Last Monday was the beginning of
my last transfer. I received Hna. Jimenez (yeah, my same companion from
Aguacaliente) as my new/old/last companion here in Ensenada. The only
difference is that I´m now training her to be a Sister Training Leader before I
go.
In the movie "Monty
Python and the Search of the Holy Grail" there is a quite... pointless
scene that always makes me laugh. Walking around with a wheelbarrow a man
yells out, "bring out your dead!" Another walks out, with whom
we can only assume is his grandfather on his shoulders. His mind intent
on throwing him into the wheelbarrow. "But I´m not dead
yet!" The old man cried. "Actually, I feel like going for
a walk!"
The members of my Ward and my
fellow missionaries are trying to toss me into the wheelbarrow. The moment
that Hna. Jimenez stepped off the bus and saw me she said, "Hna. Lance, ya
se va!" ...Gracias hna, good to see you too... Everyone feels
the need to remind me that I´m leaving soon, or warn me from getting
trunky. Even when complementing me. The other day Hna. Jimenez told
me, "Sentí tanto el espiritu cuando testificó Hna. ¿Por que tiene
que ir?!" Uhh, thanks sister, but I´m not dead yet!
This week we´ve been promoting
the new church video, Because He lives. So we started by talking to our
neighbors and inviting them to watch the video. One of them, an elderly
man, thanked us for the invitation, but warned us that he didn´t believe in
God, Christ, or Religion. With faith, we told him that we would like to
visit him anyways and made an appointment for the next day.
Arriving and entering into his
little home I noticed that his walls were covered with paintings and immediately
felt a connection with my artistic brother. Sitting down, I said a prayer
in my heart, hoping that as we taught about who our Heavenly Father is, he would
be able to feel the spirit testify that He is real... Sadly, we barely
finished the opening prayer when he began with his negative comments. Now
I don´t want to go into details. That would take too much time and be
rather depressing. Just know that this child of God has a lot of pent up
anger against his Heavenly Father. "He abandoned me, so I abandoned
Him." If there is so much injustice in the world, how can He be a
just God? If there is a God, He is an irresponsible God. He (our
neighbor) gave us every example of injustice from the history of the world
that you can think of, the majority attacking the U.S.A. (uh, hello... American
gal sitting right here... thanks). God never helped him. Never
helped anyone. Religion destroyed his family. Religion is business;
using good, innocent people like ourselves and manipulation us with our faith.
The cherry on top being that the Mormon church is one of the two "mas
ricas" churches in the world.
Contention is of the devil, and
there was a lot of it. Don't get me wrong. He wasn´t rude in anyway
towards us. Just made his feelings plain and clear. But I could
also tell, that after nearly an hour of trying to explain our message, he
wasn´t going to let us get a word in. All I could do was testify.
That´s what I came out here for isn´t it? Open my mouth and share what I
know. As did my companion, and the members who were joining us in the
lesson. We didn´t say anything special, but the Spirit filled the room.
The next day, while watching
G.C. and looking at the general authorities, I couldn´t help but think,
"and if it really is all a sham?" Just for a sliver of a second
I remembered all that our neighbor had to say. Then, during the 2 hour
break, a few Mormon messages came on. I believe it was called "the
Hope of Gods light." And the spirit hit me again.
It HAS to be true. I know it is. It´s the only thing
that makes sense. I love it, and I´ll testify it until the end.
(and if you guys didn´t catch it, my old mission prez,
Armando Carreon, just got called as a new member of the 70!!!)
