2-28-11

Family,

Did you hear Mike got his P blessing?!?!?! How cool!!

This week Elder Walkenhorst and I had a lesson with a Peruvian girl named Marcela. She has a lot of potential. She was raised in peru and went to a Highschool that was run by the 7th day adventists. She has bible knowledge but it lacks background and importance to be honest. I explained to her it's fantastic to have bible knowledge, but that gets us NOWHERE! People for the past 1500 years have been trying to figure out the bible since the great apostasy started and still have disputes. So it's frustrating to tell someone that says they are correct that they aren't. Because you really have to pull them out and have them kind of look at the whole mess from the outside in instead of inside out. We realize that people have been fighting about the bible for a long time, they also say they can "prove their points" with the bible. Yet, no one has figured out "the truth." She asked us "well if the Book of Mormon is the word of God, why doesn't anyone else read it?" I told her "Because that would mean that they are wrong! So read it!!" So we'll see what happens.

We met with the Reyes family. Sister Reyes is still taking classes from the Jehova's Witnesses. She told us that she threw away a little angel statue because the JW's told her that it was idol worship. I told her that is wrong and it's ok to have a statue, just don't pray to it... We talked about the apostasy, but I honestly don't think she wants to understand. She told us "I'm just trying to be the best person I can and do exactly what God wants" so I told her, great, come to church -- it's the 4th commandment. She didn't show up last sunday. She was offended by someone in church and that fuels some of the reason for not wanting to come, but to be honest I'm out of sympathy for this woman. If she wants to come to church she needs to do it for Herself and her Savior. People in church aren't perfect. She talked about how people are in God's house and should be good. I let her know, people, while in God's house, are not gods, so it's not going to happen all the time. I think she's just fishing for excuses! This week when we go over I'm going to let her know that we will not be coming back unless she shows some effort.

Not much else has gone on this week! Hopefully everything is going well at home. I love you all!!

Elder Conner Allred