Mormon Haters...

Okay! It’s time for another one of Becca’s e-mails from the unforgettable jewel of Houston - Pasadena.

Big week this week. We had a visiting authority speak to us – Elder Maynes. He spoke at our zone conference and crunched a lot of numbers for us. President Moldenhauer is really good about saying catchy phrases to get us motivated and that’s awesome but it was really good for us as a mission to see someone crunch numbers. We’re serious about this Mission Miracle of 2010 thing, and Elder Maynes helped us see exactly what it’s going to take. It was crazy though because he basically figured out that we as a mission have been teaching people the lessons even when they’re not keeping commitments. He told us that we as saints are a covenant people, and that if we are moving on to the next lesson when the investigator hasn’t kept a commitment then we’re teaching them that it isn’t important to keep commitments, which he called false doctrine. So we went home and had to basically overhaul our teaching pool but it’s so much better now because we got rid of the people that we were seeing every week with no or little progression. We’ve knocked a lot more doors this week - we’re going through investigators a lot faster – but that means we’ll find the good ones faster and then we can teach them, which is WAY more fun than teaching someone who isn’t progressing. The point is, all this door knocking has led us to some muy interesante people. I don’t know what it was this week but I think we met everyone in Pasadena that hates Mormons. Haha. Okay that’s not true, but we at least met three of them. One lady called for a movie so we went to deliver it and she was so sweet to us and invited us in and sat down and told us her story of how she was searching for the truth (perfect! Here it is) and then I asked if we could share a message and begin with prayer and she got all weird and asking me why and what the message was about and then she asked me what God’s name is and proceeded to show us all the places in the Bible where God calls himself Jehova…that’s right. She was a Jehova’s Witness. Number one enemy of mormon missionaries. Our next hater was named Luis. Everything was going great gospel wise until we got to the first vision, which is normally the highlight of the lesson spiritually, but he kept interrupting me. Finally he told us he’s Pentacostal and he wanted us to talk to his Pastor. My companion said “when” but I had to put my foot down. I told him “why talk to your Pastor when I’ve already had an answer from God?” and that stopped him, but then I got a little heated in the car afterwards and told my companion that as long as she was with me, we would not be talking to any pastor, preacher, or anything of the sort, so don’t even think about it. Haha! First of all, the pastor would for sure win. I barely know anything about the Bible and he has studied it as a profession. Second, it would do NO GOOD for the “investigator” because he’s obviously not willing or open to asking God if he’s taking us to talk to his Pastor. and so I really don’t see the point. I hope I didn’t offend my companion though. She kinda agreed. But that was a little bit of Becca heat coming out for the first time since I’ve been here. We met a third hater that was a lot nicer to talk to because he wasn’t flirty or a j.w. but he very kindly told us our religion was wrong, then talked for about an hour about being apostolic. He was very impressed with our Spanish though. I finally had to interrupt him rudely (since I had already tried interrupting kindly three or four times) and bore my testimony about modern day prophets and then told him thanks so much for his time and have a nice day. But I was thinking later how good it felt to stand in front of him, look straight in his eyes, and tell him in all honesty that I have had an answer from God. That I know we have a prophet on the earth today. My heart was pounding pretty hard because he knew the bible really well but I could feel my testimony as tangible as my two feet planted in his muddy driveway. I don’t think there’s anything quite as strong/tender as a daughter of God who knows her Father. I was so glad to be me right then, and not him.

Anyways, contacts like that just make the good ones so much more worth it. We met a guy named Raymundo standing outside his apartment and taught him right there. He took it all pretty well and the spirit was way strong during the lesson. As I was giving the closing prayer, he interrupted me and asked if I would pray for his sister in law who is battling cancer. I don’t know why but I was really touched that he would show so much faith in God and in us as missionaries. It sounds dumb now that I type it out but it was one of the highlights of my mission thus far.

So as missionaries, we have some dumb rules. One of these is that we can’t back up without our companion standing behind the car, guiding us. This makes for some hilariously awkward situations. Exhibit A: This week we were leaving an apartment complex but some workers were blowing leaves in the parking lot. Hna. Hansen was backing me but as I looked out my rearview mirror I saw a dirty brown hand waving like crazy as well! Haha. The guy blowing leaves started backing me! He must have thought I had no idea to drive . But it was funny.
Something else that made me laugh this week was the fact that I’m in awe over our microwave. It cooks things so fast! Haha but my companion thinks it’s terrible – the three doesn’t work and it’s really old. That just shows you how bad our microwave at home really is. I was just staring at the revolving plate inside like it was the newest technology. My companion thinks I’m nuts. Use it up, wear it out, make it do or DO WITHOUT! Haha thanks dad.

love you all, and why don't you love me enough to write me? (that's for my siblings, friends, and brother-in-law, except Janie)

haha don't feel too guilty, just guilty enough to write me this week. haha jk

Becca