Buen día!!
Como estan todos?? Espero que bien! It has been a pretty decent week! Things are still a little frustrating not having people in church and not having people who are progressing well towards baptism, however we did have someone in church yesterday!! Wooohoooo!!! His name is Oscar, and we feel like he is really prepared. We found him a couple months ago in the house of a former investigator and we wrote down his address but never passed by. We decided to go find it a couple of weeks ago and we found him and set an appointment and then he wasn´t home when we passed by. Randomly the other night we found him walking around wasted in the street... he was really excited to see us and apparently his sister-in-law kicked him out of the house so he has been wandering around and sleeping in the houses of random friends and neighbors. We set an
apointment to teach him in a park and he needs a lot of help... he participated in the
war of the malvinas here in Argentina and since then has been drinking a lot because
it messed him up so much. He is such a sweet and sincere man and really wants to change.
We couldn´t find him again after that day so we figured he probably wouldn´t show up at
church... and then turns out he just showed up!! The funny thing is that he came late and there are 2 wards that meet at our building, so he walked into
the other ward´s sacrament meeting and attended all the of meetings of the ward
instead of our branch. We didn´t even know he was there until the end! Haha.
Anyway... we are going to go search for him today and start setting appointments and really teaching him. Everyone in the branch really wants to help him out. This week we have also been focusing a lot in Cesar. He still hasn´t come to church but we know it is just a big obstacle that once he gets over it he will be fine. He is seriously SO awesome!!He is progressing really well and is really sincere and does his part. Last week we left him Alma 32 to read and we came back and he had read the whole chapter and copied the whole chapter in his notebook! He has a lot to get past but he wants to do it, and last night he accepted a baptismal date. He has been involved in anything and everything... he grew up as a for real high-class chorro (thief) and for that reason he has gone to prison so many times (I asked him yesterday how many times he´s gone to prison and he couldn´t count.. hahah). He also had a big problem with fighting and hurting people with knives... but the REALLY good news is that he´s never killed anyone!! The he said he´s never had any desire to do anything like that. The other good news is that since the last time he went to prison he hasn´t been robbing, and really all he does is smoke marijuana and drink with his friends.. although he says that those really aren´t addictions and he never craves it or anything. His big addiction that he needs to get past is smoking cigarettes, but he´ll be able to get past it. This week he shared
with us a story about when a family went out of town and he entered into their house to rob them. He piled together all of their stuff... their tv, stereo, etc. in a bag and was about to leave, but couldn´t. He lifted up the bag, and he couldn´t move forward. He looked around and said he felt weird, and he set the bag down. He lifted it up again and
tried to leave, and something was just stopping him and he couldn´t leave. He felt really
guilty and realized that these people probably worked really hard to be able to buy the things that they owned, and it was completely unfair that he was just taking it all out of their hands like that. He opened the bag, and put everything back in it´s place and left without stealing anything. He tells us a lot and has shared a lot of similar stories with us, and we can see that he really does want to do what´s right... he really does feel guilty and he really just struggles to do what´s right. We are going to be working really close with him to help him change his life around, and
we´re all really excited. Plus he is giving us great referrals of all his friends who also need
to change their lives haha. We are finding out that they are all actually very sincere people, and are usually more honest with us than most of the people we teach which is pretty sad haha. Anyway... we are excited to see his progress!! I had an interesting experience last night. Cesar lives right in front of an evangelical church. They are really popular here and at any given moment you can hear them from the street screaming and shouting really loud inside their churches. They often ´heal´ people and the pastor screams and yells into a microphone over and over and over again the same things to ´cast out devils´. It is so incredibly sad... there is absolutely no possible way to feel the spirit there. While we taught Cesar about baptism and saw that light go on inside of him as he pondered and responded quietly to what we were teaching him, I could hear the church behind me. I noticed the great contrast in the loud screaming and shouting, and the quiet conversion that was taking place in Cesar. I know without a doubt that this is the Lord´s church, and that that is how the spirit works... through small and simple things. It´s those tiny but constant moments that cause a real lasting conversion, and I am so grateful for that. I hope you all have a fabulous week!! --Hermanita Hunt
