¡¡¡APRIL FOOLS!!! I´m not going to China-town. I´m still here in Juncal, I´m still working in Villa 31, and thank goodness I´m still speaking Spanish. I miss all of our crazy traditions, and started thinking about Mom´s epic April Fools jokes, and I didn´t want to be left out. There really are a lot of chinese people here, and yeah, we do have a chinese Book of Mormon, but thank goodness I don´t have to learn to read it. :)
But this week was still crazy. It´s been raining a lot, because it´s turning into winter. In the Villa, when it rains, it floods the streets and there´s mud everywhere. It would be a ton of fun if it weren´t for million dogs that live in the streets. The water is... colorful. I´ll let you paint your own picture as to what´s in it.
This week was a lot like the last one. Tree lady yelled at us again. Isn´t she a charm? We still are having a little trouble finding our investigators, and they still have trouble getting over their challenges that they have accepting the Gospel. We´ve made some new plans for spending as much time as we can in the Villa to most effectively help the people come unto Christ. There are plenty of extremely prepared and ready people who are only blocked by one or two tiny hurdles that are causing all sorts of problems. I pray that we can remove all of them so that they can enjoy the blessings of the restored Gospel brings for them, their family, and all of their future generations.
That part about new Elders coming into the Villa was true. There´s now 6 of us in one villa, but honestly we could have an entire zone here. It´s huge! But we aren´t the only missionaries. We regularly see Jehovah´s Witnesses and Evangelits. The other day, after a long prayer meeting in the street, one woman came up to me and the other Elders with a pamphlet, and nervously said ¨Um, can I give this to you guys? It-- it´s of God! Uh, about Jesus Christ and how He died for us... *looking at our name tags with the bolded ¨Jesucristo¨ in the center* ...oh but I guess you know that.¨ We smiled and politely accepted the pamphlet. I wouldn´t really read or use it, but I had to respect her courage in opening her mouth. That is after all what we´re trying to do!
I do want to testify about the important difference in what we´re doing. Much of it is exactly the same! All of us believe in that Christ suffered and died to pay for our sins. We believe in some sort of Being superior to us in Whom we must trust entirely in order to be saved. But I have to testify that the only way to truely achieve the grand and incredible blessing of salvation by means of Exhaltation can only be realized, is by keeping the commandments that He gives. The only way we can follow Him is by directly following Him in the kingdom that He set up. I testify that through the prophet Joseph Smith, He restored that kingdom in it´s fulness, and through another divinely appointed prophet, guides it today just as in ancient times, when He was on the Earth.
The ¨Mormon Church¨ isn´t just another opinion of Christianity. It´s not just another choice for Sunday worship. It´s not just another church established by a man. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the kingdom of God established on the Earth in preparation for the Second Coming of the Messiah. We´re so enthusiastic about the missionary work, not just because we think we´re right, but because we have a divine mandate from the Eternal Father to prepare the world for when His Son returns to recieve His kingdom.
Les amo un montón. Gracias por sus oraciones. ¡Hurrah por Israel!
-Élder Goff
P.S.
Picture 1- That was my bed. Don´t worry we have a new one. But despite how bad it looks, apparently it was nowhere near falling. It took the office Elders like an hour to take it apart.
Picture 2- Yeah I planned on pranking you guys. :) Love you!
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