Barnyard

Greetings,


This week was awesome!!!  Last week at the very end of my email I mentioned my emergency transfers.  Before I talk about how amazing my new area is, I want to share a quick story I had forgotten about from my other area.


We were sharing with a woman of about 70 years (Why does that sound so weird in english?  I can't think of a better way to put it though lol).  We had been inviting her to church every week for the past 6 or so weeks, and every time she said no, but gave us hope for the next time.  She was super awesome.  She always read in the book of mormon and loved to talk with us about the gospel, she just never came to church.  We determined that this would be the last time we shared with her if she didn't come to church.  


She always told us she was too busy.  But this time, we didn't even have to invite her, she told us "I can't come to church this week, sorry boys."  And when we asked her why not she told us, "Well I have to drink my maté."  What?!  She didn't have time for God because she had to drink steamy grass water.  I asked her directly, "What's more important? God or maté?" And she responded, "Well I also have to cook lunch."  I couldn't believe it! She actually chose maté over God.  It was a real sad moment for me.  I could see all the wonderful blessings awaiting her if she'd just set aside an hour a week to go to church.  But she couldn't give up her Sunday mornings of being lazy.  Moral of the story:  choose God.  Everytime just choose God.  He can see all the blessings and He so much in store for us, but sometimes we can't see passed the tiny wordly things that we would miss out on, like steamy grass water.


Anyway, back to the present.  I'm here in my new area and it is AMAZING.  It's the coolest thing ever.  I'm out preaching the gospel in a little farm town.  My comp (Elder Smith) and I were teaching a lesson to two older men in straw hats and overalls.  There were cows mooing in the background next to the old wooden house and red barn.  I was watching the chickens running around us and watching the rooster, ducks, and dog run around in the mud, when all of a sudden my comp stopped talking.  It was my turn to share and I had no idea what to say.  I was mesmerized by all the animals.  I shared something really general about Christ and then looked back to my comp so he could finish.  He gave me an odd look, but continued and now those guys are getting baptized in a few weeks.


It's so crazy.  Literally everyone wants to get baptized!  We stopped asking the normal question, "Do you know of anyone that could benefit from this message of Christ?" and instead we're asking "Do you know anyone that wants to get baptized?"  And the crazy thing is that it works!  It's happened multiple times where someone just points at their neighbor and says "yeah he wants to get baptized"  and then we go put him on date!  It's literally so crazy!  We had 5 baptisms planned this Saturday, but sadly 2 fell through already.  It's so cool to be a part of the work here!


Hope y'all have a great week!


Élder Blacker 


Pics of the church, baptismal font, cool nature, and more (notice how I'm wearing a jacket in one! What a blessing! It was under 70° F!  That's about 50° less than what I'm used to!)







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