Guess who's still alive! Barely. I
recently just had the lovely opportunity of going down to migrations. We live
in the interior and migrations were in Panama City. In order to get there
last Monday morning, we left Sunday night at 7:00. It took a few hours of just
sitting there on a bus and so what did I do with all that downtime? Nothing,
and it was kind of nice! I slept, I talked and we found some old newspapers and
I tried to teach myself Sudoku again. I became a master at children’s crossword
searches. I slept some more. I was literally inside a bus for one day... que va. But hey,
this is part of getting to be a missionary.
We met with a guy from Tennessee who is an ex-Army, ex-rugby
player, and full-on hippie. He is this huge guy who looks twenty years younger
than he should be just because of his physical condition. He shared with us a
few stories of his life. Including, but not limited to: how he got to Panama, how he got
out of the army, and how he saw a U.F.O. (swore by his heart that was before he
even started smoking, so he knows it was real). He also explained how he
became who he is today, which is a huge nature lover. From what he explained to
us he took his favorite parts from other churches: part Buddhism, part
Hinduism, and part of the Baptist church. His goal was to be reincarnated in
life until he gets it right. Well, we shared a small message with him about how
you shouldn’t just throw in the towel just yet. How Jesus died for us so that
no matter who we are or what we’ve done, we can change the bad to become good and change
the good to become…great!
This week this Elder in the district who is a little newer to
the mission shared that he was having trouble finding people to teach through
doing Cosechas. We prayed together to be divinely guided where we need to
go. As we left and started looking, he wasn't feeling anything. I
explained to him as it says in Galations 5:22-23, the feelings listed come
from the spirit. We may not get this overwhelming heart-tugging feeling every
time and a lot of times it’s going to be a soft feeling and as always if it's good
it comes from God. He will not steer you wrong and so let’s keep going. Then he
said, I feel this house a little, but it looks locked up no one looks to be
inside. I said, “What’s the worst thing that could happen, that no one will be
there or that they could say no!” We ended up knocking on the door and
then out of nowhere a taxi wheels up and the passengers leave the car right as
we were out front. This was a great opportunity, as we left them with a
blessing. It was nothing short of a miracle and what an amazing teaching
experience.
Elder Moore has set a goal this week of
highlighting his bible. He decided to mark every word that comes directly from
the Savior’s mouth or is directly being quoted. About the third day into just
painting over the New Testament my companion yells, “Good fudge! Why does Jesus
talk so much?!” I just fell out of the hammock laughing. Yeah, that’s my comp.
How I love him so.
Recently, in the ward, we have had a
chance to talk with the leaders of the Relief Society, Primary, and Elders
Quorum and teach them how to conduct a consejo de presidencia, which they had
not been doing. Now they were very good at identifying the problems. We did
alright with finding solutions, but a big part for them that they were missing
was taking their suggested solutions and praying as a unit to God to ask him if
it was okay and His will. After we started doing that with everyone, you could
feel the presence of the spirit more abundantly. It made a world of a
difference.
