Week 33

Mommy & All,

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." -George Bernard Shaw

First off wanna give a Birthday Shout Out to little bro Caleb coming up on Friday. Hitting that big 16 so good luck CJ! This week was one of the harder weeks when no one was home, or if they were they didn't want to let us in. But I did have a few experiences this week. 

Wednesday we were just having a really bad day. No investigators were home, and when people see us walking in the street, they flee inside and chain the door shut. For example, we were contacting this house and behind us there was a lady sitting in a chair out on her lawn so I saw her. We took a few steps to the next house and then I thought okay lets try this lady since she's not behind a door. So I turned and started walking towards her and we made eye contact. Before I got half way through saying "hola Senora" she died in her chair. She literally rolled her eyes back, slumped in her chair and acted like she was dead. I started looking around on the roof tops to see what sniper must have shot her. I think if birds came and nested in her hair she wouldn't have flinched. So we turned and walked all the way down to the end of the street and when I turned around, she was just drinking her Mate like normal haha. 

Anyways that was what our day was like, so we said a little prayer and asked if we could just find someone to teach that day. We were walking to visit some less active members and passed this black guy sitting in front of a house giving us really weird looks. So I just told him "hola" and kept walking. Of course the less actives weren't home. So we had to turn around and re-trace our steps right passed the black guy. He gave us more weird looks, but like he wanted to talk to us. So I took one step towards him and he jumped up and ran towards us to grab the card I was holding out for him. He ended up being this super cool guy named Jose Matias from Brazil. He has lived in Comodoro for a year and asked if we were Mormon. When I told him yes he tells us he wants to be Mormon too! He goes on to tell us that he has wanted to be Mormon for a while but actually had a real fear about it because he'd only ever seen white or Latino missionaries and members. He honestly thought Black people weren't allowed in the Church because he'd never ever seen one and he'd always been scared to enter a church since no black people did. So he told me I,m the first black Mormon he's ever seen and he especially never expected to see that in missionary form, but now that he knew, he told us he wanted to be one of us. He was asking me what he had to do to become Mormon and if he could get baptized with tattoos and a whole bunch of questions like that so I knew he was serious. I was super pumped and thought I'd get the chance to baptize him, but then he told us he lives in an apartment in Centro. So I passed his info to those missionaries and hopefully they baptize him. Also Elder Harris had his first baptism on Saturday so that was great to see!

Much Love,

Elder Christensen