Gringos,
A couple more funny things first.
Regarding the language, I just realized this week that command form of
verbs can be confusing; the command "callate" means "quiet yourself
(familiar)", and "cayase" means "fall yourself (formal)" (it makes more
sense in Spanish, I promise), but the only difference between the two in
speaking is the "te/se". Great. That's fun.
It's
also funny when we get to talking with someone and they say, "Soy ateo,
gracias a Dios", which means, "I'm an atheist, thanks to God." Oh.
Okay. Good for you, I guess. Then there was another experience we had in
which we talked with a random woman who started teaching US what the
Book of Mormon is, saying that an angel told Joseph Smith to write a
book about his life and call it the Book of Mormon. Great. I'm glad I
know the truth now. When we finally parted after a solid fifteen minutes
of her not listening to anything we were saying, she still had a
countenance that showed that she clearly believed she had won - that she
had won an argument that never happened, because she wasn't listening.
That's fine; I didn't want to argue, anyway.
Also,
Jacob, I heard of an elder whose name you'd be jealous of: Kobe Juan
Kenobi Gubernick. I mean, the last name is a mouthful, but the first
three names remind me instantly and incessantly of you.
I
had an interesting experience yesterday, and now I come to the point of
the title of this email. We had lunch with a family in which the mother
is a member and the father is not, despite having talked with
missionaries multiple times before. That's fine; there's absolutely no
problem with that for us. The lunch was wonderful, and afterwards we
took advantage of the togetherness of the family to teach a bit about
the Restoration of the Gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ. After our
teaching, we asked the mother to share her thoughts on how she had come
to know that these things are true, and she gave a good response. But
then she continued on to talk about how a couple days ago she had
finally realized that her husband would never join the Church, and that
he was holding her back from an eternal family, which is all she has
ever wanted. She even went on to declare boldly that if he didn't accept
the Gospel she would look for another companion who would. Oof. All
this was done in the presence of him, her daughters, and us. The entire
time she was explaining, I could only think, "How is this my problem??"
It's not that I didn't feel for her situation, but I felt utterly
incompetent to help. She also explained that he didn't want to join the
Church because the members are hypocrites; in reality, that is perfectly
true. We preach a perfect Gospel, and yet do not keep it, which is
verbatim the definition of hypocrisy. But, as we explained to him
(extremely carefully and lovingly, because that really wasn't our field
of expertise nor authority) that Jesus did not establish His Church nor
minister for the righteous ones, but instead for those who are sick and
sinners. Honestly, I am astounded at the tranquility and humility of the
husband, because not once did he become angry or even anything other
than peaceful. But, goodness, I was not comfortable there, for obvious
reasons. That's the short version of a discussion that lasted ninety
minutes, and I don't care to say more. We contributed appropriately and
decently well, and we left on cheerful terms with the both of them, and
everything was fine, but it looks like I have some serious praying to do
for their welfare.
Now I want to mention
something of which I have been thinking a lot recently: faith and works.
Just about all I want to say is said in James 2, multiple times, that
"faith without works is dead", and that is what I want to emphasize.
Especially in these last days, it is not sufficient only to have faith
in a dying world; we have to prove our faith with works so that there
are actual fruits of our faith. Christ said, "by their fruits ye shall
know them", and there are no fruits of faith without works of service.
Faith is not enough to save us, and it never will be; it takes action in
faith to bring the saving power of grace. And that is my spiritual
thought and testimony for today.
Con amor,
Elder Hill
P.S.
Honestly, after writing about that contentious experience, I feel like
something is off in this letter, but I can't tell what to do to fix it.
It will probably come to me later, when I have no access to a computer,
so I'll just leave this as a declaration that this letter is unfinished
in some way.
Fotos:
868: Fútbol con el Barrio
865: Más fútbol
809: Que dramático
781: Calle "Estado de Israel" - Rosalie, estoy pensando de ti
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