The Best Two Years

The Best Two Years

Monday, June 23, 2014

The World Cup and Not Taking No for an Answer

June 23, 2014

Hola Familia!

Living in Latin America, one grows to love soccer.  The World Cup is everywhere.  President hasn't set a rule on the cup, so missionaries take that like it is ok to watch it.  We only watch the US games.   That is kind of the rule of thumb.  And when we do it, we try to watch them with members, investigators, or less actives.  Luckily, we have a gringo that lives in the building next door!  He invited us over again yesterday with the Zone Leaders and the AP's to watch the game.  It was intense, and we thought the US had it, but in the last fifteen seconds, Portugal scored.  Now the US has to tie or beat Germany, or it might be a little tough for them to pass.

We found a less active lady named S, thanks to a reference from a member.  We contacted her and she got baptized about six years ago, and stopped attending about three years ago. She has a son who is nine, and we have been teaching him, and he is getting baptized this Saturday.  We had a lesson there this last week with the member who gave us the reference.  S has a hard time coming to church because she is a single mom, works until seven every day except Sunday, and Sunday is the day she does all the housework and spends time with her kids. She said that if she comes to church, there isn't time to do everything else.  Well, as missionaries, we don't take no for an answer!  Haha! We had a good lesson with her, and I talked about how I sometimes had to work on Sunday, and how I felt the difference in my life when I didn't go to church.  We promised her that if she put God first in her life, there would be time enough to balance all her responsibilities, and that she would feel happier and less stressed.  Sure enough, she showed up to church yesterday!

That was the most positive thing about yesterday. We found out earlier this week that it is going to cost around $300 to get C married, and so they decided not to do it.  We talked to our Bishop to get help from our Ward and the Stake, but they won't accept the help, and they also want to wait until they return to visit Nicaragua so their family can be there when they get married.  It was a little sad, but I realized that if we hadn't taught them and gotten to know them, they probably wouldn't even be thinking about getting married, and they definitely wouldn't be thinking about getting baptized.  They aren't just thinking about getting baptized, they know they will.  They just need to get married first.

A and P weren't able to come to church yesterday, so we will have to move the baptism back a week or two until they can come one more time. They are doing well.  They say that whenever they have a tough time, the Mormons have always shown up, and that is how they know that the church is special. They have been through rough times, but have started to build on the solid gospel foundation.

Not much more happened this week... I finally got the Panamanian drivers license, and we had President's car for three days while he was out in David, so that was nice!  Traffic in Panama completely sucks!  It can take three hours to travel a distance that would be like us going from our house to Scott and Jereme's! But it will be nice to be able to drive!  Well, P-Day is already up, so I should get going...I love you all!

Love,

Elder Austin Michael Kipp

No comments:

Post a Comment