Hey Fam
So this week was pretty cool. Now that I am away from “big” cities and am out in boondocks, we have to travel to get to meetings. So this past Tuesday we had a Multi-Zone conference in Formosa Capital which is about 3 hours by car. So Tuesday morning we woke up at around 5:00 am and left in a convey or van type car that carried us (pretty much the whole zone) to Formosa capital. We got there by 9 am and then the meeting started at 10am. Multi-Zone conferences are just fun because you get to just sit, take in a lecture from President Franco and then eat lunch. And you also get to see other missionaries that you dont usually see. I got to catch up with a few people. I saw a sister from my MTC zone, Sister Ramos, who I haven't seen since we got here last August so it was cool to catch up with her. I also got to meet up with my first zone leader from Resistencia, Elder Regan, who now is ZL in Formosa Capital. Overall it was a fun experience and I learned a lot from the counsel of President and his wife. They both are just great people and spiritual power houses. I bet they are getting excited to near their end and return to their home in South Jordan in July. I had my typical interview also with president which was just basic and routine. After we had the multi-zone conference we went to a bank and took out some money and then went to a pretty big grocery store chain here in south america called “Carrefour” which is basically wal-mart. It is nice and they had Mac n' Cheese and also A1 sauce. We then made our way back to Ibarreta after we finished some shopping and got back to our little house at 10pm. So it was a full day and six and a half hours of driving. It felt kinda cool to be on a “road trip”. The driver…. Who wasn't lds, played some “Shake it off” by taylor swift and some other songs for a little bit on our way back… it felt weird but I took it as a tender mercy to enjoy cause you dont get a lot of those in this part of the world. Later on in the week was pretty basic. Wednesday and Thursday were just basic days and actually our Zone Leaders who we live with left to got even further north to visit a “Laminite Colony” that lives about 6 hours away.
The story from them is actaully really cool. This specific colony was discovered by the church about two and a half years ago. And I dont have all of the details but basically with this colony, missionaries went in to see if there was potential there. And so missionaries went in and started talking to the people and started to present the story of The Book of Mormon. The missionaries explained the appearance of Christ coming to the americas and the sequence of events that happen in BoM. And after the missionaries presented this, the people just looked at the missionaries weirdly and basically said, “yeah we already know this”. Considering that this was the churchs first contact with this colony ever, the missionaries were really confused or dumbfounded. “How?” they asked. How can you already know about this? The members of this colony began to explain that basically their ancestors always keep records of their lifes. And in their records, they had written from ancient ancestors of a man appearning to them dressed in White and a white beard. So with this knowledge already the missionaries keep teaching and basically they baptized like all the people of this colony. And today, Missionaries make Bi-weekly visits up there and we are the closest missionaries to their colony. But there are a bunch of little colonies spread out up here that missionaries visit.
But anyway this past weekend was a annual event here in Formosa called “Carneval” which is a day celebration. It is pretty much like Parker Days but its more of a 3 day parade. And is actually kinda dangerous so Friday-Sunday we had to be in the house by 7:30pm. So we took advantage of that time and played Monopoly. I won games out of the 2 games we played… which I dont know how because I have never seriously played monopoly before. But it was a pretty relaxing weekend.
As for the missionary work here... it's going... the things we are missing is the most important part... progressing Investigators. We have found plenty of people and taught lessons but we are struggling on getting back for As for the missionary work here... it's going... the things we are missing is the most important part... progressing Investigators. We have found plenty of people and taught lessons but we are struggling on getting back for follow up lessons and seeing if they read or are keeping commitments. I am concerned that my small language is making it difficult to connect to the people. It is something that is probably in my head but it is a concern I have. I have been studying in Ch. 5 of PMG this week due to a challenge Pres. Franco gave us. And it has been really awesome. One chapter I enjoyed a lot was 2 Nephi 26 that talks about the establishment of false churchs. It is super good. I think I liked it a lot because we had a really funny lesson with a guy name “Lusio” who is really a nice guy. But he had some pretty messed up views. He told us that due to working 30 years in the Police it has diminished his belief in God and established religion. He keeps on telling us the all churchs are is a business and everything is corrupt. He then went on, bashing Catholics and basically all forms of Christianity. He kept telling us that once he dies and goes to heaven he will figure it out and do what God says. But anyway it wasn't a too crazy experience but just one that we had this week.
Anyway, that was the week. I cant believe how crazy the Super Bowl was. Tom Brady is just soooo good. But I honestly didnt even realize that it was Super Bowl Sunday until 7:30pm. hahaha Crazy!! Anyway i love you all. Have a great week.
Love,
Elder Corbin Keicher
