Hey what’s up my Family! 29
May 2013
Everything these last couple of days have been really good! My
comp and I are getting along fine and that is a minor miracle because he hasn’t
had the opportunity in life to develop many social skills because of a rough
upbringing, so he doesn’t get along with many people. He is still like a little kid that needs to
grow up (but don’t we all in certain aspects of our lives). It’ll happen with time and some love. Sometimes we will be in lesson and he doesn’t
realize that we are there to teach, just more to hang out. It’ll be great when his mannerisms catch up
with his testimony! Haha. Growth, it’s
an eternal thing.
My district is really cool. I have a Sister from Honduras
and an Elder from Haiti and another from Colombia so we are a big mixing pot. I like it because we get to see how the
church functions in different areas of the world! We are talking a lot about how to better our teaching
approach in the lessons that we teach, and in the meetings that we attend. It’s just nice to have everyone on a semi
even keel and then let the Spirit guide us and use our personalities and
talents to better serve the Lord and the people we contact. At the start of my mission that’s what we focused
on. It’s been awhile since we touched that topic, so
I thought we´d bring it back again, just as I did in Arroyo Hondo with my zone!
So in our last meeting we practiced
inviting people to be baptized and had a really fun time doing it!
One thing that I’ve noticed about being here is that I’m not
afraid to talk anymore. I can say
anything to anyone or in front of anyone without choking up or being scared. Ha. And I do it in Spanish. I don’t
know if till be the same in English, but I’m glad that I’m confident in what I
believe and recognize others as my brothers and sisters!
Our investigators are doing okay, but not so great. We are
teaching a lot of young couples from partial member families, and every single
one of them needs to get married....... and no one has money to get married
here and they are all scared to because it costs even more to get divorced ! ha. So
until they can get married they really can’t progress. I know that they aren’t going to break up
right now, and that’s not what we want anyway, just wish that they would follow
God’s plan for happiness! We have some
other people that we are teaching that are going to church and have a baptismal
dates, so it’s pretty cool and we´ll
keep working to find and help more people!
I found out that another person that we were teaching in Navarrete
got baptized! He is the atheist’s (but
not now – he’s a member of the Lord’s kingdom) friend Eduardo! He got baptized
on Saturday, and then sent the missionaries out into the countryside to teach
his girlfriend! Ahh. I wish I could’ve
been there! But it’s okay, God has a
reason for me to be here in 100 FUEGOS !!!!!!
We just barely found
a guy named José Alberto who is like 25 and within 3 lessons with him he
accepted a baptismal date but when I invited him to be baptized his mom over
heard our conversation and stopped us and said that he has already been
baptized in the Catholic church and that his baptism is sealed in heaven and doesn’t
need another one. I looked at her and kind of laughed inside and then explained
our beliefs.
I wish yall could see how
much of an influence all of the different religions have in this country, from
voodoo to all sects of Christianity and well about all major and minor
religions out there. There is a
evangelico church right next to our house and in their worship services they do
a lot of shout and fainting and it goes late into the nights so sometimes I can’t sleep... it so confusing to
me, and it has all of the people more
confused about religion. I guess it
could be compared to The Joseph Smith story when he was young and trying to
find the truth; where great multitudes united in different religious parties
which created no small stir amongst the people, preachers calling lo here, and others
lo there …. THANK GOODNESS I was born a member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a MORMON!!! Ha. love yall
ELDER MATT GRINER
Misión Santiago, RD
2011-2013
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