This week was awesome! I have been sore from bike since I started, I guess that that may be one of the secrets of the missions, you never are not sore when you are on bike. I bike about 5-15 miles every day, it is pretty nice, but then again not so nice.
So President Bowen left for home this week, and it was quite sad, we do not want him gone! But we now have a new mission president, named President Taggart, who is really excited to be here along with his wife Sister Taggart. They are pretty funny because our Mobile Device Specialist missionaries helped them to get set up on their iPads, and Sister Taggart was just ecstatic about it because now she only has to carry one thing for church and for her scriptures. It was quite hilarious. I personally think that President Bowen and Sister Bowen are irreplaceable, but I also think that the new guys will do a good job. I am sad, but happy and excited at the same time now. Time to get to work. It is funny actually because our numbers as a mission dropped unusually far this week, probably because of the huge change we have had.
Some unfortunate news, so as you all know, I am a professional at breaking and hurting myself right? Well what I bet you didn't know is that I have never broken a touch screen such as my iPod or iPhone until this week. Dang. I dropped my iPad from literally about 4 inches off the ground, and the screen cracked. It is. To super bad, but now I have to get a new one. Dang! Really frustrating actually. But I am not the only one to have done this before, so we are all good. About half the mission has done it already, which is really bad now that I think of it, I lasted quite a while!
This week Elder Silvester and I listened to a talk given my Douglas Callister called, "Your refined heavenly home,", basically it talked about how we need to model our lives and homes after that of Heaven, and what we got out of it is the fact that we speak and talk like immature adults. In Callister's discourse, he mentioned the important fact that when Heavenly Father saw the Earth after it was created, he said that "he saw it was good" not "he saw that it was Awesome." So now in our companionship we are going to be speaking more intelligently, because we want to be seen as professionals. It will be interesting, so far, we still have been caught using words similar to 'Dude'. No more.
So the funny story from this week is from Tuesday, Elder Silvester and I met up with out Ward Mission Leader, Val, and we were teaching some people on this street called Olive, and we have a goal to seriously talk to everyone and to contact every single person we see, and so on Tuesday we were doing so, and we talked to this woman named Maira, and she started getting really loud when we were talking with her, and finally, she invited us to her house, which was super strange, she really wanted to show us a picture of her Daughter that is in Guatemala, and so we all follow her and when we walk inside her home there is a friend of hers sitting in the middle of her apartmement, drinking straight Scotch from this huge bottle. He was so incredibly drunk, and we are sitting there, and he asks us a couple of questions, and then starts getting super loud as well, and throwing his hands and just getting super violent, and I was literally sitting about 3 feet from the man. I saw this man just getting really worked up, and I was like, dang, I am going to punched in the face here any time, I can just feel it, and at that moment, the man said something that made absolutely no sense, and my ward mission leader gets up and sits in front of me and my companion, literally as a body guard, it was cool. But we had to stay there for an hour, listening to this guy yelling and complaining, While he was talking he told us about his love for the woman that was his friend, and she was sitting right there as well. It was funny because she rejected him as anything but her friend, and he almost started crying. It was so funny! Drunk people. Ay Carray. Why? There are so many in my area all of the time, most of the people we meet are like this guy.
This week basically my focus has been on Gina and Alfredo (my recent convert). They have been struggling a lot, and receive literally no support from the ward, because nobody seems to care. Nobody will do their home teaching, or their visiting teaching. Anyways, they have been struggling so incredibly much lately, and cannot seem to see the good. They are drowning right now in everything. We gave Gina the talk by Holland titled "Like a broken vessel" because she suffers from severe depression, and we went over with the Bishop and sat and talked. Gina asked us Sunday morning, is there anyone that is like me in the church, that is facing so many trials, anybody? And so we thought about her question, and we decided instead of just saying that everyone has their own trials and such, we went to the scriptures, and specifically to Job. We read some Job with her that night, and talked about the fact that, even though it is hard right now, if we press forward, we will be rewarded even double of that which we had like unto Job. Bishop Santos read a scripture as well, in 1 Nephi chapter 8, verse 8 and 9. Well actually it is several more verses but it does not matter. It is talking about Lehi's dream.
"Y despuéde haber caminado en la obscuridad por el espacio de muchas horas, empecé implorarle al Señque tuviera compasióe mÃde acuerdo con la multitud de sus tiernas misericordias. Y acontecióe despuéde haber orado al Señ vi un campo grande y espacioso."
Okay so the part I wish to focus on right now, is the part where it says, despues de haber caminado en la obscuridad, or for you English speakers out there, after having been walking in darkness (not the real translation, but it makes more sense in Spanish anyways). Lehi was walking in Darkness dream right, he was lost, but the fact of the matter was that he was still walking, and never had stopped. "Despues de haber caminado en la obscuridad, vi." After I had been walking in darkness, I saw. Again that is not the exact translation for English, but it makes more sense in Spanish.
It is after we walk in Darkness, that we are able to see, when we keep pressing forward with Faith in Christ, we will be able to see again. We all have trials, troubles, and tribulations. What is the point of them? To help us see. To help us see that this life is the time for us to prepare to meet God (Alma 34:32). This is our time, look to the Savior in all you do, persevere, endure, and keep on going. It is all worth it in the end when you can see that you were in darkness, and now are able to see.
Well thank you so much for everything! You guys are awesome! Thanks for the support!
Your favorite missionary in So. Cal!
Elder Weston Scott
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