Another use for the Book of Mormon....

This is a place called La Mina, where we went last week

Well we are one week from transfers. I really have no clue what's going to happen. It'll be weird, because we had some huge emergency transfers about in the middle of this transfer. Almost half of our district changed in week 3. No one seems to know why, but it was mission-wide. And the saddest part was:  They closed Santo Tomas. It makes me very sad, my first area now doesn't have missionaries. I don't know why, but I'm hoping that it reopens soon.

This week has been pretty good, with its ups and downs like normal. Sadly, the D. family didn't go to church this weekend. They´re obviously still more or less in their desires to return. We had a really fun Family Home Evening with them last Monday, and we talked about forgiveness (very subtle, I know). They accepted it really well. But this week has been really focused on finding new people. But we have one guaranteed baptism coming up in March. It's again the child of a less-active member, but this one is actually making the effort to return. The problem here will be her dad. We want him to baptize her (obviously) but he doesn't feel the desire to be active again. It seems to me that we might have to be a bit tough with him. Even if he's not ready, his daughter's getting baptized. We're trying to use it as motivation. So far it hasn't proved effective, maybe he needs it to actually happen to realize that he's missing the blessings. The difficult part about going to them is that they live far in a very poor part, so we have to go during the day when it's blazing hot. People tell me it reaches 36 or 38 degrees Celcius here, I'm not sure quite how much that is, but I testify that it feels very hot. So we have to walk probably about a mile down a road without a tree in sight, normally at about 3 in the afternoon. I have learned that not only is the Book of Mormon a powerful testimony of the Lord, but it also does a really good job of blocking out the sun. But they're really great, so it's worth it.

I've really been enjoying my time here, I've gotten a whole lot better at talking to people in the street. The problem is that everyone here belongs to the Pentecost church. And I mean everyone. Every other person we talk to is Pentecostal. We've learned from much experience that they train their members to respond to us. And their tactic is basically talk and talk and talk until they take up all of our time. It's funny, because they're very animated, they start standing and shouting and moving and it's hilarious. We actually had a run-in with one of their preachers yesterday. We were there for about an hour and got maybe 15 minutes of talking in. We basically could bear our testimonies and try to share a small message with scriptures. I almost laughed, because after bearing my testimony he started talking about how Satan has power and is working very hard to trick us all (basically telling me that my testimony came from Satan. Lovely, I know). But as he was shouting and reasoning and everything, trying to convince me, all I could think of was something that I wrote in Moses 1 last year in seminary. In this part, Satan is trying to convince Moses that he has power, not God. And Moses rebukes him and sends him away. What I wrote down is that he basically was saying "you can't deny what I felt". And that's exactly what came to my mind. It's incredible how strong a testimony is. And it's something so simple. We FEEL that it's true. Maybe we can't prove it. Maybe we can't describe it exactly. But we cannot deny it when it comes. I think that's why denying the Holy Ghost is the unpardonable sin. It's literally denying everything we feel and much of what we are. One literally lies to himself. Sorry, I guess that was my deep thought for the week. 

I love you all, I love being out here. Colombia and Colombians are some of the best people on the earth. They are so incredibly friendly and loving. It's amazing. I hope you all have a great week. love you!