Mission Blog of Elder Seymour: Sometimes I forget the US exists...[August 4, 2014]

Well... It was a good week.

The one thing with Elder Mendoza that is different than Elder Suarez is that we just aren't as efficient with time. We end up having half the lessons that I had with Elder Suarez, and I am not sure exactly what to do.

We had a lesson with one of our investigators that has a baptismal date. On Saturday, we got her excited to get married and baptized. On Sunday, she didn't come to church with her 'husband' (who is an active member now), and later that day, she told us that she didn't want to be baptized or married and I just said in my mind, garbage, so close (I say garbage a lot now for some reason). This is the second time this has happened, but luckily we were more or less prepared for this. Following the spirit, we helped her to realize that she has a bit of pride and doesn't have the faith required to receive an answer to her prayers. Actually, that is really the only thing keeping her from following Jesus Christ in her life. I used Ether 12:6 to explain to her that we don't receive faith from our testimony, we need faith to receive a testimony. Hopefully, she will get to that point, and I know she can.

On a lighter note, a weird food type thing that I tried this week was a drink that tasted like chocolate chip cookies if you don't add the chocolate. It is called agua de amaranto. Amaranto is some sort of seed I guess.

In the Colonia Nueva San Salvador, there was something reminiscent of a block party. I am still a little confused why they had it, as with practically all parties, but it had something to do with a visitation of the Savior. Speaking of which, the Catholics here also celebrate baptisms and first communions with big fiestas and lots of drinking, loud music, and dirty dancing. Sort of interesting as it clearly can't be for the person being baptized and that they celebrate a sacred thing like that... oh well.

During the fiesta, we passed by one of our investigator's house. It was super awkward because they had the door wide open and were drinking alcohol. At least we still haven't taught them about the word of wisdom. I guess we know what we will teach them next. :)

Anyways, Have a great week!

Élder Seymour.