Hola mi amor! - Week Six

Heeeyyyyyyy!

Ok, let’s see... That awesome guy Rick I may have mentioned a while back, we were having some trouble getting in touch with him for a while. We'd stopped by his house several times too, but to no avail. Well, we finally tracked him down. He's the nicest guy in town. And his wife is really sweet too, but she doesn't say much when we’re around, it’s hard to tell what she thinks of us/the gospel. Anyway, Rick has pancreatic cancer and goes in for some stuff next week and apparently has about a 25% chance of living. We feel so bad! He’s such a cool dude and has so much faith! He's not afraid of dying at all, he’s just real sad to leave his family and all that. When we teach him he loves it and is so ready for the gospel! We taught him plan of salvation yesterday and he thought it was cool. Gosh, I hope he sticks around a little longer. He's into the Book of Mormon now and wants to keep reading it and all. If not now, he'll surely accept it after death. Hopefully we can keep teaching his wife Bonnie if the worst should happen. Their kids are great too. Good humble people.

What else...we’re teaching this Episcopalian lady, Joyce. She's born and raised in it and pretty much loves it. She thinks us coming over is more of a Bible study, but it’s cool. We got her into the Book of Mormon and she's digging it. Good stuff. The other night we taught her a bunch of stuff - what happens after death and where Jesus went between Good Friday and Easter and some of that. They believe in purgatory and all that but we told her NOPE! She found it all very interesting. She believes most of what we say, but does not even at all grasp the significance of it. A living Prophet?! Like Moses?! That’s how we know all this stuff. We don't have to interpret the scriptures and search for meaning on these things because we KNOW. The other night she commented how impressed she is with our knowledge of the Bible and scriptures. She thinks we probably know more than this lady who is their kind of "go to" lady for whenever they have questions about stuff. Or, that we could at least hold our own with this lady. Anyway - it got me thinking. I don't know the Bible that well at all! Like not at all! But somehow I've got this lady who's been reading the Bible her whole life to think I really, really do.

I thought about how amazing it is that some 20 year old kids can have the gospel knowledge that we do. It made me consider how much the Lord surely helps us out here and blesses us with understanding. Knowing what we know as members of the church - having the knowledge of truth that we do - it seems to give us a greater understanding of all things related to religion. Our perspective is so much different and long term. There are things we can KNOW. When we know these things, so many other things just make sense and we don't have to wonder so much.

Being on a mission is crazy. I'm learning a lot of wonderful things. Really. I can see how doing this can be more important than just about anything else I could ever do. For many, many reasons. There is nothing in the world a person could ever do to have experiences and interactions like this. Not traveling, not working, not anything besides being a missionary for the Lord. Its something completely unique and I can see how great of a blessing it is. It’s exciting to have the opportunity!

Talk to you soon!

Love, David