Area: Santiago, Chile
Companion: Elder Lopez
Hola Familia,
How are all of you? I hope you are all doing well!
The voice messages from mom lindy and Haley were really fun to listen to!
I´m glad that you are all doing so well and that Lindy you had so much fun
with mom up there in Utah.
This week was a better one. We found a few good people to teach which I¨m
excited about. Its so much better to be teaching than it is to be walking
the streets knocking the doors haha. But there is a guy named Carlos that
we taught in the house of a member yesterday and it went really well. He is
a really nice older man who is really poor. We got new matresses for the
house last week (because the ones that we had were at least 19 years old
haha! there were signatures and dates on the bottom =) and we are going to
give the old matresses to Carlos because he is borrowing one right now and
doesn´t have his own. But he is really great and he accepted a baptismal
date for the 19th of February so we are excited (although there are cambios
the 13 and i´m going to probably leave but its ok). So we are excited about
Carlos.
Yesterday in church I spoke again to the ward. It was Christopher (the ward
mission leader), Elder Lopez and I. We were talking about la obra misional
(missionary work) and we kind of gave palos to the ward, or kind of told
them off a little bit for not working liike a ward should haha. But it was
good, the worst part was that there were about half the normal assistance,
only 54 were there! Everyone leaves on vacation during this time! Its so
frustrating sometimes. But during my talk it was kind of funny. I spoke
first and a bout 30 seconds into my talk, a drunk guy from the street came
in and sat down in the congregation and shouted ¨HOLA!!!!¨ up at me. I
didn´t know what to do and I thought that it was pretty funny and just said
Hola right back to him in the middle of the talk and then kept on
going. Then he started saying yeah, yeah, with what I was saying. Then he
started shouting again and ELder Lopez and Christopher went down to try to
get him to leave. It turns out that all he wanted was some money from us
because when Christopher told him that nobody was going to give hime money
he got really mad, said a few curse words and left. But I just kept on
talking up there at the pulpit cause I didn´t know what else to do but I
thought it was pretty funny haha.
But we kind of told off the ward because things in this ward are definitely
going downhill. Its like all of them are Sunday members only and i¨ve
heard countless inactives say that they have inactivated because of the
ward. Its really like they don´t care for one another and its
really really sad. For example, Lucho (Luis Gomez) who was sick last week
and left church in the middle of Sacrament meeting, didn´t have a
single visit from anyone in the ward except for Elder Lopez and I. Even the
bishopric didn´t go, or the president of the Elders Quorum. It was exactly
the same in September when I got here with the hermana Gomez when she had
phnemonia! Nobody visited her! And its that sort of apathy in a ward that
causes people to inactivate- regardless of how true the church is. And its
sad to see so many that leave because of things like that! But its so
engrained in the ward and I have no idea how to shake the ward out of this
rut that their in, especially because the bishopric is really disorganized
on this. Its just really frustrating but we are working with Christopher to
try to change things because its going downhill fast. But I like what it
says in the first chapter of Joshua in the bible, to (maybe the translation
from spanish to english isn´t exact but...) to strengthen yourself and be
valient!!! It says it alot, and its so important to strengthen yourself and
be valient in your testimony and then you are going to stay firm in
the church, firm in Christ. But It is also so important to worry and care
about those around you. So this week, keep a look out for those around you
that might need a boost, and look for what you can do to help them.
I love you all!
con amor,
Elder Holland
No comments:
Post a Comment