July 18, 2011

Hola familia,

Wow, what a week. The weather has been pretty much perfect!

That is great that Emily has got her call!! Tell her congratulations for me!!!!

We had a good Sunday. Our investigator, Ramon, went to church and had a good experience. His beliefs came out on Saturday a discussion that we had with him, that the Godhead are one in being. We had a big discussion with him about that. He has studied a lot about spiritualism... and he doesn’t believe that families can be forever so when we got to church he was walking in and the priesthood meeting was about the eternal marriage.... “Noooo”, I was thinking in my head. That brought a lot of doubts up. It is times like that when missionaries start sweating haha. But the Sacrament meeting was great. An active member came with her sister who had recently moved from Asuncion to PJC and the member told us when we could come by this week to teach her! Miracles!!!! And also we were walking one day with my old companion down the street and a lady stopped us in the street to ask us if we had a bible to give her. We had a short conversation with her, gave her a Book of Mormon, and after a few visits (her mother is 103 years old and still living) she commented to us that her neighbors are members of our church. We clapped their neighbor’s house looking for a ¨Jorge¨. A man comes out and says his name is Lazaro and so we start talking to him. Their whole family (Gonzalez family) were pioneers here, going to church in Brazil because there was no church in PJC, and they moved to Asuncion, came back, and lost contact with everyone. That was 15 years ago! The Lord led us to a very humble family that nobody in the church knew about. The brother of this man’s name is Jorge. He is about 21 years old.

We came back with Elder Vasquez and met Jorge’s ¨friend-who-is-a-girl¨, explained that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesucristo and about his appearance to the Nephites. We saw a very strong look of interest to the story, we shared a story from the Book of Mormon that they liked, and committed them to go to church but of course they forgot. So we will be going and working with this family. Their dad passed away. Our goal is activate the family and get them to the temple.

I’m sending a picture of a quote that some missionary left on the wardrobe that I really enjoy reading. I am enjoying reading the latter chapters of Alma. The ways of Moroni were AMAZING and INTELLIGENT! Because he was (Alma 48:11-18), his enemies were mad at him because he kept the commandments of God and was strengthened (Alma 49:27). Which is, I’m sure, how Satan feels when we keep the commandments, that he wants to ¨beber nuestro sangre¨! (as it says in 49:27)

I think that the reason that I love these chapters so much is because the symbolism is so clear. It is not a war of flesh and blood that we are fighting but a battle of testimony, our souls, and faith-see Ephesians 6 (I think, the last chapter). Thanks for everything that you guys do for me! I pray that you will continue to receive the blessings that God has prepared. I am really enjoying this time to be here and we are working everyday looking for new people to find and to help!

Love Elder Lucas Rodgers