Friday 15 November 2013

November 11th Letter - Lest We Forget


I hope everything is still going superbly well! It is here! yeah! I take the vitamins by the way everyday and too many vitamin c! I am glad Dad is driving (although the people on the dirt road should probably fear). I am sorry you are in winter, our weather is still pretty much hot, although some cloudy days and rain have really helped with that (well, other than the rain soaking us anyway. I feel super japanese with my sombrilla (umbrella) walking around with everyone telling us the rain will make us sick. haha). Well I am glad the ward is still doing well and everything and the talks are good and not full of false doctrine and all. We get a lot of authorities in our meetings, like the area presidency or the temple president or the mission president or the stake president speaking a lot. Mostly to fix problems. Apparently it is our job this month to teach tithing to all the members we visit because they dont have home teachers doing anything haha. I am glad you are all worthy of having the Spirit with you and his guidance, it really is something special.

To answer Mama´s questions, church approved music is permitted (so, any churchy kind of music from like I dunno the bookstore or something is fine. I really like having instrumental arrangements of hymns or other instrumental music. Some people have like that strange ¨christian rock¨thing but I dont really like that.) Um so far I cannot email other people, other than to maybe tell them I cant email them if they did haha. President makes some exceptions, like, my companion has some. I will probably find out sometime what I can do, since it is so difficult to contact people. No, I havent received the letter package yet sorry, mail is pretty bad. Like, really bad. The only thing I have received are dearelder notes. 

So cool things this week. Today, we didnt have power or water for a bit! So we stank for a long time because we went out and played frisbee, not knowing that the water was gone! Later when the landlord came home we got into the cisterna and had bucket showers! It was actually pretty good and felt a lot better than smelling bad (although my clothes still smell and it doesnt take long to sweat back into stinkiness). 
We had a really cool special experience this week that everyone needs to hear about!!!!!! We have this one investigator who is 20 years old. We were teaching him because Elder Peterson and his past companion found him at a colmado when teaching someone else. When I joined teaching him, he wouldnt commit to anything. Not to read. Not to go to church. Not to be baptized (I believe his response was ¨well maybe in a year or something¨). So we kept teaching for a bit, until it became impossible to find him at home to teach. This went on for a bit, then we decided to officially drop him as an investigator, and went to his house to do so. He wasnt there. So we left him card to say that we could only continue sharing together if he would come to church. We left and thought that would be it. But, in spite of a bunch of our progressing investigators not coming, this guy did. He showed up on the exact same day that an amazing member just moved into the area and they were friends right away! We didnt teach him again that week, thinking that maybe he just kind of liked church, until he came again and said for real he wanted us to come and see him. So we did. AND WOW! We were all ready to have a restart lesson with next to nothing, and instead he testified to us about how he had felt the church was true and really prayed and read about it with a book of mormon that his friend lent him and that he had seen this sort of scene in his head where he was in heaven or something in a concourse of angels or something like that and everyone was singing the hymns of our church in the presence of God. Woah. We were really not ready for all of that to just happen. He then told us he wants to be a missionary, and be baptized as soon as possible so he can prepare to be one. He knows the church is true and testified and prayed like a member of 20 years. WOW! He really will get baptized, because he has a friend, likes the church, knows it is true, has a goal and everything. All that has to happen is this sunday he will become eligible with 4 church attendances. And we have to teach him everything in only a few lessons since his life just got super busy with work. But it is going to happen, because he wants it to! It was such a pleasure and a joy to see him find this realization of todo and I cant really explain how it feels to be with him in church and lessons. It is really just super special. He asks questions about our feelings about baptism. He talks about baptism with this huge excitement. He loveeessss church and fits right in. He changes his life all the time without us doing anything. He even had a spiritual prompting one time to not go to an area where there was a shooting. We didnt teach anything about promptings or counsel. We had given up on him earlier, but something had us try to pass by his house one last time and just leave that card. It sure wasnt my idea. So yeah. That is how it is right now and all.
Our other investigators are doing cool things too. We are teaching the mother of a member who reads SO MUCH. She reads the footnotes cross references in the book of mormon with the bible. wow. She really is interested in the church and wants to enter it to find the same peace and change she has seen in her son in law (who is an amazing dude, even though he used to drink and smoke and like all that, now he is something spectacular!). So she is pretty cool too. Although she talks a lot about strange things and tells us so many stories about her life. It is a little crazy, but something got through to her.
Everyone else is still super great, but really having trouble coming to church. This one mother and son we are teaching are so perfect with everything we have taught other than reading the book of mormon more than just one chapter between our visits and coming to church. Everyone is still having problems coming to church. Unfortunately, with really good excuses too. But I still think they need to find more faith, instead of just their obligation to the missionaries. But it is going good still.
So sorry I still dont have pictures. I was charging the camera, until we had no power. I actually have taken a bunch. Just cant show them too you. Everything is gooooooodddd. The house is still nuts with six people. The concept of time is getting harder and harder to figure out here. I dont feel over halfway through my second transfer. But I am. I totally forgot remembrance day, since it doesnt exist here. But thank you for all you say to me and all your strength and prayers. Remember that while the missionaries are the fishers of men, you are the hunters. There are specific people you can help that you know. You dont have to cast nets like we do, but you can still change lots of lives. All my prayers and love are with you, and I try to represent the family and the Lord. Please do not worry about me, I will always be just fine! Keep up all you do! Send my thanks and love to all the other people who have helped me reach this point as well. Take care of my friends (like Mr Uzick and the Lows and Amanda and everybody around) I am glad I have you as my family!
Con todo mi amor,
Elder Sullivan
PS The diarrea was just because of eating a whole tub of ice cream. HAHAHAHAHA. It was really dumb. But we are super bien! Yeeeeaaaa.

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