6.30.14 It's Raining, It's Pouring!

Dear Friends and Family,

District Meeting

Good-bye Sister Buban

"Another Sunny Day has come and gone away"... But I'm not coming home yet. I don't know if y'all know that song. Just by my favorite Country Artist. haha. I love you guys. How's everybody doing right now? I hope all y'all are doing better than I am. It's been another rough week, not too bad though, just TONS of rain. It's rained every single day without a doubt and it completely destroys our work. When we teach the rain hits the tin roofs and they can't hear us, we can't hear them, and then we're all confused by the end of lessons. Our umbrellas aren't the large so the complete lower half of our body gets soaked. Yesterday it rained from 3pm-9pm straight hard rain like a typhoon, but no wind. We were up in the mountains and walking home was like walking in a river. We finally found a tricycle and then even then the tricycle was getting buried in the water that was on the road and we were just super wet. Luckily we were on our way home though, so it wasn't too bad. I'm not going to complain or anything about it. Just a good experience I guess. I'll count it as a blessing. I like having fun and fun moments. Things that would never happen back home, I just laugh and enjoy the moments! ;) Yellow power ranger go!

Alright, well, I'll get the sad stories over for the week. I know I'm only supposed to write uplifting things and such, but I've been writing about this one family for weeks now and I thought I'd give you an update rather than not telling you. The Trumpita Family dropped us this week. After last week they accepted a date for baptism for Aug. 2, and they were super stoked about it and everything. The Dad wanted to quite smoking and mom wanted to go to church with the family and everything. On Wednesday when we went back to visit nobody was home, but the dad and he said, "Brothers, we're not going to go to your church or read your bible because it's forbidden." I mean, if I was to translate it, that's it. We didn't know why or what he really meant. There's a member that lives next door, the one who gave us the referral for them, she said that she would talk to them and let us know how it went. I'm super bummed about it because they were doing so well and reading and stuff, I just don't know what happened. Our guess is that a less active or something talked to them about the church or something. We don't know.

Next sad story; No matter how many times we discuss Authority or the apostasy to the Artisano family, it just doesn't seem to stick. I mean, we're talking about the mom here, she's the super like active listener in the whole group. So this week we just got up the courage and committed them to be baptized. The neighbor that always comes in our lesson, Bro. Jonel, said yes without any hesitation. The mom was like, I've already been baptized into my church. The funny thing is and I can't figure it out is why she doesn't go to her church. She's been to our church 3 times now, so it's just super funny. We invited her and she was super hesitant and said, well no. Then we said, Sister you remember the authority thing? She said yes... then we said, well, the authority was brought back during the restoration. I guess she can't wrap her head around the concept of the Priesthood, which nobody can really her. However, by the end we were like, well sister if you find out that it's church through your prayers, will you be baptized. Then she said yes. We always ask how her prayers are and things and no matter how many times we commit her to pray about our message she just won't do it. From my perspective, she's afraid to find out that her church is wrong because that means that she has to join our church. She just thanks God for the word or God and that God is loving and good. She's a born again Christian. Very nice women and I love her to death. I just don't know what more I can do or even my companion that will help her understand. We've gone slowly, very slowly over it, read from the bible and the Book of Mormon about how they help each other, she said the Book of Mormon is true because it's about God. But hasn't prayed about it or anything, just because it's about God it's good. So frustrating sometimes. Anyway, they all came to church last week and we invited them again for this week, and they didn't come! We don't know why and we thing maybe we scared them when we invited them to be baptized, but at least we know now if that was going to be the result in the end then at least we can focus our work somewhere else for a little bit instead of focusing on people that have no desire to progress. I don't know, just a bit rough really right now in finding and teach. And the rain is not helping one bit.

Gemma and Gennevibe are doing well. They always come to church and read the Book of Mormon and keep all commitments that we extend to them. The talked to their mom finally last week and the mom said no. So Gemma is 21 years old so it doesn't matter what mom says about her. Right now it's about her own choice and if she wants to risk it or not. I told her to personally go for it. It's for a good cause and she can be the bridge to the rest of the family for the gospel. Y'all know I was always a risk taker. haha. However, for her younger sister who is only 11, we said, just live the lifestyle of a member of the church. Even though she can't be baptized, she can still live the principles of the gospel. So there's the status of them.

Since members aren't super good at giving us referrals in our area we decided to try doing a lot of finding this week on our own by just walking up and down the streets (very few actual streets) but we would just talk to everyone that we saw that was sitting on the side of the road just hanging out. I just wonder why when we aren't looking to talk to every sitting on the road, there are tons of people on the road doing nothing. The day that we wanted to talk to everyone that was sitting on the side of the road, nothing. Nobody was outside. There was a funeral that everybody was attending of one of the neighbors. WAAY KLARO! Oh well, that's life. I just accept it and move on.

I've been doing some really good personal study this week. I'm in the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon right now. I never realized how much he testified of the Book of Mormon and the restoration. I guess just a lack of understand for other religions, but it's pretty clear in the Book of Mormon Isaiah chapters. It also says in the footnotes that there are tons of differences in the Book of Mormon "Isaiah" and the Bible "Isaiah". Too bad the whole world doesn't believe the Book of Mormon because it's a lot simpler to understand if you ask me than reading it from the bible. Oh well. I realized the humor in the Book of Mormon when they're talking 2 Nephi Ch. 29 about saying the Bible comes from the Jews. It's just funny how they're talking about how much the Gentiles hate the Jews yet they believe the words that they wrote and not from their own people, the Gentiles. Just a kicker that I find funny in the Book of Mormon. I know that the Lord has a sense of humor and that's why people who say that you need to be 100% serious all the time in the mission are a joke because you can see in the prophets and apostles that they joke as well. Obviously it's appropriate joking and jokes, not bad things, but you get what I mean. 

FHE with the Lumacad Family

Well, that's my weekly report. I hope that all is going well with y'all there! We're going to work hard this week on finding new investigators because our others are obviously not working out right now so we need some new ones! I love you guys and hope that y'all are having a good week! Have fun at girls camp! Go kill it! I miss camping so much!!!!!! I sometimes feel like I'm camping here though... but still, I have a roof. I want a tent sometimes ;) In the mountains, next to a river. Love it! Have a great week! It's transfer week, so who knows what could happen! I don't think I'll transfer though, I just got here! Love you guys!

Halong!

Elder Ellis