Week 48: Attack of the Churches

This week was kind of rough for us. This entire week we tried to meet with the Salazar family and we went by everyday of the week and they were never home. Then she called us and the first thing she said was thanks for everything, but I dont want to get baptized... we dont want to continue. My companion had the phone at this moment, but it was on speaker so we were both listening. And my companion asked why she all of a sudden had a change of heart after she had been receiving answers to her prayers. And she gave an excuse that the devil is what is stopping her. But we heard that her mom has been calling her all week telling her lies about the church and that she needs to return to the Catholic faith. We have a FHE planned with them today and we hope that we can listen to her and clear away all the doubts that she may have. 

Also, I have not said too much about this because I did not think that it was too significant but Elder Tellez and I have both realized that this keeps happening to us. So pretty much every week we have been attacked by someone of another faith telling us that our church is false for x reason. We have been attacked by Ex-Mormons that tell us all the lies of anti-mormonism, by catholics, by apostolicas, and last monday Elder tellez said, " the only group that has not attacked us are the Jehovas witnesses." Then what do you know, the next hour we were contacting some guy, when this JW appears from behind us and starts to contend with us saying that we dont teach about Jesus Christ. Then Elder Tellez said, " Well when was the last time that you came to our church" then he just stayed quite. Then he told us that we teach about the Premortal exsistence and he told us that the Bible never talks about a premortal exsistance. So then we read Jeramiah 1:5 that says that, "before I formed you in the belly I knew thee." Then this JW said that it does not mean that Jehovah knew Jeramiah in a premortal exsistance. Then Elder Tellez said," oh, then where the heck did he know him". It was really funny... I just started to laugh out loud. But we really hate contending with people, but it keeps happening. They just come out of nowhere and attack some aspect of the church and we feel obligated to defend our religion. I am glad that I have a testimony and a knowledge sufficient of the scriptures to be 100%  sure of what I am talking about. 

On sunday none of our investigators went to church, but we have a new investigator that did go. He is a friend of a recent convert in the ward and he has had missionaries before, but he moved away. But now he is back, so we are going to see how it goes with him. 

On Friday, we had another zone conference. And the president showed us a video that was super funny. My companion and I were laughing the entire video. It is the Missionary Parody of the Adele song "Hello". Honestly it is one of the funniest things that I have seen since I have been on my mission. Any missionary or return missionary will appreciate it. 

So this entire week we have been contacting people that live at the very end of our area because the people that live close to us do not seem to be interested in anything that we say. We will contact a bunch of people, but they all say that they dont want us to come by. So we decided to change where we work. So now we walk to the complete oposite side of our area to contact. It is about 40 minutes away if we are walking at missionary pace. But this other area, the people are much more willing to accept us. Yesterday Elder Tellez and I were super excited because we found a super awesome family that is literally the last house on the last street of our area. But they are super awesome and we think that they have a lot of potential to progress. 

Well it is the last week before cambios. This transfer went by super fast. I really like my area and my companion, so we will see what happens next week. Oh and the president told us that the mission is going to recieve 30 sister missionaries!!! that is insane. There are only 45 sister missionaries in our mission right now. It is going to be so great to have more sister missionaries... the only bad thing is that they are going to start sending more missionaries to pueblos. 

Well that is about all for this week. I hope that you have a great time celebrating my BDay. haha. :)  I am super excited to be 20 finally. It is going to feel so great to tell everyone that I am 20 instead of 19. And it is crazy to think that this will be my first Bday away from all of you guys and that I almost have a year in the mission field. The time goes by so dang fast. I still feel like I have so many things that I need to do before my mission ends. 

Love you

Con Amor

Elder Snyder

P.S. check out the video