First of all, whoever said it DOESN'T get cold here, I'll NEVER wear a suit, and I'll ALWAYS be under the warmth of the sun was a liar. We've had some pretty killer cold days, I've worn a suit (and needed it) everyday, and the sun has been absent sometimes. Also, it looks a lot like Moses here except the Sandia mountains are right there and that's pretty sweet. They're pretty big and awesome and we have a sweet view not far from our apartment that we can look over the entire area of the Querque and it goes right up to the mountains. I have some pictures but apparently I'm not smart enough to upload pictures and show you. I had to break out the sweet sweater 2 nights ago or else I would've frozen to death. It's good though because that makes up for the very hilly terrain of the star heights area of rio rancho, the coldness makes it so I don't burn to death! We live in a pretty nice apartment at the top of the giant hill so when we need to go back there we ride up the hill and my legs start burning. I am gonna have massive legs by the time I am done in star heights. By the way, I think there are only 2 companionships in our whole zone that are on the bikes but I personally like it. We get rides from other missionaries to the grocery store and to the library to email so that's all right. Elder Jacobs has been in this area for 3 months already so by the time I'm done being trained he will have been here for 6 months. He thinks that I'll probably stay and he will end up somewhere else.
Elder Jacobs is pretty cool though. He's funny and he knows what he is doing. On my first full day we just went around visiting people and we didn't really do much teaching at all. Just that law of chastity lesson. I asked him why we weren't teaching much and he said something dad has told me a couple of times. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I felt stupid because I just wanted to get out and start teaching and just getting in to missionary mode. It doesn't work like that though. There are these 8 fundamentals lessons that you're supposed to study along with PMG and one of the fundamentals is to teach people, not lessons. That's probably the thing I've gotta work on the most. I just get so worried that I'm gonna miss an important principle in the lesson and that becomes my main focus instead of focusing on what the person we are teaching really needs to hear. But it's awesome. I've met a lot of people already that need the gospel in their lives and I hope I can help them!
One of these people is Sherie. I think she's probably 50 years old or something like that and has grown up here in this area. She is the one that we taught the law of chastity to. She has been living with the same guy named Geno for about 9 years and she really just needs to get marriedbut she's afraid to be married. She was married for 30 years before and then all of a sudden that fell apart and she was being abused and whatnot so she is scared to be married again. We're trying to help resolve those concerns for her and to help her make that step and be married to Geno. Geno is a good guy but he's only been part of a lesson once. Anyway, Sherie knows the church is true and she really wants to be baptized but that is her hurdle to get over and we're trying to help her with that. Something really interesting happened yesterday though. We invited her to a baptismal service on saturday night and she went without letting us know which is fine and dandy but when she went all these floods of memories hit her and she remembered that she was baptized long ago! She isn't sure if it was in another church or not though. It's possible though because the spirit brings all things to remembrance and the spirit is definitely present at a baptismal service. Anyway, we had membership records sent for so we can know for sure if she is already a member or not. Investigator until proven member though, right?
Another man we are teaching calls himself Cowboy. One day we were riding our bikes along the road and he was walking his massive pit bull and yelled at us to stop. He just got out of jail about 3 weeks ago or something like that and he thought he should stop us because we could maybe help him out. Cowboy lives with his wife Tanya and he has quite the history. Cowboy is a recovering meth addict and has been to jail a plethora of times and he really feels ashamed for the things he has done in his life to hurt his wife and children. They have 4 kids that live with them. One is a teenager and pregnant, one is 9 and there are 2 little babies. The last time he was in jail his wife was working on divorce and stuff and it almost happened but Cowboy begged and pleaded for her to not divorce him and she gave him another chance. Cowboy really loves his family and his biggest fear is losing his wife and kids because they are all he's got... and his massive pit bull. Anyway, Cowboy asked if we could get him some counseling and we set him up with the addiction recovery plan. Addiction recovery basically focuses on the atonement and he really wants it to help. He said he hasn't done meth for 5 months but he has a lot of other addictions as well and we're working on that with him. I can tell that he really wants to change and it'll take a lot of work but all things are possible through the Lord! They want to be baptized but all those problems will definitely need to be resolved first.
2 days ago, we had a really crappy day. We went and met with a less active lady who is 70 years old and apparently she was never really converted to the gospel. She told us that when we pray we should be praying to Jesus and not to God. She also has a really huge problem with little kids getting up in testimony meeting and bearing their testimony without really understanding. She practically gave us a sermon and she is pretty dang insane. We tried to help her understand that we don't pray to Jesus and one of the reasons is that even Jesus prayed to God. He didn't pray to himself! But she wasn't having any of it and she just chooses to believe certain parts of the scriptures but some things she says aren't true. She told us we need to learn to have the spirit with us also. She's nuts. After that lesson we met with Cowboy and it just didn't go as well as we had planned. He tends to lose focus and he really wasn't focused on that day. That was basically our day. We had gone and visited a bunch of other people but nobody was home and by the time it was 8:00 we had nobody left to visit. Even though my past tracting experiences haven't gone well I felt like we should just walk from our apartment and knock on some doors. We said a prayer and off we went. I felt like we should take a left and we took a left and knocked on 3 doors. Nothing. Then the next door we knocked on we met a lady named Roxy. She was very nice and let us in and she asked us what we were doing out in the cold because it was wicked cold. We told her we were messengers from Jesus Christ and she was interested. We asked her about what her experience with religion is and whatnot and she said she was raised catholic but doesn't like what she's heard on the news about catholic priests and she has looked in to almost every religion because she wants a religious structure for her kids to grow up with. She was also kind of curious as to why there are so many churches so naturally, we taught her about the Restoration and the BoM and read the last 2 paragraphs in the introduction with her. Those paragraphs are golden by the way. She really liked that we didn't want her to take our word for it about Joseph Smith and the BoM. We also asked her that if she comes to know these things are true if she will be baptized on nov. 10th and she said yes! It was sooooooooo awesome and it pumped me up. The next day we talked to her boyfriend and the same things happened. The only problem is... they have kids and have been living together for 11 years and not married. Everybody here either has a chastity or word of wisdom problem it seems. Russel M. Nelson said that if you have problems you can ask the missionaries to help and they can help you! I know that we can and I really hope we can prepare them for baptism!
Anyway, that's my week. I have some questions though. I heard that OSU is undefeated, is that true? If so, Oregon must put a stop to that. Is Oregon still undefeated? What about the Packers? Who's in the world series? All my questions are sports questions mainly. We had stake conference so I didn't meet a bunch of members yet but that's cool that the John's emailed you mom! They are a way cool family. In the MTC I walked by a door that had new missionaries in it and I said welcome elders and then one of them yelled at me by name and I walked back to the door and lo and behold, Austin Burke in all his might and glory stood before me. We took a picture in the lunchroom but I didn't have my camera. It was awesome!
That's all I have for now! The other missionaries take an eternity to email so that's why this one is so long if you're wondering. We're gonna go play some basketball and p-ball (dodgeball with tennis balls) soon so I'll catch ya later! The church is true. Don't forget it! EVER! This gospel will help you receive exaltation!
Love all ya'll
Elder Black
Pictures:
1.) raising elder zirker from the dead
2.)Apostate missionaries
3.)District with bro. anderson
4.)Sandia mountains
5.) Elder Phillips!
6.)MTC district
7.)With bro. Sebesta
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