Defending the Truth

It’s really hard to type with one hand while you’re fanning yourself with another...I don’t know how it’s able to still be so hot here. So I swear there are just things you can’t find in T_______ very easily. We have a hole puncher and tape finally! Now we won’t have to be punching holes in our papers for the carpeta with pens. It will look a lot better :) And bread! The bread trucks hadn’t gone around for a while...so now we have breat! Fun stuff.


New Year’s night we were woken up at 12 by so many fireworks. I honestly felt like I was in a battle field or some war zone. It was crazy, but memorable!

Somos misioneras tan consagradas en que we just totally forgot to buy water...so we gave the money to our dueña to buy it. Then she forgot. Then the next day, the water didn’t pass by. THEN it was Sunday and apparently the water trucks guardan el día de reposo tambien. Sooo we had quite the adventure buying water from pulperías or having sore throats from not drinking enough. Planning, preparation and all that good stuff - learned on the mission!

I guess we're also just such good missionaries that we don’t even need to set our alarms...(total sarcasm). I woke up one morning and realized I hadn’t set the alarm! Normally I wake up to the sound of our neighbor outside showering and spitting... really. I ran to look at the clock and what time was it? 6:30 on the dot! It was crazy. Me and my comp laughed about it later, that now it’s just like in us to wake up right at 6:30.

Tip: Don’t ever get your head caught in a fence. It hurts. Ok so it wasn’t barbed wire, but it was that wire cabling they put up and I’m just not latina height, and I didn’t even see it when we were going to visit a less active sister to find where a recent convert lives from back in like August. It caught my hair and it hurt so bad. Talk about a blonde moment!

So I don’t know who invited Satan to every one of our lessons this week, but it definitely felt like that happened!  Fue horrible la verdad. Like I’ve never had to put up with so many pastors or just anti-whatever-we-teach people. We went to go teach a great family that has a daughter that got baptized in C_____ hace like 4 years and we were super excited to teach them. Normally it’s great to walk into a house and see like 4 extra people there to teach. It’s like "Oh, look at this great Christmas miracle, more almas to save!" Then they end up being pastors of another church and by the end of the lesson, the only ones that were strong enough to stick out the whole lesson were those two. It was a husband and wife and they really didn’t want to listen and the others just wanted to argue which just sent the Spirit away, it was unfortunate. Cuz as much as we tried to answer their questions calmly, they wouldn’t accept anything but the Bible and I read the scripture that starts out and is like "Oh necio, a bible, a bible..." Honestly we explained things really clearly and my comp did a great job with having things come from the bible but they still were convinced that we put more emphasis on the Book of Mormon and that we think it’s better and they couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that the Book of Mormon was written here in the Americas. Towards the end, the one guy was like "Please, read the Bible and not this stuff," and pointed to the Book of Mormon. I was like "No hermano, no le voy a dejar decir esto, es escritura sagrada y sí leemos la biblia". THEN a random guy shows up in the doorstep and asks us if we can get married and then says that guys in the church have to have 7 wives and it’s like "who invited you and your natural man comments?!" The next day a woman was at a house we went to, visiting from T_____  and started to interrupt while we were teaching the Plan of Salvation. Almost no one ever has a problem with that lesson, but she did. She was arguing about the Fall of Adam and Eve but we did the best we could to explain and moved on. That’s what we usually need to do, teach the truth and move on in the lesson.

But I would have to say that the hardest moment of the week was when J_______’s  mom told us she wouldn’t give permission for him to so he could get baptized. We were going to teach him that day to finish up all his lessons, only to have him come out and tell us they didn’t want to sign the papers. So we waited outside and heard his parents yelling and everything. It was awful. We were just awkwardly standing outside and luckily I didn’t understand much of what they said. The mom finally came out and was all "You all came for me to sign? Well I’m not going to." And we tried to talk with her and listen to her concerns but she was just nervous and was making excuses. She was saying that he’s too young and needs more time but wouldn’t give us a time frame and then she started calling me "Senorita". I was perfectly ready and willing to defend J______ and tell her that he actually is ready for baptism and that it’s an act of faith. She wouldn’t let us talk about the Doctrine and Covenants and was just being a problem. It was so frustrating and my heart was pounding so much and her husband came out and started trying to calm his wife down...but he wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I asked his wife, "What is it that you want for J_______?" and she couldn’t and wouldn’t even answer me. They don’t talk with their son and they don’t know what he’s capable of. I felt like I was defending my own child. It’s incredible the kind of love we come to have for people we meet and teach. She was like "You can’t come in here and tell me that my son is ready for baptism when you’ve only spent a few hours with him" And I’m like "Actually I can! That’s the wonderful thing about faith and being a representative of Jesus Christ. We CAN see that in people and J______ is prepared". But in the end we asked to talk with J_______ and she said he was crying so I told her to go and help him. I just walked away. I was so angry I couldn’t even see straight and I just wanted to cry for hours and hours later. I really didn’t talk much the rest of the day in the lessons. But that night in the Noche de Cine, J______ showed up and he shook my comp’s hand and then came over and shook my hand. We just looked at each other and we both started to tear up. It was a really special moment. I know he’s strong and that he will be baptized. I know it with all my heart. I’ve never known anyone so prepared for baptism in all my mission. He is such an example to all the other kids in the rama and to everyone he meets. He really is special. He doesn’t give up. He brought a friend to church on Sunday. That’s what you call unique. 

So to start off the year, it really wasn’t that great, but I know things will get better. It always does. Lots of defending my faith this week, standing up for not only myself, but for other people. It’s exhausting work, but it’s worth it. It’s such a privilege to be able to stand up for the church and defend the name and our beliefs and when necessary, for other people. I know it’s the Church of JESUS Christ and that He established it.  And he did it perfectly.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Con amor,
Hermana Despain