Hey everyone! So this is probably going to be short, because all we
did this week was tract. I’ll be honest, Beaverton has some good,
strong potential, but it’s very concentrated, and very hidden, so we
just have to find it.
Right now, we have a VERY solid, golden investigators named Estuardo.
I have talked a little about him before, but I’ll talk about him more
again. So Estuardo is from Guatemala and has only been here for about
two years. He used to be a catholic missionary, and knows a lot about
the Catholic Church and the gospel and the Bible. So missionaries
first came in contact with Estuardo’s cousin, Juan Carlos. The
missionaries gave Juan Carlos a Book of Mormon and bade him to read
(lol). So Juan Carlos was having a tough time reading it because of
the language and the proper Spanish and it was just a little tough for
him to understand. So Juan Carlos asked his cousin Estuardo to help
him, because he knew Estuardo was a missionary and knew a lot about
the Bible and the language. Estuardo accepted to help Juan Carlos
understand, so Estuardo started reading the Book of Mormon. Before the
missionaries had a lesson with Estuardo, he had already read eleven
chapters of the Book of Mormon, and he told the missionaries that he
knew it was true by the way it was written. He had a testimony, before
he even met with missionaries. So we have met with him a couple of
times and we have taught him some of the lessons and he is all over
it. He reads, he gets the concepts, he finishes our sentences when we
are teaching him something. He is pretty amazing. A couple weeks ago,
we asked him to be baptized, but haven’t set a date with him because
he currently works on Sunday’s and he can’t come to church, but next
week he told us he was going to change his schedule so he can come to
church. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ this week, and
he was super into it. He told us he knows he has to get baptized and
confirmed so he can have the ordinances necessary to have eternal
life. He is an awesome dude, and I know that he has a lot of potential
and a very strong testimony.
So besides that amazing lesson this week, we did a lot of knocking
doors and with that, a lot of fun stories. We met a lady who was a
Wiccan/ witch and she kinda chased us out of a place and threatened us
a little. We had another lady yell at us, threatening to call the cops
because we were trespassing and she followed us to our car to make
sure we left. We drove to the end of the apartments, turned around and
drove by her a couple of times to make her mad and it was hilarious.
Usually we avoid managers offices like the plague because we don’t
want to get kicked out of a place for soliciting, but this week we
knocked out a whole apartment complex, didn’t find any luck and we
said well forget it, we have nobody here, so it won’t matter if we get
kicked out. So we (I) knocked on the managers door (my comp didn’t
want to, he was scared), and the manager was actually a really cool
guy. He was totally cool with us being there and he told us he liked
what we were doing, even though he is a Seventh Day Adventist and he
told us he wasn’t interested. We also knocked a whole apartment
complex and every single door was Muslim and they were nice, but very
firm in their beliefs, so we didn’t find any luck there. After driving
around that place a little, we realized there was a mosque right next
door. We met a lot of fun people! At the beginning of my mission, I
hated tracting and knocking on doors, but I came to terms with the
fact that it’s necessary to the work and so I started to do it and
forced myself to like it for the sake of the work, and now I realize
that it’s fun. It’s cool to meet a bunch of new people. I see it in
the way that I have the chance to knock on a bunch of strangers doors
and meet hundreds of new people every day. And at first I was a little
embarrassed because I thought these people would mock me or something,
but I realized that I’m probably never going to see them again, so why
do I care? So it’s been fun since I realized that. Tracting stories
are the best.
Also, more fun news, I had my first dream in Spanish! They tell you
that when you know the language so well you can dream in it, that’s
when you know you made it. It was awesome. I don’t remember exactly
what was going on, but I remember that I had a dream in Spanish and I
totally understood it, and I’m super proud of it. It was awesome.
Yesterday in church, we had two high counsel members come and speak to
us, both from the Pacific branch (I don’t know if I’ve already said
this, but our stake has a Pacific branch because there are so many
Polynesian people here that then have their own branch where they do
half the service in Tongan or Samoan). So the high counsellors came
and they needed someone to translate for them into Spanish. Usually in
all my other areas, the member from the branch presidency does it
because their Spanish is better than ours, but the branch presidency
here didn’t translate for some reason, so they asked me to translate
for one of the speakers and have another guy that spoke Spanish on his
mission to translate for the other. I was SO nervous. I said a prayer
before the talk pleading with Heavenly Father so I could know what to
say and the Spirit could guide me and I could say the right thing. I
was shaking like crazy when I got up there to start, but he started
giving his talk and I started translating and it went super super well
and I was really comfortable and confident at the end. I know that it
was the spirit that helped me and after I got done I said a prayer
thanking Heavenly Father for letting me have the ability to do that.
It was really a neat experience, because it was my first time
translating into Spanish. I have translated into English plenty of
times, but that was my first into Spanish. It was awesome and now I
want to translate for everybody now ahaha. Gift of tongues is real.
Funny story, we also forgot/didn’t know it was Daylight Savings Time.
So every week we have branch counsel before church at 7:30 and so we
wake up at 6:30 like every other day and go to branch counsel. Well,
we didn’t know it was daylight savings, so we woke up to five missed
called from our Branch Presidency. We woke up at what we thought was
6:30, it was already actually 7:30 and we had missed the meeting.
Luckily we got ready quickly and left and when to go pick up people to
take them to church and we didn’t actually miss church. Daylight
savings time is not a mistake you make twice, so I know next time it
happens, I’ll be ready.
But that’s really all about this week! It was a crazy week because we
just knocked like crazy, but it was fun to meet different people and
translate into Spanish. I had a good week! Hope y’all did too!
Anyways, I love y’all! Hope y’all have a great week!
Love, Elder Davies
Elder Jeremiah Davies 