She's My Pal

I don’t know if I have told you this, but we were visiting a family and asked them if one of their neighbors would have any interest in listening to us. They talked about several then said, "but don´t visit the lady on the corner!"  Apparently, this older lady that wanted a few extra bucks and is now the source of the drug trade here!  ha  the police never suspect her. They just think all the hoodlums that pass by her house are the grandchildren going for a visit. 

We contacted an man on the street and with great enthusiasm he invited us to his house which was down the street. We entered and he told us to wait a second as he went and fetched cigarettes and his large beer bottle. He didn’t think twice about this. It was part of a daily routine to de-stress after a day of work. We asked him to wait and he surprised us and gladly did.  He wasn’t quite listening to our message, and then started to go off about his life and said " I know your doctrine; I spent a lot of time listening to you and been to your church and my neice is one of you. But the thing is, I believe that your church, mine (Catholic), and them Mormons all believe the exact same thing!" Haha, we said: "wait, we are Mormons." He was shocked and said "you are?" Ha, then he started asking weird questions about polygamy. So we told him we had to go and helped him say a prayer and we took off.    

This week also, we were teaching a lesson to the daughter in law of a member. In the middle of the lesson she pulled out a piece of cloth and started working on an embroidery of the virgin Mary (Guatalupe here). Ha, I think that was a less than subtle message.

The woman we have been teaching needs to go to church one more time and then can be baptized. She asked us if she should bring a towel for it or she would just air dry walking home wet. Ha, that was a funny image. She’s my pal. She told us her neighbors have been ignoring her since she started talking to us. 

I was talking to an elder and he told me that his grandparents had served in Serbia. One time they visited a ward and found the young women to be participated in the passing and blessing of the sacrament. They talked to the bishop after about the problem: "that the young women didn’t have the priesthood." The bishop was embarrassed and said they he would fix the problem right away.  They went back a month later and found the young women still passing and blessing.  They asked the bishop about it after and he smiled content and replied, "Don’t worry, after you left we gave all of the women the priesthood."