Max

 Hola todos! Feliz Santa Semana (una semana tarde) 

Santa Semana/ Pascua actually doesn't really exist here. It's kind of an after thought, most people we talked to didn't even realize that it was happening haha. It was fun, focusing on Christ more in a week is never a bad deal! We were pretty pumped for Easter Sunday, inviting every living thing we saw throughout the week to "la Reunión Sacramental de Pascua." We even used some Branch funds to create little Easter baskets for all the kids who showed up. The morning came, and... no one showed up. When we started the meeting, there were three of our most active Hermanas, and no one else. I was pretty sad that more hadn't felt the desire to come, and offered up a little prayers asking God to help out those who didn't show up. Hand of the Lord! About 5 minutes into the reunión, people were pouring in! We ended up having 15, pretty decent for this Branch, with 1 amiga for her first time and 1 menos activo we've been working with for a while. That was a cool little tender mercy

We've been teaching Max for a bit now, and he's doing good! It's an ongoing battle between us and his Catholic school... he's at the point where he always starts his prayers with the Lord's prayer, then he'll stop and think about it for a bit, and restart in the way we pray😂 he asked me to be the person to baptize him this week, so that was bacan

Some interesting things that have happened the last two weeks:

- Un Borracho (drunk guy) walked (well, sort of fell,) into our apartment 

- We held baby ducks!! We were asked if we wanted to help kill them next month for food😶

- People keep telling me stuff in Spanish, and then telling me that I don't understand them because I'm a gringo. I do understand, but for some reason they never believe me when I explain that so usually I'll just roll with it 🤷‍♂️

- This man kept telling us that we followed Satan, and then he saw that we had a bible and started calling us angels

- I gave a talk about the priesthood and angels, and this one hermana told me after, "when you arrived your Spanish was awful. I could actually understand your talk today, good job." And then, "but of course you can't understand me haha" Maybe I just constantly have a perplexed look on my face? 

 

Bueno, something that I've been studying this week is 3 Nephi 1- 5. Something that caught my attention was how Satan uses a lot of fear. He likes to make our challenges seem bigger and scarier than they really are, using flattery, threats, and deception. In these chapters he used, and today he uses, thoughts like "It is impossible for you to win. I'm too powerful." Or, "You are trying to do the right thing, but you're wrong" I'll let y'all read these chapters, but I love how firm the response of the Nephites was. As we are built upon Christ, there is nothing that the adversary can do to us. It may seem like it, but he really only has as much power as we give him. He's "all bark, but no bite" so to speak. 

Love y/all!