I hope that you are all having a good day! It’s been a pretty good week here in Engativa, well, I guess I will start by telling you guys about what happened this week….
So this week went by INCREDIBLY fast, I don’t even know where it went! But we had some good things happen. We started out helping out Viviana y Juan Gabriel trying to get them married despite their financial problems and the high cost of getting married here. We were making little keychains out of plastic and then you draw on it with Sharpie. You drew like, I dunno, Winnie the Pooh or something like that and then you could put them in an oven and they formed like a hard keychain. But that didn’t really pan out because it’s a lot of time for little results. So I suggested that we make Brigadero which is a Brazilian cookie that I learned how to make from Elder Goncalves. I will have to make it for you guys when I get home. But I made it for them and we settled on doing that. However, on Friday night we were praying, and we have been praying for them nonstop and as we both went to our personal prayer, well I had the impression to fast for them. I finished my prayer and I said: “Hey, Elder, I think we need to fast for Viviana y Juan Gabriel.” And he was like: “Really? I had that impression too.” And so were we’re like, Alright we have to do it. That’s inspiration.
But anyway, so we decided to do that and we fasted. Then the next day we went to go pick up people to come to church; we went across our area to a family and she wasn’t there… story of my life. Then we decided alright, well we are going to go pick up Leonardo. I’m going to tell you a little more about Leonardo a little later on. But we went and he wasn’t there either. Alright, whatever. So we are going to the church and a taxi stops right in front of us and it’s a member. He says: “Get in. I’m on my way to church.” So we got in and we showed him the way to the chapel. We had like 10 minutes so we decided to go run and try to pick up another investigator. But we didn’t think anything of it really, his name was Alejandro, and so we went and picked up this investigator and we came back and well, Bishop told me on Saturday that I was going to be giving a talk, didn’t end up giving the talk, I don’t know what happened haha. But I am going to give it in 2 weeks. Anyway, so we go through the meetings and everything, everything is good, and then afterwards later that night at like 7:30 we went to go visit Viviana y Juan Gabriel. After the visit they took us home, last night. She said: “Hey, Elder, I wanted to tell you that Alejandro told me that he could put us in contact with a friend of his that could get our matrimony, our marriage cheaper if not free. And that he would do that for us because he thought that we were members, but when we told him that we were investigators I guess that moved him.” Because they really do just look like members, they are always coming to church and everything. So I looked at my companion in the back of the car and I was like: “OH MY GOODNESS. THAT WAS INCREDIBLE.” The Lord prompted us to fast, and maybe that was so that we could be sensitive enough to the spirit when he told us to go to Leonardo’s house and to pick him up, and we did, and he helped Alejandro get to the church, and the moment that he needed the help, if it wasn’t for that maybe he wouldn’t have gotten to church and maybe he wouldn’t have gotten a ride with Viviana and Juan Gabriel afterwards and maybe they wouldn’t have received that offer. So that was a real miracle that we saw there.
Another miracle that we saw was Viviana’s brother, Leonardo, who is 19 and has a little girl that is about a year and a half old. He has a history of being irresponsible, but we have really been trying to work with him the last few weeks. We have really hit it off really well with him until… he said: “Elders, I want to accompany you guys. Can I do that?” and we said: “yeah”. You should understand that he is what they call in Colombia a Ñero. A Ñero is like gangster. They are just the trashy gangsters there are around here. He normally dresses like one of those. So when we got to his house it floored us that he was in a shirt and tie to come and accompany us. So we were like: “Leonardo, what happened?!” we were in shock. We were like: “Wait. Is that you?” He looked super professional, super responsible, and he accompanied us. We first taught him and his soon to be wife and then we went to some other appointments. But during that appointment he shared with us that he received an answer about the Book of Mormon. He said that when the missionaries asked him to read the introduction, and he did, and he picked out out of the last two paragraphs of the introduction where it tells you to read, ponder, and pray. So that’s what he did. He read the introduction and he sat there in his room and thought about it one night, and he went and turned out the light and it was totally dark in the room and he prayed. He got down on his knees in the dark by the side of his bed and he prayed. And he said that in that moment he felt his whole body just become cold. Then he opened his eyes and the whole room was illuminated. Completely. He could see everything. He said: “wow!” he got up and turned the light on and he was like: “wow I just felt this peace. Just this tranquility that was so deep. It kind of scared me. So I didn’t read the book again.” We were like WHAT?!?!?! Really? But we helped him to try and recognize that that was certainly a message from our Heavenly Father, and that certainly he had answered his prayer. I am sure that he recognizes that because he went with us, well dressed and everything. It really shocked us. AND he shared his testimony with all of our investigators. It was the first time, I think, that I have brought an investigator to participate in a lesson like a member. It was just not something that we expected from Leonardo. He was just such a gangster! But he is having a change of heart. That’s what’s really rewarding to me.
In other news, Colombia won the game with Polonia (Poland) this week. ha HA! So they are advancing. They won 3-nothing and we could not be in the street during the game. If you don’t know, it’s the World Cup right now and everybody is losing their minds here. So we are in the apartment in our 6th floor, and we have our window open to hear when there’s a goal, and you HEAR when there’s a goal. The whole city turns into a stadium. People screaming, people honking their horns, they have like these plastic trumpets that they sell in the street that are as loud as a car horn that you blow on and it just turns into a nuthouse. Especially when they won the game. I actually got video of it. It was crazy. Then we went out in the streets and everybody was in the streets, and everybody has the jersey of Colombia, everybody is wrapped in Colombian flags, you have people running out in the streets yelling. There were a couple of people covered in Corn Flour… they throw Corn Flour at each other… it was a party! But we couldn’t go out during the game because of that. That and literally EVERYBODY in the city watches that game. So there wouldn’t be anybody that would receive us I don’t think. But President said stay in the house, so that was a lot of fun.
Well, I think that’s the end of my recording for this week. it has been a week of miracles, and I hope that you have had a good week as well. I love you so much, see you later, Chao!
-Elder Lewis
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