This is Kendon's first letter from the mission field he has now been out there about 2 weeks!
Dear Everyone,
So my first companion is Elder Zurita. He is from Ecuador, he knows English thank goodness, because then I wouldn't know what to do with myself. My mission president is really cool, super nice and he seems very calm all the time. His wife Sister Holm is sooooo stinkin' nice, I am pretty sure she would chop her legs off and give them to you if you needed them. I am tired usually all the time and that means I'm doing something right....I think. We certainly work hard. We're working on being more efficient with our planning.
A little bit about my first area. I'm in Goose Creek, SC, Charleston area. There is tons of Spanish work to do down here. We've only taught 3 times in English out of about 22 lessons this week. We contact about 17 people a day and work really closely with less active members. There used to be a branch here, but due to inactivity all the latinos now meet in a room after sacrament. The weather is great it's humid and hot somedays, but it's actually really nice most of the time.
Cool stories, so my first day here we were teaching a man named edgar. We were talking to him in his living room and he was in the middle of telling us a story when he stops and says "ohhhh....help me it's my pastor." His pastor was walking up to the door. He invites him in and starts talking to everyone. first to understand Edgar, he loves God so much and is super faithful to God, he's Presbyterian I think? He loves the mormon missionaries because we talk about God and his son Alex changed his life and got baptized in the church but since Alex has fallen away. So we stopped in to teach Edgar and see if we could find Alex.
Anyway, once Pastor Lindley and Maria found out that we were mormons they flipped! "MORMONES!" I had no idea what was happening because they all start talking super fast in Spanish and I got lost. After too long....I finally realize we need to leave so I say "can I say something, we believe the bible to be the word of God and has the fulness of the gospel, we also believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God and has the fulness of the gospel, and I know that this book (holding El Libro de Mormon) has brought me more close to Christ than I have ever been in my life." He said something, Edgar said something like "Oh....Ok." Probably because I said it wrong and it was the first thing I had said the whole time.
I then walked up to the pastor said read this please showing him the first paragraph of the introduction in the BOM and then said there you go. It's a testament of Christ people in the Americas. They had a conversation for a while about it in spanish. The pastor was getting heated and I knew we needed to leave. So I said here is a pamphlet. Read it and it will tell you about the restoration of the proper authority of Jesus Christ on the earth. We said we need to leave we walked towards the door. And I said, "Lindley, no trashcan." and pointed to the pamphlet. He said, "NO, no, no, no, I wouldn't do that." Then I said, "ok, good. A test next visit for you." And he laughed and we left.
That's just a funny story we had, they made fun of me lots calling me a greengo during the conversations and laughing at me when I didn't understand what was happening, but that's ok, I just said No entiendo and smiled basically most all the rest of the time.
There is another lady named Heidi who is from the Dominican Republic and she is way awesome! She is living every single commandment and we practiced the baptismal interview with her....she's so ready to be baptized. She just has to get Sundays off, which we find that out tonight when we go to teach her. She has a little son named adalberto who is six and learning English.
There is another couple two doors down from Heidi who are Judith and Donilo. They are sooooo solid. Donilo finally came to church this Sunday with us and from what I could tell he enjoyed it. He's from Honduras and they want to get baptized, but they are living together without being married so we said get married. But they wanted to get out of debt first, they had to pay jail fees. So the lawyer said you can get the fees reduced if you get married and go back to Hunduras in a month. We aren't sure what's going to happen now...but just pray for them. Donilo read the entire Book of Mormon while he was in jail in two days. He has dreams where angels come and talk to him and he is just way motivated to be baptized.
I think that before I would have thought these people are crazy, but honestly with the past few days teaching and talking to all types of people I've becomed desensitized to abnormality...Wierd I know.
Oh and there is this other boy named Jonathon who was raised Catholic. We've been working with him. He said I only read a little in the BOM last week. We asked what and how much and he said about 50 pages....A little, to get me to read that book when I was younger...holy smoke, I was a member and if I read that much in a week it was because I was at EFY or something. Anyway, he was strait up with us and said I don't really like reading it, it's boring. And I thought, ok fair enough, at that age I wouldn't have been interested either....But then Elder Zurita asked him why was it boring. He said because he didn't understand it. So any way as the story goes he was basically really confused when this was happening why where. So we walked him through all of it and he said, "OH! Ok, I understand better now. I'm gong to reread it!" I was blown away by that. He said it's going to take a lot to make me change my beliefs and I said that's fine we wouldn't want you to change your beliefs over something that you don't know is true, we just want you to find out if it is or it isn't.
Any way everyone. The Lord is preparing people daily to hear the gospel. HELP YOUR WARD MISSIONARIES! Please, please, please, I would love nothing more than to have the members of the church be able to keep someone in mind always that they can give to the missionaries.
I testify of this work that I am doing, it's so important. I testify of Jesus Christ. That is the thing that I have the strongest testimony of. Not just the atonement of Jesus Christ but of his teachings, he is the master teacher of each of our lives, he made all things possible when he lived, he suffered for our sins, he died on the cross, and was then resurrected. I testify that we too can be resurrected, and that as we use the atonement immediately we have the ability to grow closer to our Heavenly Father. I testify of the changing power of the atonement. I have a testimony that we can learn more through the reading, studying, and pondering of the words of God and then teaching it. I testify of Gods love for us as his children and for my love for each of you. I love my Savior. I love my Heavenly Father. I love you all. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Love,
Elder Kendon Hatch
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