Pamplona and Perros

Dear Family and Friends,

I have learned a lot from Elder Infante but primarily his ability to make people trust him. In our first few moments with new investigators we usually ask how they are, how their day was yada yada and you all know that we all lie and say we are good. But with Elder Infante they automatically open up, they say "to be honest today wasn't so good" I don't know how he does it. I was talking about it with some of the other elders and they said that because of his size he is just naturally charismatic.

In response to the trust, I have seen the other side of these people's lives, the majority of which are getting over addictions or having problems having to be a single parent. Problems which the gospel of Jesus Christ was specifically made to help.

This week we did see a lot more progress. There is not much better than teaching a good family at the end of a long day. We may not have a bunch of families to teach but the ones we do have are solid.

I think I take advantage of the times during the day where I can actually bare my testimony. Often times people come up to us but only with the intentions of contention. We have an investigator who decided not to be baptized because of some anti Mormon propaganda. Time and time again it only comes down to our testimony. If we feel an answer to our prayer that means it is from God, not man. Which means that man cannot deny or negate that our answers were from God. 

One thing Elder Infante shared with me was a story he had when someone was arguing with his dad about doctrine. His dad simply sat back and listened until the man had finished his discourse. Then Elder Infante's dad asked "If God answered a question of yours, would you deny it?" 

"Of course not"

"And neither will I. I have received my answer from God that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith restored the church and that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ".

I love testimonies.

A reference to the title, there are somehow more dogs here than in my old area. 

We had an investigator, Raquel who is golden and things were going great until she got kicked out of her house. The ward helped out and in the end she has a new place to live, bad news is it isn't in our area because we share the ward with 2 other elders. So they took over. Which is fine because she will be baptized either way.

The ward here helps does a good job of helping us out.

I was doing a little more studying of the 10 commandments and it says that we shouldn't put any other God before Heavenly Father. So it put me to think, what other gods do we even believe in? Satan or the devil is not as powerful as our God but unfortunately he still has power and does a pretty good job. That thought lead me to question, how on earth could we put Satan before Heavenly Father? Here are just some thoughts.

When we worship God we love our neighbor, we serve others, we are humble, we are altruistic, and we believe in hope. In contrast, when we hate or hold grudges, when we are prideful, selfish we are unknowingly diminishing our own testimonies of the Father. Including when we are fearful. 

There is no room to doubt and not enough time to feel hopeless. Thou shalt not fear.  I repeat Elder Holland who repeats Paul when he says "have hope for a better world and with faith... wait for it." A better world and better times to come.

I love all you guys, never forget to pray and continually ask for help.

Love, 

Elder Ben Craythorne