Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Another Great Letter from Elder Devin May 29, 2012

Hola Fam,
    So this week went great for us here! We met our goal of 50 lessons, getting 53, and we met a lot of really positive people in the process. The best news is that we were able to set a baptismal date with Emma, our most positive investigator right now. If all goes well, she´ll be baptized on the 22nd of June. The bummer is that she wasn´t able to make it to church this week again, so that´s gotta change, enough of this sluffing church stuff, haha.
     One of the people we met this week was telling us about she doesn´t really have a church, but she´s gone to alot but none of them really caught her attention. Her son also has gone to quite a few churches and he told us this really funny story about one he went to. So it´s one of those evangelical churches where the pastor will call people up and have them speak in tongues (more like just gibberish), and they cure people from the demons inside of them by hitting them in the forehead, you know the type i´m talking about right? So anyway her son went and the pastor called him up and told him that he had a demon inside of him controlling him. So the pastor starting hitting him in the forehead and throwing oil on him chanting, be gone demon, stuff like that. And the kid told us he was just thinking, "what is he doing hitting me? This kinda hurts and i´m sure i don´t have a demon in me." Then the pastor starting saying "fall to the ground" and just kept throwing more oil on him, and the kid told us he just kept backing up to get away from the oil, but the minister followed him throwing it then finally the young man just fell over so that the minister would stop throwing oil on him, hahaha. He said it was super annoying and he didn´t enjoy it at all, and the only reason he fell to the ground like the pastor said he would is because he didn´t want the guy to keep throwing oil and hitting him, haha. We all enjoyed a good laugh over that, and we explained how we don´t do things like that- and he and his mom are gonna come to church next Sunday to check it out. Her name is Bunny and she seems really positive. She kept telling us things she didn´t like about other churches and it was all things that Mormons don't do, and she said some things that she thinks a church ought to have, and we explained how we do believe in all that, so she was really excited to learn more.
     Another person we met was the exact opposite. We knocked on  his door and he came out and was like, Oh the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And we were like yeah, what do you know about us? He said, well i talked to the missionaries a few years ago and they gave me the Book of Mormon and since then i´ve read the entire book, I've seen the movie about Joseph Smith and I've read a few other books. This entire time i´m just thinking to the myself, GOLD! We STRUCK GOLD! and the next thing he said to us was.... " So i´ve read all that and i don`t believe any of it...." Duh duh duh... But after talking to him for a while, we found out he´s never prayed about any of it so we gave him that invitation and we´re gonna go back to see what happens, but it was a super let down.
    So an exciting thing is tomorrow is cambios (changes)! Wahoo! Maybe... We´re pretty sure Elder Brown is leaving and that i´m staying,  so i really hope i get a good companion because this area is kinda tough, and with a bad comp it will just make the time until the next transfer miserable. I also hope i get a Latino so i can polish up my Spanish some more. With Brown my Spanish didn´t really get worse, it´s just not as smooth as it was, and it actually improved alot in some areas because with two young gringos, we both had to pay attention and participate, instead of with a Latino companion, a gringo can rely him for alot of language and interpretation. So i´m alot better at paying attention to everything because there were alot of times when Elder Brown didn´t understand something so i had to understand and say something.
    This past Saturday we had this ward activity that we planned out called a Noche de Recetas, or Recipe night.  It was pretty much just a pot luck dinner but where everyone brought their recipe and explained how to make it so everyone could go home and try it. The activity turned out really well, we had about half the ward there and some really good food! :) I now have some Panamanian recipes i want to try out and get good at. The dumb thing is people proved that they can cook really good food that isn´t rice and chicken.... so why does everyone only ever cook rice and chicken for us!?! Oh well, i guess it´ll make me appreciate the good food more when it is made. I cooked the no bake skillet cookie recipe that you guys sent me and they turned out ok, i think i messed them up because i put too much rice krispy cereal in them so they didn´t stick together at all but they still tasted pretty good. I learned this really good desert from another missionary that´s really easy and super delicious! I´m excited to make that one. It´s like a pudding pie thing, but not a normal one, extra fluffy and tasty, i´ll make it for ya :)
     Remember how i needed a hair cut when we Skyped each other? Well, there´s this member who always is bragging to us about how good her son is at cutting hair and she told us he´ll do it for free for the missionaries, so i thought why not. I went there and told him i don´t want it too short, and tapered on the sides, and all that good stuff. Well he said ok, i know what you mean and takes out his buzzer and starts. There wasn´t a mirror nearby so i was just hoping he was doing a good job, i mean he took like 45 minutes to cut it, so i assumed he was. But when i finally got to the mirror and looked, he had buzzed me clean! I barely had a centimeter of hair left, it took him 45 minutes of careful cutting, and all i got was a buzz, haha. I was kinda shocked at first but now i don´t really care, it makes doing my hair really easy in the mornings because i don´t have to do anything to it, just wake up, get out of bed and it´s good to go! Haha
      Well, this past week has been an amazing week. We worked super hard and it paid off big time. I feel great going into this next change with lots of new investigators and a really big desire to work super hard, hope my next companion is ready for that. It proved to me that when you do your part and put your all into it, the Lord will come through with His part and help you out with blessings. That is something that applies to all aspects of the Gospel, when we put the Lord first and do what He wants, we get blessed and the things that we put on the back burner turn out even better because we get His help with them.
I hope all is well with you guys and thanks for everything you guys do, for your letters and everything, they really do help alot :) I love you guys and miss you!

Love,
Elder Pfister

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