June 20, 2011

This morning I wanted to shoot myself in the face because we taught an Adventist couple. For the first 45 minutes she just talked and told us stories about how evil Mormons are. Then my companion tried to bear testimony and she came back with about 50 false-doctrinal comments and questions. It's not the first time but it was DEATH hearing all that false doctrine.Life here is pretty much the same. Tuesday we had our final zone conference with President Smith. It was sweet, he talked a lot about finding new people to teach and encouraged us to take the "low hanging fruit". It's true, there are tons of people already prepared in our areas. When go looking for people that have no interest whatsoever in what we say? So we had a lot of success this week in our efforts to find people. Saturday me, my companion and a ward missionary from the other side of the island got called to do a funeral service. The bishop and his counselors were no where to be found so it was up to us. We had no idea what we were doing. We got to this little house with like 40 people in it all crying because there was a dead baby in a little coffin in the middle of the house. Uhhhhh okay. So we went in and sat down on three prepared seats before everyone. Then we did what is called pataha noa, meaning we just winged it. It was incredible. We bore testimony to this large group of non-members about the plan of salvation and the restored church. They stopped crying, even the father and mother kind of looked at us like "Really? The baby is saved? We'll see him again?" Everyone in that room saw very clearly that what we taught was the truth and what the other faiths had taught them was completely false. They even told us after. So we totally comforted them and they even managed to smile. Then I blessed the grave, that was a first. The spirit totally knocked the socks off of everyone. The next day we saw the family at church and the Dad told the bishop he wants to be baptised. He has no doubt. So yeah, the work moves on. Also I went to my first sector on a split Friday. It was way weird to be back there. We had some serious success while I was there. Finally this wee we were able to participate in two baptisms and one marriage this week for the other Elders in our zone. Cool stuff. So things are good here. Despite all the crappy stuff that happens that I don't write the mission is awesome. It's DEFINITELY worth it. I have no doubt of that.