June 6, 2011
Hello family.
Sounds like y'all are having fun in Japan Mom and Dad. Also remember to see if you can get me a Japanese soccer jersey while you're there. And don't get one that's huge! Actually since all the people there are pretty small you might have to get one that's huge for them.
Well down here there's not much going on. It's been brutally hot, everyday we try to think of things to do other than walk around outside tracting or something because of the heat. Actually it's easy because nobody else is outside as well. The lack of rain really worries the locals who say that means that there will be a hurricane this summer. Which would be cool, I would like to see a hurricane before I go home. I don't know how ethical it is to want a destructive hurricane to come to Houston and flatten everything just for my amusement.
Oh kay. I got something to write about. So here's the latest chapter in the Minerva and Dianna drama. And I fear it might be the last chapter as well. So neither of them have come to church for the past two months due to an endless mountain of excuses, but Dianna has gone to mutual almost every week. Well this one week the YW had a "campout" in the YW leader's house, basically a sleepover. Well SOMETHING happened, we're not sure on the details but it had something to do with an investigator of the other elders who is a young woman as well and went along, who needs to wait a couple months before she can be baptized, she had to have an interview with President Cue, President Hansen's spanish-speaking counselor who does interviews for people who have serious issues. Well whatever happened, the YW leader freaked out and called the bishop. And the bishop talked to Dianna and told her that she couldn't come to mutual anymore but she could still come to church on sunday "if she wanted". So Dianna decided she doesn't want to go to church anymore and Minverva, who will only go if Dianna goes because she is her seeing-eye-human, and who always feels sick sunday morning, wouldn't be going either. We talked to them about losing out on our blessings if we don't go to church. And then Minerva says that well if they couldn't make it to the church a friend or someone is offering to take them to their Pentecostal church. Her reasoning was "Well yeah it's bad to not go to church and we lose blessings but I think if we go to another we can get some blessings, better than sitting at home right?" Well we told her NO. And that when Joseph Smith asked Jesus which of all the churches was true Jesus replied that none of them were true, thus meaning that all churches except the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is completely false. Furthermore, In both the Bible and the Book of Mormon it speaks of the last days as only having two churches, the church of the lamb and church of the Devil, and since we've all figured out that our church is the church of the lamb, it means that every other church is in fact founded by the devil, including that stupid pentacostal church. (Which happens to be across the street from our building).
So therefore it would in fact be better if they sat at home rather than go to another church. We talked about their baptisms and how they had made a PROMISE with God and stop going to church would be to break that promise they made with God, which is a big NO-NO. Now I didn't blow up like I've been doing a lot lately because they're not stupid, and I love them very much, they're part of my family away from family and I honestly told them that I didn't want them to suffer the same fate that I've seen countless other recent converts suffer for almost two years now. Well despite all of this we got a 'well we'll think about it' response. So we left them with homework to read at least one chapter out of the BoM everyday and pray together afterwards, and we have called them every night since to remind to do it. They did it for the first couple days then the following ones they slacked off and came up with a bajillion excuses as to why they didn't read their scriptures. Yeah so I was kind of depressed the next couple days. Out of all our recent converts, only half of them still make it to church.
Oh and the cherry on the top of this cake is when we brought it up in ward correlation (the ward mission leader didn't come to church so we had to fill in for him, and I actually wasn't in the meeting either, I was giving a baptismal interview to some other elders' investigator but my companion and one of the other elders in our ward were in there). So they brought up Minerva and Dianna in there and how they don't to come anymore and how they want to go to another church. The bishop said: "Oh that's natural, of course they feel like that." And then he dropped the subject and moved on. Now normally I would be really upset with this stupid ward again but I'm so used to it by now that I don't feel that upset at all, sure it's sad that the bishop and the other ward leaders don't care about people but this is so normal now that it was no surprise.
Yup, so... Nothing much going down on here. Actually one more amusing anecdote. So we were having a lesson with Tomas, Rubiel, and Hno. Galeano. All of them are recent converts, and the first two are our recent converts. We were doing the fun activity where you read selected verses in 1 Nefi 8 and have everyone draw out the whole Lehi's Dream with the tree and everything. But you don't explain what it is. Then after everyone is finished you ask them what in the world could such a picture mean? And most people who are unfamiliar with Lehi's dream have no idea, it's just one of the oddest pictures they've ever seen. Then you jump to 1 Nefi 11-12 and read the selected passages where the Angel describes to Nefi what all the elements in the dream symbolize. I told them that all of these things were symbolic, and we had a little chat about symbolism just to make sure everything knew what symbolism was. They did. So we went through and read the verses and after reading each verse and I would ask them what X represented. It would go something like this:
Scripture: "X=Y"
ER: "Okay Hno. so from that verse that you just read, what does X equal?"
Hno. :"X=W"
ER (patiently):" Not quite.... what does it say in the verse?"
Hno.: "X=W or maybe X=Z"
ER: "Okay let's read it again, X=Y"
Hno. "Oh okay, so X=W"
ER: "DAAAAHHHH!!!!!"
That's kind of how a lot of our lessons have been with all sorts of people lately. Well I'm out of time so have fun in Japan Ma n' Pa. And I'll be seeing y'alls later.
-- Elder Rice
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