First off I am sorry this letter is way late, for p-day we
went to the temple which isn´t open on Mondays, so we had p-day on Tuesday, but i didn´t have time to write that evening, and Wednesday was a very
busy day so here i am writing on Thursday haha.
Overall it
was a good week. We are probably going to have two baptisms this Saturday. Two teenage girls are friends of this less active family
we have been visiting; the girls were there one time when we showed up and
so we invited them to church and they came to church with the family and
they also came to the Mother`s day activity we had (Mother`s Day
is December 8th here). We have been teaching them almost every day
because they feel that they are progressing really fast. Also they have really helped this
less-active family get to church and to the church activities because they always
want to go, but they don`t want to go alone so they take the family with
them. I`m not sure if they`ll really be baptized on Saturday, because that would be
really fast, because i met them for the first time like a week and a half
ago, but i`m confident they will be baptized before the end of the year.
Their names are Alisson and Gisela. Another bonus is that their
families are not members, but the mom of Alisson came to the Mother`s Day
activity and was able to make some friends there and enjoyed it, and now
Alisson wants to bring her to church on Sunday, so hopefully we can help
her and maybe her whole family to get baptized.
Today as we were walking to lunch from a meeting we had this
lady came out of her house and starting yelling at us to come over, we just thought
it was gonna be nothing, as it typically is when people yell at us, but we went there anyway.
We got there and she explained how she and her family are members, but
inactive and recently moved from Arraijan, and so they don`t know anyone
or where the church is but they would like us to visit them and
help them to get back to church - especially one young man in the family because he used to be very active, he went to the temple a lot and was
preparing for the mission, but something happened and he fell completely out of the church, and is
stuck there so they want us to try to help him out, and i`m hoping we can. But
also they have another son that is not baptized that would like to be taught and think about
joining, and also the husband is not a member so i`m going to find him and see
what we can do to bring him into the gospel. I feel like finding this
family is a little blessing from God because i`ve been trying to push my
comp and I to work harder, and trying to
do everything a little better than what we were doing and now i feel
like we`re seeing some blessings with the people we have been able to
find and the baptisms we might have.
We also had a cool experience the other day... In church on Sunday this lady came up to us and explained how she is a member, but she has not been active along with her husband but that she has now realized the
truthfulness of the gospel and is coming back into the church to stay, however her
husband feels he is not ready to come back to church. So she asked us to randomly show up at her house to teach her
husband without him knowing that she asked us to make the visit. Anyway we went
to her mom´s house first because we didn´t know where she lived, and when
we got there the women's mother told us this couple was out of town, but that her husband
(husband of the mom) was home and that she would like us to talk to him
because he´s not member and she would like him to join the church. Well, we talked
to him and it started out pretty awkward because we don´t know him at
all so we looked at the wife to kind of introduce us and help us out; as it turned out, after this bit of awkwardness, it went very well, and we
ended up teaching both of them about eternal families and that
really made an impact on him. We asked him if he'd like to be with his family
forever and eventually by the end of the lesson, we were able to get him to commit to baptism for the end of the month. I´m not sure if he´ll
be able to make that goal, because he has a lot of things he needs to do, including come to church, but
hopefully we can convert him and help the family become active again.
The cool part was just seeing how the thought of eternal families
affected him and got him to start thinking about religion.
That´s cool that USU football is doing so good, too bad they
decided to start winning while i am on my mission, i would love to have
seen those games, but it still gives me the right to brag a little to all
the BYU missionaries here. I´m not sure why the camera card didn´t get
through, as far as i know it´s the same address that you guys have been
sending things too. Speaking of which i got your Christmas packages and i´ll be
honest, i was going to save the wrapped present till Christmas day but
then I read the note and it said in it what the present was - so i opened it
haha. But i really enjoyed everything, the custom-made pillow case and
the USU jersey that came with it plus all the decorations and ties. I
plan on buying a little tree soon to put all the decorations on.... but
that might make me super trunky, haha - listening to Christmas music alone
makes me super trunky. But the good thing is this is my last Christmas
here in Panama! And i´m probably going to spend both my mission Christmases in the same city which is fine with me. We have changes the 20th so maybe i´ll get
a new comp or maybe they´ll send me somewhere else but i doubt it.
So one funny story to finish up... My comp and I were walking
to this appointment we had and we had to cross this little river that
has a log over it but it´s questionable to cross, or one can slide down on the mud
bank to some rocks in the water to cross, well this day i didn´t feel like
doing either and i was feeling athletic and confident that i could just
jump over it. So i did... and i made it! But while flying through the
air i heard this rip, and then I felt a lovely breeze between my legs and i
realized that making big jumps in church pants is not such a good idea.
When i landed and looked, i had ripped my pants from almost where the
zipper is in front to almost touching the belt loop in back. My comp had
a field day laughing at me, because he saw it all happen and now i had
to make a long walk in the middle of the day to a member´s house so she
could fix it. It was super embarrassing, who knows how many people saw
me while i was walking because there was no hiding that huge hole, but oh
well now it makes for a funny story, and i learned my lesson, you can´t
be an Olympic athlete while in church pants.
Well i have to sign off now but i´ll soon be writing you again
and soon we´ll be skyping face to face. Thanks for all the packages and
all the love that they were filled with. The only thing i can think of that
i would like right now are more family pictures and some more pictures
of me playing football haha - everyone asks for pictures after i say i played football. Well, thanks for everything and i love and miss you! Take care!
Love,
Elder Pfister
No comments:
Post a Comment