In our area right now we have a lot of investigators who have come to church more than once, but for different reasons have just stopped coming. lately we´ve been trying to get them more excited about coming to church, and we have also been searching for new investigators to teach. With a little bit of time I think the work will pick up in our area!
It´s been a little stressful being the secretary to be honest! I love being here in the office and helping President, but it is also a lot of responsibility.
One of the things I do is take missionaries to the airport. On Wednesday, I got to take Elder Chappell (My companion from the MTC) to the airport because he got transferred to an area called Bluefields. It´s basically on the other side of Nicaragua, and the missionaries usually have to travel there by airplane, because it´s so isolated! On Thursday I got to take all the missionaries who were ending their missions to the airport. The first flight left the airport at 6:25 so I got to wake up at 3 to get myself and everyone else ready. It was an interesting experience! They were all so excited to go home, but I was running around like crazy in the airport trying to make sure that there were no problems with the bags and that everyone had their passports! I´m just glad that the week of transfers are over so that things will get back to normal here - haha.
We had a cool experience a couple weeks ago that I forgot to write about in my email! So, a couple weeks ago Elder Rose and I found a really cool family and we just sat down with them to get to know them a little better. The family is VERY Catholic, but they were also very nice and let us share a short lesson with them. In the house lives the mom of the family, and she has 4 daughters. One of the daughters is married and lives with her husband and two kids in the house as well. We taught a short lesson with them and then invited them to church. Then, the mom said, "Well, we´ll make a deal with you. If you come to our church on Saturday night, then we´ll come to yours on Sunday afternoon." I was a little hesitant to respond because going to other churches is something that missionaries have to be really careful about. Then Elder Rose said, "Okay!! We´ll be there." Now before you all worry about me because I went to a different church, think about it for a second! As missionaries we are ALWAYS inviting people. Inviting them to come to church, inviting them to get baptized, inviting them to do lots of things. So when a nice Christian family invited us to come to church with them, how were we going to reject their offer? That would make us hypocrites! And we didn´t want that. So we accepted the invitation. Saturday came and I was a little nervous because in all my life I have never gone to another church, at least that I can remember. I had no idea what Catholic mass was going to be like. But we showed up and took our seats to the back of the small little church and just listened. Although I don´t agree with all of the things that were said or done there, it was still a spiritual experience to see how members of other religions worship our Savior Jesus Christ. Everyone was extremely nice to us and welcomed us gladly. I wish I could have got some pictures of some of the shocked faces of the people in the Catholic church! Almost every single person looked at us casually, then when they realized that we were Mormon missionaries, whipped their head back around with their shocked faces! It was great. Although our friends of other religions may not understand completely the restored gospel and priesthood that we have today as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I still respect the effort and faithfulness they give to Jesus Christ. Our hope is that one day they can come to understand the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and accept it! So then Sunday came. We were a little doubtful, to be honest, that the family would come to church...but we shouldn´t have been! The mom, all 4 daughters, and the 2 grandkids all showed up to church!! I was smiling from ear to ear. It was funny to see some of the surprised faces that people of the ward had because the mom of the family, who´s name is Rosa, is a little bit famous in our area for being a die-hard catholic. The bishops wife knows her pretty well, and told us that her jaw hit the floor when she saw Rosa walk in. It was a great day. After church the family had lots of questions about the sacrament and the Sunday School classes. They told us that they felt comfortable in church and really enjoyed it. Since that Sunday they haven´t come to church again YET...they´re kind of hard to all find home and unoccupied. But it was amazing to see the respect we earned from that family by being a little bold and being willing to learn a little bit more about them and their religious beliefs.
Well that´s about it for this past week! I attached a new picture of the new office missionaries. Elder Weight is the new AP with Elder Cabrera. Elder Payne, who was the AP, is going to finish his last 6 weeks in the mission as a District leader and training a new missionary. This work is the work of the Lord! I know it and I love it.
Love,
Elder Parrish
