Fun fact. In my zone there is an Elder Van Pelt.
DID ROBIN WILLIAMS DIE!?!?!?!
This week has flown by and has been forever
long. A quote I like is, "You feel like you are born in the CCM
and you feel like you are going to die in the CCM."
But it has been a good week and I have learned a
lot. God really does live and answer prayers. Spanish is still way
hard but I am getting it slowly but surely. There is so much material
that I can study that it is hard to decide what to do. I have started
with just making flash cards and memorizing the articles of faith in Spanish
because I already know them in English.
There has been a sickness that has gone
around that leaves everyone with the runs and with a nasty headache, but I
am fortunate enough to be the "apothecary" (as my district calls me)
and have not gotten sick. I'm so glad that I brought the essential
oils.
I had a really cool experience yesterday. We
have finished with our first investigator and it was a big learning experience.
I learned a lot from not being able to teach very good. (our
investigators are our teachers fyi) and so it is the same person for our second
investigator but it doesn't seem like it. His name is Jose. and it was
difficult to teach him because he doesn't believe in God and is only
taking the lessons because his wife wants him to. She has cancer btw.
So my companion and I were trying to figure out what to teach him because
he doesn't believe in God. We got a lesson prepared and were going to try
and get him to pray because we had to get him feeling the spirit somehow and
this was the only way we could think of establishing a connection between
heaven and him. I was struggling a little bit because our last lesson
with David I didn't understand what was being said. So I prayed
super hard for the gift of tongues. Our lesson went completely off topic
with Jose, but it was really cool because I felt like we should go off topic
from what we had prepared and try to get him to feel the spirit. He
didn't accept our commitment but the cool part for me was that I spoke more in
the lesson with him than I had ever before, and I understood what he wanted us
to hear. I couldn't tell you what the words mean but I got the general
message.
One thing that really helps is these videos they
show in class of random people that were taken by the New York Times. It
is called "One in a Million." I would suggest that all of you
go on there and watch a clip or two and then decide how you would share the
gospel with them. It is really interesting and helps you understand the
gospel better.
A funny experience this week: so two of the
elders in our zone have a fake front tooth and they can take out. So
Elder Kuhn decided that he was going to play a prank on our teacher, Hermana
Gutierrez, by acting like his tooth fell out. So his companion made a
really loud banging noise and he popped his tooth out and started acting like
it fell out. The whole class was crying we were laughing so hard and the
teacher was freaking out and looking for his tooth on the ground. Finally
he popped it back in and she still looked for it for a good 15 more
seconds! We were on the ground with laughter and she was really mad at us
for the next little while.
We had a cool devotional on Sunday. We
watched a video of the 2011 Christmas devotional at the Provo MTC by Elder
Bednar. I would recommend it to anyone! The coolest part he talked
about was becoming like Christ and searching for his characteristics. He said
that if we did this we would be truly converted and never fall away from the
gospel like so many missionaries sadly do. The main characteristic he
talked about was the ability to look outward when most would look inward.
Even when Christ was on the cross he was preaching to the
others on the cross's next to him. And he was looking out for his mom and
making sure she was taken care of.
So I didn't tell where my companion was going.
All the Elders in my district are going to Ecuador Guayaquil mission and
all the sisters are going to Chile Rancagua mission. I flew in with an
Elder Weese who is from Logan who is going to the same mission (ironically his
cousin is Regan Rich, who hit my car in the Davis high parking lot junior year)
and he is companions with Elder Blood who is also going to Indiana.
Supposedly we were supposed to be a trio, but they switched it around at
the last minute. We are all in the same zone however.
The natives in our dorm are a little crazy.
The one speaks super good English and the other one is 19 and looks like
he is 12. And he doesn't speak a lick of English. They
are really nice though, but I have to get over my racist stereotype and
stop feeling like my stuff is going to be stolen.
I had this question on Saturday and it was
bugging me pretty bad. The question was, "If God loves all his
children the same and he shows his love to them by giving the gospel to them,
why didn't he reveal the gospel for 2000 years after Christ? Did he not
love those people as much?" This was on my mind for quite some time
and I asked one of the Hermanas about it and she couldn't answer me and neither
could my companion. During personal study on Sunday morning I was reading
in Moroni 7 specifically verses 37-38 and this led me on an hour long scripture
chase that took me to Acts 17:30, Moroni 8:22 and Alma 32:19. This was
the coolest thing because it answered my question perfectly. I am missing one
scripture and it says something like "It would have been better that they
had not known it" but I can't find it. So if anyone could help me
that would be wonderful! (I am definitely missing the search function on
gospel library)
But the answer that I received was so simple it was
amazing. It is that God was actually being merciful because the people
were so wicked and hard hearted that they wouldn't have accepted the gospel
anyways. And since they had heard the truth they would have been punished
for it. So God didn't give it to them so they wouldn't be punished for
their stupidity and thick skulls. He had to wait for the people to be
ready to accept the gospel message again so that he could bless his
children again.
This experience was amazing to me because God
really knows what we need and what to give us.
My testimony in broken Spanish. But I know
that it is true, and the gospel is true no matter what language you speak it
in.
Yo se que Jose Smith es un profeta verdadera.
Yo se que Jesucristo vida. Yo se que el Evangelio es verdad.
Yo se que Tomas S. Monson es un profeta. Yo se que Dios es amaroso
an dmisercordio. en el nombre de Jesucristo amen.
Love you all!
Love Elder Porter
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| Elder Porter!! |
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| The Elder's without their teeth! |
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