Alright well halloween was pretty crazy here!! The day before, day of, and every day since halloween all the teenagers around here dress up with their scariest costumes and walk all around town playing drums suuuuper loud, from like 2 in teh afternoon and on there are drum rolls heard on every corner, other than that there was a TON of music, k theres always music, TONS here in Cali, but SOOO MUCH loud music on halloween night, ughhh we couldnt find anyone to teach that night and nobody stopped to talk in the street but oh well, it was fun to see all the cool costumes here, other than the teenagers with drums they celebrate halloween here like in the states...
So something interesting my comp and i have been talking about lots lately and analyzing: Colombians consider themselves extremely, extremely free and independent people... this is a good thing in many ways, but it makes missionary work interesting. The way in which this is most commonly seen as a missionary is when we try to get them to try new things in the lessons, haha ohhhhh its always interesting... for example: Most people are willing to say the last prayer in the first lesson (we never leave until they pray, we get on our knees and stay there for half an hour often times till they pray) but those who arent, when we ask them to do so, and then get on our knees and wait for them, they always say we are ´´insisting´´ and that they dont like people to insist on them... they think theyre free and that nobody can make them do anything... So we wait their on our knees haha while they sort of throw a fit... Some of the members, when they go with us to the lessons, have said ´´elders maybe we should wait a few lessons for them to say the first prayer, let them get comfortable first´´ but we simply explain to them that until the investigators keep a commitment we give them, usually the first one is simply a prayer, they are the ones in control of the lesson, not us. But, when we invite them to pray, and show that we arent going to leave till we do so, we take control of the lesson, and then we see who is really willing to change, improve their lives, make and keep commitments, and who isnt willing to do so but simply wants to hear pretty messages about Christ and families without leaving their comfort zone or changing their lives...
Eso es lo que más he aprendido esta semana, a manejar las lecciones como El Señor necesita que lo hagamos, no simplemente someternos a las bajas expectativas de algunos investigadores. Lo interesante es que al aprender esto, veo mucho la forma en que El Señor hace lo mismo con nosotros. Normalmente cuando nos frustramos, es porque Él está tomando en control un poquito más e invitándonos a salir de nuestro estado de comodidad y tratar algo nuevo. Sé que así es cómo llegaremos a la perfección, en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.
los amo
nos vemos
Élder Tenney
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