this last week was amazing. on monday, we had exchanges and i got a new companion. his name is elder womack and he is from kaysville. it is so nice to be able to speak english freely to one that understands, but dont you worry-when it comes time to speak spanish, the switch is flipped and we speak like the natives! (haha not really...i wish) he is so funny! i laugh at everything he says and i love it because it makes me happier throughout the day. he is the best.
over this week, we recieved/contacted like 13 people in the street/bus, and recieved 3 new investigators. oh and yesterday, we had stake conference and there was a broadcast where 4 speakers: a married couple, d todd christofferson, and robert d. hales, spoke to us. it was so awesome-elder Christofferson spoke spanish!! like a boss! haha very cool.
saturday, something very special happened. we were walking along, on our way to make a visit, when all of a sudden this drunk man came up to us, yelling, but not agressively, just loud enough so we could hear him. his shirt was unbottoned, revealing a lot of scars, burns, and tattoos. he said ´´hey, hermanos, give me a blessing!!´´ and for the first few seconds i was like oh man were in trouble, but i dont know if it was the man in me, or just the spirit that took over, but we just went with it. ´´buenos dias, hermano!´´ we said, and we just started to talk to him. he wanted this blessing so he could stop drinking and what not. he talked to us for a long time, and at one point he spit a little, and almost hit us. anyway, i said ´´ok hermano, well have a blessing´´ meaning just a prayer with him. so we folded our arms and he knelt on the ground. so what did we do? we knelt with him. right there, practically in the middle of the street, we had a prayer. i said it, and just said the desires of my heart for this man, that with gods help he would be helped. in the middle of the prayer too, he said ´´touch my head´´ so i did just for a second or two, to make him feel better. i dont know if we will ever see him again, but i know that the spirit that we felt was so real and strong.
yesterday, almost the same thing happened. we were looking for this one house, when again a drunk main stopped us to say hello. he was even more drunk, for he could barely stand up, and you have to know that when they ask us a question, we have good intentions to answer it they just dont really take too much interest in our answers. we talked to him for about 15 min and then did and said what we could to initiate that we had to go. we got to start walking away, and didnt get too far because we were really still just looking for this house. he called us back, and we knew we were protected so we went back to him. he was saying ´´come give my wife a blessing´´ so we thought ok, we did this just yesterday so we will do the same thing, just have a prayer with her. we walked behind this house, pulling back a doormade up of boards and sheet metal, to reveal a reallly poor backyard, and a really poor lady. this lady was not in fact his wife, he was just drunk and didnt know what color the sky was. haha. we had a prayer with her, and she was so gentle and nice. then he came back to the backyard, and his voice got a bit louder. i really didnt understand too much of what he was saying, but i understood the negative things that he said, and in regards to her he was being disrespectful. we gave her a pamphlet of the gospel of jesus christ, and she couldnt read but she was shaking in fear from this abusive drunk guy as she looked at the pictures. i know this sounds terrible, but i did the best i could and i said to him ´´hermano, do you know who she is?´´ and he said my wife (really-not the case). i told him ´´hermano, she is a divine daughter of god´´ and she started to feel at peace with us being there. are we going to go back to teach her? you bet we are! tomorrow in fact. i pray that the spirit will be with us.
in these experiences, i noticed a few things. that the powers of satan and hell are very real, and can be scary at times, but also that the Power of God is more real than ever, and as his representatives, we have power and authority in our words. The gospel is real, and its in thosemoments that we are fully confident and speak withour fear that the spirit is present, and the powers of heaven are with us.
Im so glad to be here and i know this next week will be even better. 4 awesome speakers, 3 new investigators, 2 drunks...and a partridge in a pear tree. love it!
bless you all in always,
Jason
--
**Elder Newman**
No comments:
Post a Comment