everyone enjoyed the festivities of yesterday with the Super Bowl and what not, I guess we'll have to see if Steeler nation will be content losing to the Super Bowl champions. My guess is no... At least we have the Penguins!
Tuesday
Met with a guy named Jim who has met with missionaries for a long time. He's pretty disabled and can't make it to church but likes this spirit we bring to his home. He's not really in a position to progress but if we can bring an uplifting message to him once a week or so then we'll do it. That night we found the Guatemalan GOLD MINE. We were looking for Daniel (one of our potentials) when we met a guy chilling outside. We started talking to him and he later directed us to where he thought Daniel lived. Turns out we have no clue where Daniel lives but we found my boy Orvin! It was literally one of those fourth floor last door stories. We turn the corner and on the top door we see two pass along cards from OUR church taped to the door! 😳 One of them was Christ's visit to the Americas so we were stoked! I've never been so excited to knock a door in my life. We knock it and Orvin opens up who is an 11 year old little boy. Such a homie! We had this awesome conversation and explained to him what that picture on his door really meant and gave him the Book of Mormon! It was so sweet and we're excited to go back there and teach their family! It was a little miracle!
Wednesday
Played a little ball in the morning which was fantastic. This new schedule gives us a lot more time in the morning and we got together with the other Elders in Pitt and balled for an hour or so. So nice! Later we did some service, tried some people, invited people to English class, and had an awesome dinner with the Reyes! They're getting ready to go to the temple to be sealed! They feel ready now and are really excited to go! They have the purest hearts ever and I love them! We wrapped it up with a little visit with Orvin and his dad Andrés. I'm telling you all right now Orvin has some serious potential! There is just something special about that kid. His dad was pretty firm about his catholic beliefs but is interested in having us come back. We'll see what happens!
Thursday
Kind of a slower day, we did our weekly planning and had a couple less active lessons during the day. We had dinner with the Stoddards and they're an awesome family! He's the Stake Patriarch and I've come to learn that patriarchs are special human beings. Such kind people! Their son Eric who's about 40 and has some special needs also lives with them and he is always good to crack us up. I love talking with people with special needs, those guys have a ticket straight to heaven in my book.
Friday
We had Zone Conference for the three Pitt zones and it was great as usual! We talked a lot about planning and the new changes and I left feeling uplifted and recharged. There's a lot I can work on to become a better missionary and you just have to tackle it one step at a time. After the conference we hit up our favorite taco stand and had English class at the church. Our little class of 4 people is doing well and starting to get the basics a little better! The more I teach English the more I realize it doesn't make any sense... 😂Haha Spanish is a lot easier! I'm so grateful I speak English, I think that's a blessing I take for granted. These people want to speak it so bad and it can help them improve their lives!
Saturday
We stayed really busy all day! Started off with coordination meeting with our ward mission leader and then headed to a lesson with Erica who is one of our new investigators. She was teeing up some great questions and I felt like we hit at least a double or a triple. She asked things like why are there so many churches today if there's only one God? 😍 We definitely have the answer to that one! It was a good lesson and she has potential! We also did some service again for Bro. Belliston at the church he's fixing up which was great. You can learn some valuable skills as a missionary. Finished up our teaching that night with a lesson with Andrés. It was a little frustrating to say the least. He talks a lot about his catholic faith and how he knows it's the way. We asked him how he received his answer and he never really answered our question... Just that he was raised that way and he was baptized when he was two months old. We're just praying he reads the Book of Mormon to find out for himself! He's also going to let Orvin come to English class so I'm pumped!
Sunday
Started the day with a lesson with one of our investigators Laquese. She is straight up Insane! Haha it was a weird lesson to say the least. After we got there she said she always puts on a scarf to read the Bible, so she disappears for a minute and returns with a scarf thing wrapped around her head. Only in Pittsburgh I swear... 😂 I didn't know if she was being serious for a second, but she definitely was! She belongs to this gathering group I've never heard of called the GOCC. They seem to believe a lot in the tribes of Israel and that all of us have an identity that we need to find out! Pretty true, but it got really weird after that... We started to teach the restoration and she just wanted us to show her where everything was in the scriptures which is fine, it's all there, it just took some time and patience. It never got to the point of a bash, but we were definitely firm in what we said. Don't try and tell us that God can't appear to man... She later accepted an invitation to read the Book of Mormon so we will see what happens!
Random thoughts
- This week we spoke Spanish with people from Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, and Puerto Rico. Lots of different accents and words. I love it!
- Found out I'm related to one of the members of our ward through Great Grandpa Halls. It's a small Mormon world after all.
- You forget how crazy and hyper little kids are until you have dinner with a young family. The Ford's are great!
Hope everything is going well for you back home or wherever you might be! Stay in school and keep the commandments.
Until next time,
Elder Halls
Pictures: Hermana Reyes is always making mountains of tortillas. Gotta love her!
No comments:
Post a Comment