Hello, Family and Friends! Yours truly, Elder Bowlby here! Woah, it's almost August!
This week was a little bit better. We stopped stressing about the numbers and got to work with all that we had! Yeah!
A ton of our appointments fell and almost nobody wanted to talk to us! Aww...
But we have investigators who are progressing, who we are visiting with regularly, and who are keeping commitments! Yeah!
Buuuuut none of them showed up to church on Sunday. Aww...
Such is the life of a Missionary! You can't force somebody to do something, everybody has the wonderful gift of agency given to us by our loving Father in Heaven. As such, it's important for the investigators to understand that we don't make commitments and invitations merely because we want them to do something for us... We invite them to learn more and to make changes because it's between them and the Lord!
Speaking of agency, my companion and I seem to have the bad luck of arriving at a point in the day when all of our appointments fall, the contacts are unsuccessful, and there is seemingly nothing to do. What next?
After thinking about it, the only logical thing to do is make a change! As such, we've been looking for more opportunities to give service to the members and less-actives. One day we helped sort and clean chili peppers for a member! That was fun. They were surprised that I didn't enchilé mis manos (That is to say, my hands didn't get covered in spicy and begin to tingle and burn. The verb is "Enchilar" which means, roughly, to get that hot chili-pepper sensation. The burning!).
We had a night where we went to talk to a Less-active member. It's an important duty of the members to visit those who haven't gone to church in a while, to ask them what happened, what struggles they're having, and how they can help. It seems that this job has been left with us, the missionaries, and as such, we're trying to help out whomever we can. The less active Heber owns a tortilleria en la calle principal (main street, in english terms), and we see him and his returned (very active) missionary brother often. We're pretty good friends at this point, as nobody has visited the poor guy in his home for about two or so years. We show up to talk a little and he kindly offers us dinner (and he's a great cook) but unfortunately, my weak American tongue couldn't handle a certain pepper that was added into the mix... y yo enchilé. They thought it was pretty funny, and I was laughing the whole time.
Even funnier, my companion was very surprised that I was drinking down Coca-Cola like there was no tomorrow. I explained to him that because my tongue was burning because of the jalapeño, the gas of the soda didn't bother my tongue. He thought that was funny. I did too.
Mom said that as of the 26th of July, I had completed 100 days in the Mission. Loco! Took a mini-selfie with my camera to compare how I looked fresh out of home.
Overall, we're working hard in San Felipe. No effort is wasted, and as long as it's not raining buckets, you can be sure that I'll be out there doing what I do best! Getting Sun-Burned! Oh, um, I mean... preaching the Gospel.
I close with a spiritual thought, as always.
The importance of knowing our Father's plan for us! We taught a lot of Lession 2 this week, which is the Plan of Salvation! Our Father in Heaven lovingly made a plan for our return to live with him, to grow and progress in this life, and to have experiences here with those we love, having those experiences extend beyond death!
I've certainly learned a lot. One of our investigators had a question about Evolution, and I too had this same question without even knowing it! We studied and studied, and while the Church has no official stance on the subject, what we must have faith in is that Adam and Eve were the first children of God on the earth, that through Adam's fall man can have joy, and through the power of Jesus Christ, we can be saved from the effects of Adam's fall.
It's sad to see that many people don't understand this. Some have no hope in a life after death, some don't believe that the fall of Adam was a good thing, and many don't believe that we came from anything more than dust.
For this is the reason that there is need for Missionaries in the world! To teach people about the grand workings of our Father above. After all, some are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it!
Love you all. Miss you so much! Stay strong, do your best, and never forget that you are children of God!
-Elder Bowlby
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