Threesome

Buenos dias! I'm not being transferred, nor is Hermana Marquez (thank goodness!) BUT Hermana Prince is coming to be our roommate!! I'm so excited to see her again. I was totally spoiled last week because I got to see her twice, but now I think she'll bring a super cool dynamic to our missionary apartment.

It's been a fairly tranquila week...Jeovani came to church again (he's so great! Thank you for all your prayers on his--and all of our other investigators'--behalf), We're making progress with a couple named Marvin and Mayra (incidentally ALSO from Guatemala). He's actually a less active member, and she's a very sharp, very classy woman. We finally found out more about the barriers they face to her being able to be baptized. Apparently she is divorced, but he is not yet and they are facing some financial situations that are putting a damper on that for now. They seemed super determined to progress spiritually when we taught them this week, but then they didn't come to church yesterday....bummer.

We had a lesson with an investigator named Tommy....well, actually, we have a lesson with him every Thursday, but he was a co-pastor in El Salvador and hasn't really had a verbal, preaching outlet since he got here, so we have a hard time actually getting any teaching done. We went for a different tactic this week and tried to ask a lot of yes or no questions (which is typically pretty counterproductive in missionary work). BUT we made progress...sort of. we've been struggling a bit because he wants to be a part of our church, but won't read the Book of Mormon or pray....on top of that, we just didn't feel right about allowing him to be baptized just based on that. We went through the baptismal interview questions and he answered well to all of them, saying that he feels that Joseph Smith was a prophet and such, but it just didn't feel right. so this week, we finally figured out that he doesn't believe in our idea of priesthood ordination...he had a dream once where God took him up to heaven in a machine, sprinkled water on a crowd of people, told Tommy "Baptize your people" and then sent him back down to earth. for the next few weeks, lots of people started showing up at his door, wanting to be healed or cleansed, etc. He would touch their foreheads and they would fall over backwards. He takes that to mean that God gave him authority to preach and baptize. Once we finally understood that, our confusion made a whole lot more sense. If he doesn't believe in Priesthood ordination by the laying on of hands from one who hold the authority, he can't believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true and authorized church on earth. In which case, anybody could be a prophet and proclaim that they know the will of God, which gets us nowhere. Guh. We're just having a hard time knowing how to teach him. We've certainly taught these principles very clearly, but he won't actually listen. He wants to preach to us and heal us. He actually tried to give Hna Marquez and Hna Busch a blessing once. Maybe I'm being too critical. But then again, I know how it feels to be around a worthy Priesthood holder, I know how it feels to receive a blessing through that authorized Priesthood, and I know how I feel when truth is being spoken. And I don't feel those things when Tommy preaches. Not that he preaches bad things, but the Spirit tells me that the Priesthood authority is not there.

I'm so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost. I'm learning to appreciate it in a way I never have before. It's such a blessing to have an internal compass to help me know which way is up spiritually, morally.....everything.

 

Dad, you also asked about meals. Most of our dinners are with members...Our ward is SUPER generous and they LOVE feeding us. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand, but we get fed, they get blessed for their service, so we all win.

 

Hooray for at least 6 more weeks on bike! I'll probably finish my mission here, so more like Hooray for 24 more weeks on bike!

 

I love you more than all the false doctrine in the world!

Hermana Beauchamp