Que Fracaso

February 28, 2011

Hello Family.

This week has seen a few interesting things. As I mentioned last week our area is now twice as large and we cover a lot of ghetto now. It's super ghetto, I thought our area before was ghetto but no it's nothing compared to what we have now. It's really junky. To illustrate we had an appointment with an investigator that lived next door (literally like 5 feet) away from a less active family in the ward. Well the investigator wasn't there but the dad of the last active family was out ambling about in front of his porch. We had never met him before so we went to say high and he was quite intoxicated with something or another. Probably alcohol, the other elders had told us that he hasn't been to church in a while and is an alcoholic. Well that sure seemed to be the case. His eyes were completely yellow and bloodshot and he was talking really funny and holding a rather sharp looking paint scraper. Well he wanted us to come in and talk with him. He obviously out of his mind and I didn't think that would be a very good idea so I asked if we could stay outside, the weather was good and all. He kept trying to get us to come in but I wouldn't budge, Elder Green almost went in, he was kind of spooked about the whole thing, I don't think he's ever had to deal with someone completely plastered before. We convinced him that outside would be fine and we talked with him for a bit and he was just completely drunk and was almost crying telling us about how he never wanted to be baptized but the sister missionaries made him get baptized and he wanted to quit drinking and he was just generally crazy. Elder Green, as usual was just being stupid and trying to get him to read D&C 89. Yeah so he was crazy and we got out of there and left. But we did manage to get him to throw away all of his beer into the trash can.

A few days later on Friday night we had an appointment with this same family and we went over and the wife opened the door and said that now probably wasn't a good idea because her husband was drunk again and had said to her if the missionaries came by he would chase them off his property. Then she just started crying and was telling us all of this stuff about how she just couldn't take her husband drinking anymore and it was all really sad. The really sad thing is there isn't much we can do about it. We can only teach and encourage people to do the right thing. During her sobbing and sad stories I just took a minute to look around and it was Friday night, not the best time to be in the ghetto I guess. Down the street there were a bunch of teenagers with alcohol fighting and on the other side a house full of noises of revelry and crude language and then some car books it down the street at 40-50 mph driving backwards. The whole neighbourhood itself smelled like human waste and there was garbage strewn everywhere. So I just stand there while all of this is going on and I just say to myself. "What in the world is wrong with this place?" I have never felt father away from civilization that I did at that moment. Crazy!

Well the next most noteworthy event was on saturday. We had an appointment at 5 with Minvera and Dianna, our favorite drama prone recent converts. Well we get there and knock and door and Dianna opens up and seemed rather surprised, she jumps out of the door and then turns around and opens it up and she has that sort of embarrassed smile that she always has on her face when something very awkward is about to happen. (We knew that look quite well by now). So we walk in and Minerva is sitting on the couch with a bible open on her lap and on the other couch is two old women with their own bibles and some printed propaganda. Well it turned out that they were none other than the 7th Day Adventists. Well.... Hmm... How to best describe? Well they were nice at first but you could tell they were just ready to jump at as any moment. For a while they had been visiting Minverva and Dianna while we have been visiting them but we had never encountered each other at the same time. And both of us had been teaching them and telling why the other church was completely wrong. Thus came the conflict and the day of reckoning. Now I hate bible-bashing so I was thinking about saying that we could come back another time. But there were our recent converts and we couldn't just leave them here all defenseless with their tiny fragile testimonies of the truth against the sophistries of the Adventists.

Well we were invited to sit down and as we sat they offered to say the opening prayer. And one of them did. After the prayer was finished they said to Minvera, "Now what was it was it you were confused about? The SABBATH?" I interjected and said. "Okay, we know there's a conflict here. We belive that the sabbath is on Sunday and we know that you all believe it's on saturday, now we don't want to-" I was about to say we don't want to get into a battle here and we'll leave since there's no point in arguing, but I was interrupted by the larger of the two who said something along the lines of: "We don't believe the sabbath on on saturday, we KNOW it is, and we know the commandments, and we obey them, you can't say we believe this or that and blah blah blah." And then they started on the normal routine that the Adventists always take, starting with Genesis about how God sanctified the 7th day and blah blah blah, God can't change blah blah blah, the law cannot change blah blah blah, we must obey the law blah blah blah." Elder Green had started to say something but I kicked him and motioned for him to be quiet, knowing Elder Green I decided that it was best that he didn't say too much. They had us turn to a scripture in Mark that says that the Lord is the Lord of the Sabbath and we must keep his Sabbaths. They substituted sabbath for saturday like they always do, I don't know if that's how their bible reads or if they just automatically do that. Anyway we had Elder Green's bible open. And we pointed out that our Bible didn't say saturday at all, it just said sabbath day, it didn't specify which day. They told is it was saturday because if you went and looked into a dictionary you find that sabbath meant saturday. I said that it was kind of stupid that they were getting their doctrine from the dictionary, we get our doctrine from God! That's probably a better source than the dictionary! They then ranted on a bit about how in their church they have scholars who study hebrew and know what all of these things mean and blah blah blah.

Now I didn't have my bible with me at the moment bible, but I do carry around a small notecard with all of the useful scriptures written on it. I told them that indeed the sabbath was on saturday under the law of moses but that it was changed with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They said exactly what I thought they would say and said that the law cannot change. I had them flip to Hebrews 7:12 where it says the following: 'For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.' That was the mortal blow, they spent the next twenty minutes trying to come up with explanations why that scripture doesn't say what it says. It was kind of funny really. They said the law can't change, over and over, and they quoted the usual 'not one jot nor tittle hath passed away from the law..." And I said "Then why does it say the law changed right here?" They'd would ask for a one scripture, just one, that said that the law was changed. I would say "We already read it, it's right here, it's pretty clear, it says the law the was changed." They were getting pretty mad by this point, they're faces were red, they kept interrupting us and talking us down, and talking quite fast. Elder Green just didn't say anything, I could tell he was way angry, he gets frustrated really easy. I just kept a chill and smooth disposition. Perfectly calm and collected, they kept trying to tell me to turn to other scriptures but I kept telling them that we still haven't finished with this one yet, because it says quite clearly that the law was changed. They're were like: "NO you're very confused my child, you're taking this completely out of context! Rawr rawr rawr!" They said that we didn't keep the law but that they were perfect keepers of the law. I asked them if they still sacrificed goats and things, they said no... Then they thought they had us.

"Aha! That's what changed, this verse is talking about the sacrificial rites! That's what changed! Aha!"
They were pretty excited, they thought they had us. I thought about telling them that it said LAW rather than sacrificial rites, but I had a better idea. I said:
"Okay, okay, so why did they do those rites?"
They explained why.
"Okay, okay, so who told them to do those rites?"
"Well... God..."
"Uh-huh, and then he took them away so they didn't have to do it anymore."
"Yes..."
"So therefore God gave something and took it away, he changed something, God changed something he gave, God can changed whatever he wants, including the law."

Well they got really mad at that part, foam was flying from their lips almost. Then I decided to use a secret weapon. Minverva and Dianna had been cowering this whole time and I asked them how they knew our church was true. They started to bear their testimonies, and it drove the Adventists so mad that they packed up their things and left.

Now I've left out a lot but I have to log out in two minutes. But basically VICTORY! We totally got them! Haha! We defended our recent converts and it was great and we won and it was Minvera and Dianna who with their infant testimonies delivered the killing blow.

Okay I'm out of time. I love you all have a good week bye.