Dear Family,
Glad to hear you guys made it back home in one piece, and in time for church.
My ward is also attending at 1 in the afternoon and you're not going to believe it but moving the hour back and even less members showed up, kinda weird. You'd think that more would've showed up.
Here in Mexico when they do the sacrament they lock the doors that enter into the chapel and so its always super funny when someone arrives late and they start knocking and knocking and then pounding on the door, as if they didn't know why we weren't letting them in. hahaha
I feel like they thought when they put the lock on the door ''Oh, now the members will be more reverent so that people aren't entering and leaving during the sacrament'' but in reality its super irreverent with the people pounding on the door haha oh well.
The weather forecast for my area for this week is looking a little chilly, 70-75 . The people here are preparing for the ice age its hilarious. hahaha they're dying here in the 70's, can't imagine what would happen if it snowed.
And no, nobody told me that Jessie is pregnant............''Surprise''.................thanks.
So we're teaching this guy whose named Tirso. He's 65 years old and he lives in a mansion. I kid you not, everything is marble: the entry way, the staircase, the kitchen, the dog....haha the dog no but you get my point. But yeah he gave us a tour of his home and I'm pretty sure I saw this house on ''MTV Cribs''.
Anyways, we've been teaching him for like a week and a half and he went to church the first time yesterday and it just so happened to be the fast and testimony meeting. I was a little nervous, not gonna lie, because we all know the ''story-tellers'' of the ward....also the ''sin-confessors'' and I was hoping that they weren't going to get up.....but they all did...
You know the faces people make sometimes when some goes to hit them and they flinch...its like the face that a person makes after eating something really sour... So the 2 counselor of the stake president is in our ward and just watching him listening to the testimonies of some of our members made me crack up because he made these faces like 30 times... But we finished and ended the meeting on a good note.
Tirso told us that he had to go but that he had felt something that he's never felt before and that a little flame had sparked in him because of the many testimonies given of this being the ''only and true church'' and of the Book of Mormon. I was seriously so shocked...like when Spongebob found out that it was Ms. Puff that was trying to steal his car. (If you don't understand the quote Luke will help). But from this experience I realized that every testimony is special and its for that reason that everyone has a turn because you never know if your testimony will be the testimony that touches the heart of someone else.
So we gifted him a Book of Mormon and he promised us that he'd read it.
The difficulty with the people who live in my area is not so much the convincing them that we have the truth, its the convincing them that we're the only ones with the truth, the whole truth. They think that all churches are of God and that every religion is good, you just pick the one that best suits you. We've really be nailing down and emphasizing on the Great Apostasy because if the people understand that the sacerdocio was taken from the earth with the death of Jesus Christ and his apostles, then they'll be able to understand that the only church with the truth would be ours.
The people that get me are the ones that know that what they believe isn't true, but they do it because other people do it.....hahaha. Tirso was telling us that he went to Meesa the other day (I forgot how they say it in the united states, but its the catholic church where you can walk in and leave whenever you want) and he told us that the people were selling baby virgin Mary dolls and candles in the church and that it was like the time in the Bible when Jesus threw out the merchants that were selling and trading in the temple..hahaha he called it a ''Cochinero'' and a ''Porqueria'' hahahaha.
He tells us all the time of the bad things that happen in his church but these ''traditions'' have been rooted so deep that its hard for him to let go.
I'm really enjoying my mission and being a trainer and all and I don't feel like I've changed who I am but defiantly the way I look at other people and that's what I love about the mission, somethings going to change for the better, its inevitable.
I really like the New Area Plan of 2016. Here in Mexico its really focused on the sacrifices that we need to make to be self-sufficient (fast offerings, tithing, keeping the Sabbath day holy.)
I love you guys and miss you tons and its crazy to think that I'll be coming home THIS year. WOOHOO!
Elder Padilla the third.
