Monday, June 25, 2012

Happy Father's Day.....


Hey Everyone,

I just want to thank real quick the good Fathers in this world, including my father, grandfathers, Uncles, Cousins, and Great- Grandfathers. You are amazing and mean the world to me. Please continue to give your family and also the world an example of what it means to be a father. Here in El Paso it is so much different, the idea of a "Father" is so twisted. It's not "Cool" here to be 16 and not have a baby or one on the way. And 70+% of the fathers here have either already left, or are abusive and drunk all the time, or just don’t care about the kids. I hope that this isn’t what the world will be like some day because it is so sad. So join the fight and stop this from happening.

This week was a good one. Elder Vallejo and I are getting along really well and have a lot of fun together and are still able to be obedient. Because of it, we have seen a lot of progression this week in our investigators. Maribel came to church again for the 2nd time and is obeying the commandments, still preparing for her baptism on the 7th of July. We are having almost daily contact with her to help her progress in the right path. She is really excited to get baptized and we are really looking forward to helping her there. On Sunday she found someone she knew in the ward from school and also we set her up with one of the ward missionaries in the ward and they have become good friends. It’s always a relief off your back when the ward steps up and fellowships your investigators at church.

Other than that we are teaching these 2 guys from Cuba. It’s really hard for me to understand a lot of what they are saying because in Cuba, they drop the entire "S" in almost every word and shorten many words or phrases. It’s like in English trying to talk to someone with a crazy accent, speaking super fast, and English is not your first language. Elder Vallejo has to talk most of the time, especially outside of lessons, because during the lesson when the spirit is super strong, he lets me know what their needs are and gets the message across. But outside of that. It’s too difficult. I know without a doubt that they are one of the reasons Elder Vallejo is in this area, because it would be too hard for someone who is not a native to teach them to the standard needed for conversion. We are having a family home evening with them tonight with an active family to help them get fellowshipped and excited to come to church. We will see how that goes.

I had a super funny experience this week that I think you would get a laugh out of it. So we were walking home from an appointment a few days ago and this African-American guy and his girlfriend are walking towards us in the opposite direction. As we get close, I wave and say hello to them, and the first thing he does is throw up a "Peace" sign and said "Mormons go to Hell." Being super shocked I said "Oh, we do?" "Yep." And thanks to my good attitude that day and self control I turned and said "well then, I hope you have a wonderful day" he replied "you to" and then we both continued walking until about 20 steps later he turned around and said. "Hey, I really like your tie by the way!" It was super funny, and I hope he has a better impression now of Mormon missionaries. I learned how important it is to try to act as Christ would in all situations, especially in the street where you get a lot of confrontation and people yelling at you cause you never know if it could shut the door for some people on learning about the true gospel or open the doors wide open and help people prepare to receive it. And yeah even though it is hard to just take it and go on your way, it’s so much easier just to be nice and laugh about it later.

Well that’s all for this week, Thank you all for everything you all do for me and I hope you have a good week.

-Elder Stewart 

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