Spanish for English

My Spanish is getting a lot better. I made a goal to not speak English anymore and it has helped me a lot. Yesterday, one of the assistants called me and was speaking to me in English so I decided to speak English back and I couldn´t. The words just didn´t come to my head. I guess when Spanish comes in, English has to leave.

This week we couldn´t put any appointments with people so we decided to focus on finding more. We heard stories of missionaries offering tours of the chapel so we tried it. We had a table full of pamphlets and stuff, we had a short video that people can watch and some other nice touches here and there. We taught so much in so little time. I was really surprised by how many people wanted to do a tour. We hung out in the street and just asked people if they wanted to do it.

So now we have a good pool of people to teach. Now the key is to be able to find them when they are home.

We started to teach a guy named Juan. His wife is a member and wants more than anything to be sealed in the temple with him but he is a fisherman and spends all his time out at sea and doesn´t want anything to do with nothing. He also has been smoking since he was 8. The doctor said he is going to die soon if he doesn´t stop but that’s not important to him. We finally got the chance to teach him the plan of salvation and it changed him a little. We have been fasting and praying that he can understand why he is here. It is kind of a sad situation but when we taught him that he has potential more than just in this world, he took a big step in his life and we saw a little hint of desire to change.

We also found a group of 4 kids that are about 16 years old. They were hanging out playing minecraft and they let us in to talk. We asked one of the kids what his thoughts were about god and he told us that he believes there is a god but he thinks most people go to church and pretend to believe out of fear of not fitting in with a family or the culture. Another kid said that he is pretty sure that there is a god but everybody talks about feeling the spirit but he has never felt it and he doubts that the people shouting and shaking their hands in church are actually feeling it. They blew us away by how spot on they were. We explained a little bit about the difference between Christianity the culture and Christianity the religion and they really liked it. We are getting together again this Tuesday.

I have never mentioned how people greet each other here. Between guys they first shake hands, then hug, then shake hands again to finish it off. It was a little weird at first but I like it. Between girls and guys, they kiss on the cheek. Between girls, they kiss on the cheek too and if men know each other really well, they do it too. Just an interesting culture thought.

Hopefully next week I’ll be able to put pictures up because I have a lot. 

Love you guys!

Elder Thompson