Well this week was pretty neat. We didn't quite reach the 40-lesson goal because Tuesday was awful (as usual), and we painted a house on Friday, missing most of the day. I figured we were doing a pretty good service project, and it was for potentially-progressive investigators, so it was a good reason to miss a few hours of proselyting. We'll have to see how things go with them.On the MUCH brighter side, we had 3 investigators in church today! Emily and her mother were two of them, and I think they're actually going to get baptized. I think I mentioned something about her in my last post, but I'll give a quick rundown here: Emily is someone the sisters in our area were supposedly teaching. Her husband is less active, but their entire family is really interested and receptive to us. I have no clue what the sisters were doing in here before, but as soon as we started teaching their family, they accepted every invitation we offered. We had to wait to put a date on her because her work prevents her from going to church every other week, but we have everything worked out for her to be baptized the 13th of June. We're still working on putting a date on Emily's mother (she wants to be sure first), but that will come with time and a little help from the Spirit.
The one thing I'm not particularly fond of in that family is that Emily is almost ALWAYS breast-feedign her daughter. In the middle of the lesson, her daughter will come up and be like, "¡pecho!" which means "chest", and I can only think, "Oh, no..." In the middle of church, Emily's daughter turned to her mother and said, "¡Pecho!" "Oh please, no," I thought, but it was too late. Yep. In the middle of church. According to Elder Hixon, that's really common in the pueblos, but I wasn't expecting to ever have to see it here in the city. *full body shudder* Okay, super funny story of the week. I wrote last week about the lady who always said, "Sí, güero," after everything I said. This week, we went to visit her again, and upon knocking on her door, a man a little ways up the street said, "There's no one there. Who are you looking for?" We came to find out that Isabel was in the hospital for something and that this man was her son who lived right across the street. Towards the end of the conversation, I asked him if we could come visit him in his home sometime, to which he responded, "sí, güero." I just about busted out laughing! The two of them are the only two people I've ever heard straight up just call me Güero, and they're related. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, I suppose, but it will be interesting as we continue teaching them. This week I had a bit of revelation come to me in my studies in the morning, but I didn't know it until we got into a lesson later in the afternoon. I was marking up my Bible with the scriptures in Preach my Gospel, and I found one on repentance about Godly sorrow moving us to repentence. I thought, "Oo, that's a good scripture! I'll mark that one!" So I did, and thought nothing more of it. About an hour later, we went and visited Emily and her family, and upon asking her if she had read, she began to cry and tell us that she had had some doubts about what we taught in the Plan of Salvation and therefore didn't want to read. She was crying because she felt absolutely horrible for thinking that way, and suddenly the scripture I found came to my mind. Needless to say, I shared it with them. I explained that Godly sorrow is the only good kind of sorrow, and it moves us to the happiest feelings of relieve and happiness that we can every possibly feel in this life: repentance. When we feel bad for doing things contrary to what God would have, we are able to feel that Godly sorrow, and it always should move us to repentance. This repentance relieves us of the burden of sin and is the key to our eternal happiness. Repentance isn't part of the Plan of Happiness that God has for us. It is the Plan of Happiness. I testify that God knows what is best for us, even if we think and/or act otherwise, and we always provides the way to return to the realization of what is right and what we need to change. I testify of the power of revelation when we are doing the right things, even if we don't realize it at the time. That scripture and testimony I shared with Emily was exactly what she needed to hear, and it strengthened the testimonies of everyone in the room as the Spirit bore my testimony into their hearts. It was truly a remarkable experience and one I don't plan on forgetting any time soon. I can only hope I have more of those to come. Iré y haré, Elder Groesbeck Q&A with Elder Groesbeck questions by Mark Groesbeck (again) 1. what is the average speed of an elder running away from a Chihuahua? They normally only chase us on bikes, so I'd say a good 15 miles per hour. 2. What direction are you going if you take 3 left turns followed by 1 right turn? The opposite direction 3.What is the most popular breed of dog in Mexico (in US its Labrador) Probably a chihuahua; there are dogs of all types down here, but that one is probably the most common. 4. What is the most popular color car in the Mexico (In US its black or white) Down here there's a bit of everything, and I haven't really taken note of their colors... 5. What is the most popular fast food chain? (In US based on sales numbers is McDonalds then subway) They actually don't have a whole lot (if any) fast food down here. I haven't seen a single McDonalds, Burger King, Chik-fil-A or anything. 6. How many days in a row do you wear the same white shirt? Usually like 2; it depends on how hot it was during the day or if I got a stain on my shirt. 7. How many tamales would you eat to gain an interested investigator? Interested? Like 4, because most people are usually at least a little bit interested. Now for a progressive investigator who's going to get baptized, how many tamales do you have for me to eat? 8. How do you stay hydrated during the day? Literally in every single house we enter, they offer us a glass of water. Hydration isn't a problem.
1 Comment
Jackie Groesbeck
5/11/2015 07:53:58 am
Thanks for the story about the scripture.
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