Letter #60 (Sept 26th, 2012)

Hey all,
This week has been a great week and has been very interesting (as
every week seems to be...). Elder Pastor and I are doing well and the
work is great. We managed to achieve 31 lessons this past week with a
district CSP, and we have a baptism this coming Saturday. Our focus
has definitely been on our investigators this week, working with some
towards baptism and others we have just begun teaching, but all are
doing really well and are progressing (some faster than others). We
also have 2 new referrals that we will get to contact this week. We
have continued to work with our investigators and have some very
interesting excuses given to us. But the best story happened just
yesterday...
So we have this one inactive member who is afraid to leave his house,
he just will not go out side and he won't even open the door for you
unless he knows who you are. So we were trying to figure out what the
situation was with him and share doctrine with him. And yesterday I
went on splits with Elder Rasing bringing him to work in our area, and
we visited this member. So first thing we say is "It was a shame you
weren't at church on Sunday" and he replies with, "I've already
explained to you my situation and you haven't told your President...
so you keep coming back here and asking me to go to church." I've
visited with this member so many times with Elder Pastor now and to be
honest doesn't make much sense sometimes so I was just bold and
upfront with him and said, "Look, Brother V, there are no excuses
valid in the eyes of God..." and he said, "Yeah that's true, but..."
and then said a bunch of stuff that made no sense. At this point Elder
Rasing was totally confused at the situation and asked Brother Victor
what his situation was... So he proceeded to tell us about this one
family who is really rich in the area, who owns likes tons of property
and started listing off this guys property and lands... so Elder
Rasing is like "So, whats this got to do with you...?", and he
proceeds to tell this story about how this family supposedly killed to
get some lands and properties... and we are still like... "So what has
all this got to do with you and not going to church?"... so it turns
out at the end of his 45min rambling about this family, that he is
somehow this long lost child of the family who is the true inheritor
of the property (or so he says), that he tried to take it to court,
but supposedly received death threats, and the whole thing is
completely hearsay in my point of view... then we tried to teach him
about the scriptures in Jacob 2 and 3 Nephi 13 about seeking first the
kingdom of God and not riches... we encouraged him to drop the whole
matter so he didn't have to worry about the matter and get back to
church. Then he got annoyed with us for saying that... he was so
obsessed with getting this property that nothing else was worth
considering. Then we even tried the Alma technique of inspired
questions about standing before God. We asked him if he was ready in
that very moment to stand before God, and he answered us he wasn't
ready, because the issue with the properties wasn't resolved (WHAT!?
O.o).
Honestly this man has become so obsessed with the issue that I believe
he has gone a little crazy. From where I was standing and putting
myself in the same situation I could see a glaringly obvious
solution... give up the riches and trust in the Lord to help you
provide. But for this brother, it was not an option. The only thing he
could see was all this property that was supposedly his, and he wanted
it all. Then AFTER he got it he would come back to church and help his
fellowmen, or so he said... yesterday, I saw how someone can become a
slave to money, or worldly possessions and how someones life can be
completely destroyed by them. I truly realized how worthless all that
property was, in compared with peace of mind, a free life and
opportunity to worship God. I pray for this brother that he may come
to realize as well how worthless all that property really is, and will
come back to church and be blessed by the Lord for it.
Now... about our exchanges. Elder Rasing is a great missionary! He
really knows the doctrine and can explain in clearly in simple terms.
He is always studying and his scriptures are an explosion of color on
every page almost. I am amazed by his enthusiasm for the work and his
desire is great.
Then this past Monday, we had a great CSP in the Danao 1st area
which we built a kitchen and dug up a ton of dirt. Tatay Penas was not
expecting us to complete as much as we did and was amazed at the end
of the CSP.
So we also had Elder Perez of the Seventy come and visit our branch
and it was great!... cause hes a joker and had us all laughing in
sacrament and then again in the training meeting he gave in the branch
council meeting.
So that's pretty much it this week... oh wait
This week I realised why they call Danao "gun city"... so there was
this one day that we were going to our appointments and I saw four
different people making guns and bullets, as in the REAL ones!
Whoa! It was CRAZY!
But I miss you all,
And love you tons,
Elder Taylor Addison Cox