*Audible groan of both shock and disgust* "Ohhhhhh... Mormons"

Quote of the week explanation

We went on exchanges this week, and I left to go with my district leader's companion in the other area. We had some grand plans for the day, but literally every appointment fell through, so we ended up doing a lot of finding. We went tracting after dinner, as we often do, but it wasn't the best tracting day. Nobody really wanted to talk to us. The pinnacle of this trend was one woman, who upon coming to the door was so abhorred by the thought of talking to us that she stumbled back and put up her arm, as if to shield her face from a splash of acid. We had a conversation (needless to say, very brief) which ended with her telling us to go die and "live on our celestial planet with all our ancestors." 

I have a deep doctrinal and philosophical question that I would like to pose to you. Forgive me if this is a repetition of a query I have previously made; at times I find it difficult to recall what I have said to you and what I have not. Anyhoo, I have often wondered why, in all of the portraits of the biblical twelve apostles, there is one who is clean-shaven. Upon viewing a bible video a few weeks back, I came to find out that, assuming consistency between the various artists, this beardless apostle is none other than John the Beloved. Which begs the question: is there anything in scripture that says that the apostle John did not have a beard? I have done a little bit of searching in the new testament (not much, since that's really not a very productive use of time), and I can not find a single reference that implies that John had no beard. I don't know, though. Perhaps there is a bible historian somewhere who could enlighten me.

This week has been very exciting, but not as much as we are hoping the upcoming week will be. We taught some really solid lessons to some really solid people.

One was somebody who they had been teaching before I came into the area, who they lost contact with for a few weeks. We had tried to call and text her several times, to no avail. However, she gave us a call about a week-and-a-half ago, and we set up an appointment which took place last Monday evening. They still hadn't gone over lesson one with her yet, so we taught the restoration in full. She is super solid, and she agreed with everything we told her. We have another appointment with her this evening at 6:30, and we are planning on inviting her to be baptized.

The other lesson that we taught was also the restoration. There was referral that we got a while ago that we were having trouble getting in contact with, because we didn't have a phone number, and whenever we stopped by she wasn't home. Another thing that made it difficult is the fact that she lives sort of far away from where we do a lot of our work, and so it is difficult to justify going up there just for a contact attempt. However, we found ourselves just happening to be in that area, so we decided to stop by this persons apartment (Alex, is her name). Miraculously, she was actually home this time around, and she gave us her phone number and told us to call her on Wednesday. So, Wednesday morning we dutifully gave her a call; but to our dismay she did not answer. We left a message asking her to call us back so we could set up an appointment, hoping that she would actually follow through and not flake on us like so many other people do. She did call us back, and completely threw us for a loop when she said "can we meet tonight?" We had nothing majorly important going on that evening, so we set it up with her for 8:00 that night. We went over, and, as I mentioned before, we taught her lesson one. She is super solid. She had been looking for a religion, and had done some research about Buddhism at the recommendation of a college, but she is super prepared. She is from China, so she really doesn't have a religious background, and she had never said a prayer in her life, but after we taught her how to pray she immediately requested to say a prayer right then and there, and she said one of the most sincere prayers I've ever heard in my life, wanting to know the truth. We will be paying her a visit this next week as well (our branch president will come along too), and we also plan on inviting her to be baptized. 

So, yeah. We hope to have some good stuff happen this week, as we do every week. I will, obviously, update you on what goes down (because if I didn't I would face the fiery wrath of my mother). Anyway, that's all for now. 

See ya.

-Ben "Cheesy" Rivera 

P.S. I don't know if the world has completely gone insane or what, but the other day we saw a kid, he couldn't have been more than eight years old, standing in the middle of his yard and cracking a whip, while another child, presumably his younger brother, ran around the yard. The whole time I was watching the spectacle unfold, I was convinced that this young man was going to end up literally whipping a toddler, but fortunately it never came to that. I am wondering though, who thought it would be a good idea to teach their eight-year-old son how to crack a whip and then let him have one?

P.P.S. I had to go to the bathroom so bad this week that I almost had an accident. We had to run into the grocery store so that I wouldn't burst. My urge to urinate turned out to have been inspired by the Lord, though (maybe) because we ended up finding a new person at the store. Unfortunately, we still haven't met with him (and he didn't come to church yesterday even though he said he would), but we have high hopes.

P.P.P.S. I am eating an extra-flakey biscuit as I type this.