Dear Family,
How are you? I am well--I find myself today using a computer in a
different shop than normal, and it's very slow, thus, I haven't much
time to write.
This week has been good. We're teaching a man who was baptised a few
months ago, but somehow the confimation didn't happen--thus, he must
be rebaptised. He's improving all the time, is in Mormon in the Book
of Mormon and has read "Gospel Principles." We're also visiting
members rather often (and they're giving us more references) and we
organized the Area Book this morning--we have so many Teaching Records
that we might have to look for a three inch binder! However, we'll
start by looking for these families that the Elders have taught in the
past (all the way back to 2005). I know that we will find miracles as
we look diligently thus for people, because I know that God is
preparing many people to receive the gospel, and there are many ways
that He may choose to lead us to them or put us in contact.
Otherwise, we had a good practice this week as we prepared to teach an
investigator about sexual purity. We thought he might have a problem,
based on his situation and comments from friends of his, so we put
together a list of many possible objections or responses to the
specific point, and then practised a few of them in our companionship
study. A couple of my favourites were, "But God doesn't teach that,"
(answer: showing him our ministerial certificates signed by God's
living prophet, and teaching that if the Book of Mormon is true, then
Thomas S. Monson speaks for God as His prophet), "It's not important
to live commandments--I just want to get baptised," (answer: baptism
is a covenant to keep the commandments--it only works (remission of
sins, companionship of the Holy Ghost) if we're honestly striving to
follow all the commandments with an honest heart), and "What exxaactly
would be crossing the line and sinning?" (answer: that's hardly a
worthy question--think about your situuations in the context of where
they will lead you to go--you only want to choose strictly what God
desires because that's what happiness is). Thus, we felt that we
learned a bit and were lead by the the Spirit in helping understand
these and other questions, and being able to teach the true doctines
clearly and boldly.
We were also lead to a family, Avila-Fuentes, that is honestly looking
for God's guidance to raise their family. We had a really good lesson
with them with a single mother in the ward, her 15-year old daughter,
and 12-year old son (and 3-year old daughter), and they all clearly
explained how the gospel has changed the life of their family and them
each individually (véase Alma 5:7).
It's been a good week.
Also, thank you for looking into my banking affairs. I had asked about
the credit card because the PIN is necessary to use an ATM with it.
However, I discovered that my debit card works fine (it must have been
a temporary problem with a specific machine), and thus I think I'll be
fine--$1000-ish pesos could probably buy a car! I withdrew a bit as I
mentioned for tickets for the bus to the Rioja, and I'll be getting a
refund for the mission for that in a couple weeks, giving me thus a
$200 float of personal money, which is enough for anything that comes
up.
Thank you for your love and prayers!
Love,
Elder Schlachter
