Monday, March 7, 2016

2016.02.29 Huasteca

Hey Mom and Dad and everyone glad!

This week was a craaaaaazy week! Why? Well it would be really cool if I said "We were walking in the street and we found a leprechaun and he tried to challenge our testimony but we read him some scriptures in the Book of Mormon, Jacob 2:18-19 specifically, and he interpreted it as giving us his pot of gold, so we went home with a pot of gold and as we went home we came across la chupacabra y esta parte de la historia viene en espaƱol, y el nos dijo "ey muchachos denme su oro para que compre un cabrito yo." Y yo le dije "Hey I totally get what your name means now that I speak spanish! Chupa means suck, and cabra means goat! You`re a goat sucker and that`s why you want to buy cabrito!" (Cabrito is a specialty  here in Monterrey and it is VERY expensive, so that`s why he needed a pot of gold. So he said "¡Ay como sabe! es el primer gringo que sabe el significado de mi nombre!" And so we gave him the gold because we really didn`t need it, but he bought us a cabrito and it was super good. [A cabrito is a dish made with roast goat kid and a Chupacabra is a goat blood sucking monster.]

Ok that didn`t happen, but it was a hectic week, We were all over the place with divisions with other missionaries and a zone conference! Zone conferences happen once every 3 months or so, and the mission president and the assistants come, and the zone leaders give a presentation and then the president. So Elder S and I had been preparing our presentation for about 2 weeks, and it went very well! It was super fun, and the missionaries said that it was really helpful. It was about the importance of inviting the investigators to make commitments (such as going to church, stop smoking, etc.) and us following up and verifying with them. The funnest part was when we were talking about the importance of working with the members, and we went outside where there was a slack line set up (elder S has a slack line) and one of the missionaries had to cross it, and he had two missionaries there at the start (representing the missionaries that taught the investigator) but they couldn`t move. So, the other missionaries spread out, representing members, and helped the one crossing get to the other side. It was pretty cool!
Anyway, the Slack Line way basically the Straight and Narrow way (3 Nephi 27:33) and we showed how important it was for an investigator to have friends in the church. Many people have been asking me why it is necessary that a church even exists, and with all of those thoughts and this activity, it makes me think about Elder Christofferson`s talk in this past conference, especially when he says :Repentance is individual, but fellowship on that sometimes painful path is in the church.

We have been working with a lot of great families, who want to be baptized and be members, but have to overcome some pretty big challenges, legal things or mental things, and so we need to keep working with help and help them develop their faith so it waxes strong, so they can have that confidence to move forward in Christ and follow his example. We are also striving to find more people to teach, and I know we are going to have a great week.

Hey did you tell the Oklahoma Missionary all of that? Man he can count on us to sing him a good phrase or too about his good uncle Judd...so when he`s teaching about the plan of salvation he could say "Poor Judd is dead, body and spirit separated, he will go to the spirit world to rest...until he resurrects!" (Not as good because I don`t remember the song as well, wasn`t my favorite.)

I love you all!

Elder Garner

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