Elder Ty Koontz: Mexico Xalapa Mission : Lots of wonderful experiences!

Hola Familia!

We had changes yesterday, now I´m Senior companion! It’s funny though, I still have the same companion. So really the ONLY thing that will change is I carry the phone. So now when I need/want to make a call, I don’t need to ask. :)

We were walking the other day and contacting people, there was a couple that I hadn´t even seen but my companion stopped to talk to them! It was an awesome contact, we gave them a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment to talk to them yesterday. But we saw them again Saturday walking in the street! We talked to them again and they told us that they had read it and had some questions! They are also a family of 5, with 4 eligible for baptism. 2 boys and the youngest is a girl. They like super heroes, and the favorite of the oldest is Green Lantern! I thought that was pretty cool. We passed yesterday but they weren’t home. We called them and set up an appointment for tonight at 7. I really hope they progress, they are super awesome.

Oh and we´re looking forward to success! We have baptisms lined up for these next 4 weeks! So we´re praying they all come through! :)

Did I tell you I bought a hammock?

So this was a really cool experience we had this week, and a testimony of the Power of the Restauración:

We´re looking forward to another good week! We talked to our investigator who had his interview the other week and everything is good now. We also started talking to his wife and teaching her as well! She is a Testigo de Jehovah and didn´t want anything to do with us for a while. Until persistence got to her. We were looking for her husband on Tuesday but he was still out working. So when she told us he wasn´t home we said that we would also like to talk to her upon his return. She flat out said, "I´m not going to study with you, I already study the bible." After she said that, I just felt like I needed to keep talking to her. I didn´t know why, I just felt like I needed to keep our little conversation going on for just a bit more. So then I asked her kind of a funny question, "Alright Hermana! So what do you study in the Bible?" I think this question kind of caught her off-guard because she asked me, "What do you mean, what do I study?" I responded to her question with, "Well there are lots of things in the Bible! What is it that you study? What does the Bible say?" I think she thought she could get out of it by saying, "I already study with the Testigos de Jehovah, y estudiamos la Biblia." But she still hadn´t answered my question of what she studies. So I once again asked her, "Yes, hermana. But what is it that you study with them?" She was on top of her house when she was talking to us so she said, "Ya, voy." She came down and started talking to us at her gate. She said, "Look, I can´t be changing my religion every 2 seconds." So this started up a conversation a little better than what we were having before. We talked about how WE don´t change people, they change themselves. Then her husband got home and gave us a free invitation to pass. So the four of us sat down, Elder Brooks (we were in divisions), Me, Victor, and Monica (his wife). We opened with a prayer and then started by teaching the Restauration. We taught the first 2 principles of God and Families but Monica still had the face of doubt and as if she wasn´t interested. So I asked her what was wrong, and she said again, "I´m not going to change my religion." So I again replied with, "Hermana, you are never going to hear us asking you to change your religion, all we ask is that you listen to our message and talk with us." The coolest thing that I noticed was when we explained the Apostasy. I asked her if she had heard of it before and she hadn´t. We taught it, and she was completely focused in the lesson for the rest of the time and it was a lesson of conversation. It was awesome. She understood Apostacia very well, and it made everything else come together for her. We taught her from both the Book of Mormon and the Bible as to answer a lot of her questions. We gifted her a Book of Mormon, and she was very excited to read it. It was so awesome to see how the power of the message of the Restauración works on people. She went from, "I´m not going to study with you." to "Thank you for coming, when will you come again?" with a smile on her face. We hadn´t yet taught baptism, so we passed by again through the week and taught lesson 3. Monica understands the authority restored concept very well, and accepted a baptimal date to progress. ALSO Victor also recovered a lot of interest and animo because there were a lot of unanswered questions he had from when he had been taught the Restauracion the first time. But reviewing everything really helped him, and made him a lot more interested again.

I also did drive a car last night... Haha it’s a funny story. We were with some members and it started raining, hard. Like really hard. We were just about to leave and then they told us that they weren´t going to let us leave until the rain calmed down a little bit. It never did and it was getting late. We told them we would be fine walking but our house was kind of far. They tried to call a taxi for us but they never answered the phone and they wouldn´t reply to messages. We think something happened with their electrical systems. But we waited and finally the mom said, "I will drive you." We asked her if she knew how and she said yes, but she doesn’t drive in the night time because she can’t see.... and it was night time. We were a little hesitant but they weren´t going to let us leave without some way of getting home "safely”. So she was trying to pull her car out of her.. well... area where she parked her car? I don’t know how to describe it. But it was dark, she couldn´t see, she didn´t know how to maneuver it going backwards, she almost hit a bunch of stuff, and she was taking forever. So finally I was talking to my companion and he said, "You know how to drive, you can do it really fast." I figured there wasn’t any harm in just backing it out. So I backed it out pretty fast and then parked it. She was like, "Wow, that was really fast!" I don’t know where you live and I can’t see so you just drive to your house and then I can drive back. At this point I was like... Ummm... what?. So I had 2 options. Let her drive, fear for the lives of the 4 of us in the car (me, my companion, the mom, and her kid) and probably die, or I could drive, be a lot safer, and have the experience saying,"I´ve driven in the crazy traffic of Mexico". Also I confirmed it with my companion and he wanted me to drive too, he didn’t want the hermana to drive us. So I thought about it and made my decision...... Now I have bragging rights to say I´ve driven in the crazy traffic of Mexico. ;)