May 17th- Testimony that Families Can be Together Forever

Hey!  How's it going?

That's crazy about Oliver. I just remember running a 5:35 in 8th grade and being pretty proud of that.  Keep up the good work!  How's Connor's baseball season going?

Mom: what was the most spiritual experience this week? We started teaching this family last week.  They have the mother, the father has passed away, two daughters, one 20 and the other 19 and then a male cousin who is 18 years old.  They are very active in the Catholic church, but they have expressed a lot of interest in our message, especially about life after death (the father passed away) and also about how Jesus Christ established his church and what happened to the organization he created after he died. I've been able to learn a little bit about how the Catholic church started, which is actually kind of useful information, but I'm just really grateful because Elder Beticon is very good with the New Testament.  But, I myself have taken some time to really study out about the Great Apostasy and the Earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.  But, anyways, I really love this family we are teaching.  They are some of the most religiously learned people I have taught yet, but yet they are so polite and ponder everything we teach.  Last night, we taught about the Restoration.  We talked for 2 hours with them about Joseph Smith and the role that the Book of Mormon has in our conversion.  We ended the discussion and talked about how nobody can know of spiritual truths without prayer.  I told them that there are so many things that we can't prove about religion.  Nobody can prove the creation. Nobody can prove the Joseph Smith saw God the Father and the Son. Nobody can prove the Book of Mormon, but it easily seen that this has all been done in the wisdom of God.  All we can do is follow the council that the scriptures gives us, to ask our Father in heaven.  We told them this and then bore testimony that God does answer prayers and we know the Book of Mormon is true because of prayer.  We also bore testimony that families can be together forever through the gospel. The spirit was so strong, and I know they could feel it too.  The mother gave the closing prayer and asked for understanding because she knows that they don't understand the gospel and scriptures perfectly.  I'm really excited for this family because they are really showing sincerity in wanting to know the truth, and that's when the spirit can touch their hearts. 

Connor: at what age to most teenagers start to date there?  To be honest, I have no idea, maybe 14 or 15, but dating here is really weird.  I've seen some dates where they sit on a bench and then just text each other.  It's really weird. 
Oliver: how good are you at the piano? Can you play with two hands?  Yeah, I can play with two hands. I'm getting pretty decent. I play the simplified hymn book, but some of the hymns I can play straight out of the hymn book. 
Chloe: what is the most common instrument there?   I would maybe say the guitar.  A lot of people like to sit on the beach in their little huts and drink and just play and sing native songs.  It's pretty cool, minus the drinking haha. 

So, we had one lesson this week and one of the neighboring house was doing videoke, which is basically karaoke, but the speakers were so loud and I forget what we were teaching, but I almost lost it because it was so bad. They were singing that one song, 21 guns.  Yeah, it was bad.  I got the giggles bad.