Crazy People and Pyramid Schemes

 Another week has passed. Annoying crazy people/members, pyramid schemes, and a ton of inactives.

Let's begin. Tuesday. We had a district council and all that as we always do to start the week. Afterwards we went to go see Enrique and Miriam at their food stand. We ate with them and we stressed how important reading the Book of Mormon is because everything they need to know to solve every single problem they have is in the good old Book of Mormon. We visited an inactive who wasn't home, and then we walked over to San Rafael (all the sketchy apartments) and taught another guy named Enrique. This was the first time we'd ever taught him face to face. He's a nice guy. As we sat on his couch we just stared at him as he told his life's story. Growing up he played profesional soccer all over the world. Later on he worked for a drug ring and distributed drugs at a university. Afterwards we taught him the plan of salvation. He had a few questions. Then we invited him to church and he'd say he'd feel uncomfortable going when he's technically part of another religion. We'll keep working with the guy though. After we went to go look for some inactives close by. We entered their colony of apartments through the gate and the second we walked in some dude walked up to us saying in order to enter we need to give him ID. Luckily I had the copy of my green card on me. He said to come see him and the front gate to collect our ID before we left. We waited for ever outside of the building of the inactives to come and open us up. No one came and their phone number didn't work so we had to go collect our IDs and leave. We had to go to the church cause Magaly and her cousin Aracely were gonna arrive for a lesson. We taught fasting and tithing. They're getting closer to a baptism. 

Wednesday morning we left to go visit a bunch of people who live in our colony. Almost nobody was home except for some inactives. They were nice. The lady is really sick but we talked with the old man and it was cool. After we contacted a little in the street. It was tough. We couldn't even give away a single card. During the contacting we received a call from members asking for help with a moving. We were close by so we went. It consisted of moving furniture from one house into a combi and then taking the combi to an apartment building nearby and taking all the furniture up to a house on the 3rd floor. After that we went to eat and then visit a family nearby. We had gone to this family recently. The wife's super nice but her husband is a slime ball. We had actually talked with the husband a few weeks prior and it didn't go too well. He wasn't home. He wife was and she told us about all the stuff he's been doing. The guys like 70 and he has a 30 year old "girlfriend" who constantly asks him for money. That and when he's home all he does is smoke (even though he's technically a member) and yell at everyone. After that we went to a park nearby to wait for Rafael to show up. He was a guy who had gotten mad on the phone the week before. We decided to give him another chance. He never showed up. There was a ton of teenagers at the park drugging themselves up with thinner though. Layer we went to visit two more people in San Rafael and went home. 

Thursday. We satiated the day painting bars over windows for some lady who's a member. Painting is fun for about the first 40 seconds before it becomes a chore. We were working for at least 2 hours in the sun and I'm sorry to say this but the lady we were doing it for was somewhat annoying. After we met a member for lunch and some restaurant. After that we went to go visit some more people. No one was home. As we were walking back, we passed by this older couple with grandkids. They didn't say anything till we walked past. They started talking super loud “amongst themselves” about how evil all the churches including the Mormons are and the only true church is the Catholic one. They said the Mormons “aren't witnesses of anything” (whatever that means) and we're mentioning Satan and stuff. The scripture in Matthew came to mind that says: 

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

  

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

All you can do in those situations is ignore them, grip your Book of Mormon in hand just a little bit tighter and keep walking. After that we were able to find a few new people by calling them so that was cool. Later that evening we went out to find and visit more people. We taught this inactive named Edrei. We taught a brief lesson and invited him and his mom to church. They said the would come. As we were walking out a dude came up to us. He asked if we wanted smoke weed and drink with him. We said no. He then directed his attention to me (the crazy guys always love talking to the American dudes) during the conversation he reached into his shirt and I thought he was about to pull out a knife on us. I think he saw me looking and he said “don't worry. I'm carrying but I'm not gonna use it on you guys” afterwards my companion commented that it didn't look like he was actually carrying anything. That night as we were walking home, we decided to knock one more door of someone who we used to be teaching. On the walk over a dude walking in front of us stopped turned around and just stared at us. He waited for us to pass him. We passed him and he literally just stared at us and started following us. We lost him luckily. They guy seemed pretty intoxicated. The person we went to visit wasn't available and it was late so we went home. A bunch of freaking weirdos that day .

Friday we had to do weekly planning which is always super fun. 🙂 after we went to go visit an older lady who was sick (two actually if I remember correctly.) They were super friendly and one of them gave us 200 pesos cause they were worried we don't have anything to eat. Later we went to go see Enrique and Miriam. 

Ok I wasn't able to finish the letter in time. We ended up climbing a mountain today and we are just getting back. The rest of the weekend was the same. We visited a ton of inactives, we learned about a large pyramid scheme that's going on in the stake and they asked us to give a 20 minute talk on Sunday. Anyways bye.

Us climbing the mountain. We met a guy up there who asked us about our religion and he lives in our area so that's cool. We gave him a book of mormon