Everyone Loves Ramon! 9-9-13

Hi family!

First thing´s first, we had a baptism this Saturday. Jesús Ramón was baptized by my companion and confirmed yesterday (also by my companion). It was a nearly perfect baptismal service. We had some really good speakers and the ordinance went well. My companion began the prayer wrong, but quickly corrected himself. :P After the baptism, Elder López and I sang a special number. We sang "Más Cerca Dios, De Ti" (Nearer My God, To Thee) while a sister played the piano. It really brought the Spirit into the room. I didn't notice until I sat down, but a lot of people were crying a little. Apparently, Jose Del Angel recorded it and is thinking of sending the video to that family member the Mom knows in Utah. Maybe Mom will get a chance to hear it. :) Anyways, to make a long story short, the baptism was a success. :D

I feel kinda bad when I write you guys because I can never remember the special experiences that happen during the week. I usually write them in my journal, but I don´t have it with me when I write. Nearly every day we have some sort of experience that testifies that this work is true. One comes to mind right now.

We visited an inactive family yesterday. Turns out they had a pretty rough time this week. An elderly lady in the family was accidentally trapped outside in their tiny back patio when the door shut behind her. No one was home to let her in so she was stuck outside for twelve hours. She´s fine, but it was a rough experience for someone of her age. Also, her brother who lives on the second floor had everything stolen out of his car. Basically they were feeling pretty cruddy when we came by. They expressed to us the desire to return to church and do what the Lord wants them to do.  We shared a scripture with them and they continued to share their gratitude. They thanked us for our persistence and told us that we always came by exactly when we were needed. It was a small experience, but it helped me to realize that the Lord really guides us to where we need to be.

Dad - You asked about my current companionship. It´s going great! Elder López and I are good friends and we work well together. He´s taught me a lot and he´s a hard worker. I´m really grateful for the time I´ve had with him.  We always joke around in the apartment. He´s a lot of fun. :) He´s from Durango, Mexico. It´s in the upper middle part of the country. Sorry I´m not too specific with our daily life. It´s just fairly repetitive so I don´t think about it much. We usually have appointments and when we don´t we fill the time up looking for people that we already have met in order to see if we can teach them something real quick. As we walk to lessons we usually contact a few people in the street. We do that until the end of the day. Of course, each day is a little different, but that´s how they generally go. 

I love you all and hope all is well.  Thanks for all your e-mails! Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Sean Horrocks

Mixing things up a bit - 9-2-13

Hi everyone!

This week was... normal. We didn´t have any baptisms, but we´re finding a lot more people to teach. It´s taking a while, but little by little we´re filling up the tanks. The weather has been hot as usual. 

I have some interesting news. The work is going to change quite drastically. Now every investigator has to come to church at least five times before they can be baptized. That makes the teaching process A LOT longer. There´s going to be pros and cons with these changes, but the good news is that more of the baptisms will be true converts instead of just numbers. The work might be a little harder, but it´s going to yield better fruits. With this change the missionaries are supposed to be staying in the same area for longer now. We´ll see what happens there. I think this is my last transfer in this area, but who knows?

One stupid/funny story: my companion got yelled at for something dumb. We were teaching an inactive member whose husband isn´t a member. We were just finishing up when he came home. Now normally he´s been very friendly towards us, but this time was different. We asked if we could help them with anything before leaving and he just starts pointing at my companion and yelling about how he needs to say his name when someone asks for it. Apparently, the last time we passed by we had knocked and he had asked who it was. I can´t remember exactly what my companion said, but it wasn´t his name. So, weeks later, the guy is freaking out about it. It was hard to keep a straight face. It was one of those moments where you really want to hit somebody. My companion and I both looked at each other like "...Really?" It was really childish and kinda ticked me off. It surprises me how people can be sometimes.

Anyways... we had another zone activity today. We played a little volleyball and ate pizza and stuff. Three other elders and I also played a game called three hit kill. You have to bounce a soccer ball (or hacky sack) in the air three times with your feet, catch it, then hit somebody with it. I haven´t played it in a long time so it was a lot of fun for me. :)

It was interesting about those Jehovah s Witnesses. We spoke with a family of them and most of them were really respectful. They expressed their disagreements and ideas without being rude. Then out of nowhere comes this lady who was flat out mean. She just started citing a bunch of Bible references and telling us that we´re wrong. She barely even let us speak before she was going off again about how wrong we are. Unfortunately that´s how a lot of the Jehovah s Witnesses are around here. They´re the classic example of someone with a beam in his eye trying to pull the mite out of his neighbor´s eye. (I may have paraphrased. I don´t remember what words they use in English.) They may try to preach the gospel according to the Bible, but they don´t teach with love at all. Instead they´re very contentious  Aside from that, they´ve changed their Bible. It´s not even called the Bible, it´s called the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. It drives me nuts. Anywhoser.... that´s enough bashing on other religions.

I know this gospel is true. There is way too much evidence supporting it. I don´t think any other church could progress as much as ours if all their missionaries were dumb 18/19 year old. Apart from that, everything just fits. Those who study the Book of Mormon and the Bible with real intent cannot deny their authenticity. All of that aside, there is no greater proof than an answer from God. If you haven´t done it already, I invite you all to pray for a confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. Even if you have done it and received an answer. Ask for another confirmation. When we know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true, everything else falls into place. We can know of a surety that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is Christ´s true church.

I love you all and I can´t wait to be with you again. Count your blessings and be a blessing for someone else.

With all my love,

Elder Sean Horrocks