...Our area covers 1/4 of Trinidad, it takes us 1/2 hour to get to 1/2 our investigators from our apartment and 40 minutes to get to the other 1/2 of our investigators. We do a lot of walking. So yesterday was the make or break day of my first transfer. If we didn't have our key investigators at church then I would not baptize my first transfer which would be brutal when compared to the normal West Indies style. As of right now the last week of my transfer the 19th we will have 3 baptisms. We are working on Samuel and Sita Beekie and Bro Ramberose.
Sita just finished the book of mormon in the last couple of days, samuel has been a wall for the past 3 months that my companion has been teaching him. But about a week in for some reason I decided we needed to create a plan so that he would know that it was true and have the desire to be baptized. We went over there to present the plan but he was working on his car so we gave it to Sita to give to him, it had a chapter to read every day and questions to answer about each chapter. We figured he wouldn't start it until we actually presented it to him directly, for the next week we couldn't get ahold of them cuz they were always busy. We finally went back to them a week later and he had all the questions answered for every day and had a total change in countenance. That was one of those moments when I knew I was needed to come here, because he went nowhere until I had got here... He showed up to church 15 minutes late and we had the biggest smile on our face ever, because that means he is eligible for baptism before the transfer is over. We also watched together forever with him and they both got a little teary eyed. I was so happy that he had been following the plan that I was about in tears. It took a lot to control myself.
Bro Ramberose we met while he was visiting with the Mannie's(A member family) and just happened to teach him the first lesson. We set a return appointment for him and have taught him the big 4 commandments and lessons 1-3. He has accepted everything really easily, he knows what we teach is true and he keeps commitments extremely well. He is one of those people who was definitely prepared by the Lord. He should be totally solid for the 19th. He showed up a few minutes late for church also but he traveled an hour to get to church because he was busy the saturday before. Pretty crazy stuff. Sister Mannie and her daughter are members, the Dad is not, he is Hindu and prays to pictures. He has the biggest wall of not listening I have ever seen in my life. We had a lesson focused on him the other day in which I called him out like he has never seen before. Elder Fox and I have figured out that I am there to be bold and he is there to smooth things over. I basically laid out the law to him and told him that if we didn't see him keeping commitments than we would know that his family isn't worth it to him. He didn't budge an ounce, amazingly the family loved me for being so harsh with him.
We have taught SEVERAL Roman Catholics recently. In 1 day we probably had 5 discussions on the Godhead being fact and the trinity being false. Fortunately we read the talk by Jeffrey R Holland on the Godhead that morning for companionship study, amazing how that works out. One of the people we are teaching was named Melville. He has a real nice house and has been going to that church all his life and doesn't miss ANYTHING. We had already taught him L1 and he was pretty skeptical. We came back to him the 2nd time and instead of keeping his commitment and praying he looked up stuff against our religion about the trinity. The second we walked in he started showing us quotes by professors of religion and giving us scriptures on why we were wrong. For about 15 minutes Elder Fox proceeded to be nice about it and try to have the Godhead make sense to Melville and persuade him differently. After that amount of time I got sick and tired of all the ridiculousness and took it into my own hands. The next 5 minutes or so I went off on the Nycean creed, how the nature and characteristics of God were determined by a group of men who had not 1 ounce of authority. How our religion believes in the word of God from the Bible, not ridiculous interpretations of man that are all based on 1 scripture when the entire rest of the Bible states otherwise. I then proceeded to call him out on how if he believes this than he is denying the word of God and believing the words of man. Elder Fox then took a few minutes to try and smooth things over and Melville asked "So what kind of training do you guys go through to be missionaries?". I am pretty sure he realized that he was shut down by the plain and precious truths of the restored Gospel. We taught another Lady that the same thing happened. She kept arguing and we both spent a while trying to make her understand the extremely simple things we have because of the restoration. After a while I got sick of it and did the same sort of thing. Told how the Priesthood was lost and no man can say that he just prayed and all the sudden has the authority to baptize. Everyone seems to think that is how it works. I basically just asked them where in the words of God that we have(Bible) does it say that? The Bible teaches 1 way to recieve the Priesthood and anyone who says they get it a different way is going against the words of God and going their own way, teaching man's religion. She immediately said "I'll have to consult God about this" where before that she just argued the whole time. It just goes to show how important being bold and testifying are. Fortunately being bold is not a problem with me, I will just have to learn from Elder Fox how to smooth things over afterwards. This week was full of intense lessons, and me learning that me being my own missionary instead of an Elder Fox missionary is what I need to be.
I had the chance to teach with another Elder who had been out about the same as Elder Fox, it showed me how good of a companion he is. He uses analogies and ways of teaching for understand that I had no idea were possible before I taught with him. He really is an amazing teacher, I have taken a lot of stuff that he does into my teaching, but my bold personality shines through a lot. I have an awesome companion, you definitely can tell why the Lord set us up together. But I am out of time, enjoy the pictures!
-Elder Risenmay
Pics-
-Played soccer at the beach
-Apartment view out front door balcony
-We had a rough day where 6/8 appointments fell through so we used some 8xl shorts and stuffed them with couch cushions and dirty clothes
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