Week 32 - A Dunk, A Witch, And A Birthday

Hey,

This past week was pretty good.

We had some days of straight lessons and those went super well. Tuesday the other companionship had a baptism of a guy named Juan. His work schedule is odd and so we had the baptism at one that afternoon. Including all the members and missionaries, the total attendance was a strong seven of us.

Although the attendance was small it was still a really awesome time.

Then on Wednesday we got to have dinner with the Murrillo family! We met together at some hole-in-the-wall pizza place in our area. It was super awesome and they are doing so well!

We were tracting this week in an apartment complex that has never been touched by the previous missionaries and we knocked on this door of a lady who seemed slightly irritated (Like most people) that we were there. She told us that she was Wiccan and that she practices witchcraft. She was very proud in telling us that she does rituals and sorcery. I don't think that she would be very proud about what she does if she was living in Salem, Massachusetts in the year 1692.

The really disappointing part of the encounter was that her Halloween decorations were really lame. Kinda expect more from a witch...

Also fun fact! Since marijuana is practically legal in Nevada now the amount of people who hold a current medical marijuana card has drastically decreased. It's really comforting to know that after July 1st the amount of people with glaucoma and insomnia somehow got healed.

Friday we went over to our investigators house and she was super busy preparing for her sons birthday party the next day so we helped her prepare and I got to make a cake and cupcakes! We went back the next day witha present and some ice cream that we told her we would bring. 10/10 birthday party preparations.

So it was a pretty productive week.

Until Next Week,
Elder Lawson

   

Week 31 - Dunks, Comps, And The Las Vegas Massacre

Hey,

So it has been a solid three weeks since I have sent an email (feelsbadman), but that just means I can tell you all that has gone on!

So first of all we had transfers a few weeks back and I got Elder Manrique as my new companion. He was born in Peru and has lived in the US (Orem, Utah) for most of his life; so he is pretty Americanized. We immediately started that grind and since then have had three baptisms! So the area of Paraíso 1 has been straight fuego for the past little while. That is also my excuse for not writing anything.

We knocked on this white-guy's door about two weeks ago and he proceeded to tell us that God doesn't exist because there are six million starving kids in the world and how could a God put children through something like that, especially because it was the worst way to die. My first reaction was in thinking that some of the stuff that the Aztecs did to their enemies or things that happened during the Holy Wars were some of the worst ways to die, but that is sorely opinionated I guess. Also we tried to explainour purpose here, but he told us to come back when we had proof of anything. So a few days later we dropped a Book of Mormon on his doorstep as proof and left (He wasn't home) to continue the search for new people.

Also like last week the Las Vegas Massacre happened in our stake boundaries. We actually went over by the Luxor, about four days before, while on exchanges to take pictures in front of it. We drove past the set-up for the concert and everything.

A few days later we had Zone Conference and before we went to the hospital to give a lady a blessing. She had been at the concert and was shot in three different places. A man in another ward in our stake was also shot. The doctors took him off of life support a few days prior...

We talked to some of the doctors and they said that the hallways and walls had been covered in blood the Monday morning off the shooting. So that was sorta intense.

On a better note we had three baptisms on Saturday. The Melo family had been in-active for seventeen years and we re-activated them, but couldn't find their records so we had to baptize them again.

So the area of Paraíso 1 is starting to progress and everything is going well.

Until Next Week,
Elder Lawson

Photos:
1. Me by The Luxor. You can see the fence and lights in front of The Luxor
2. Us at our baptism
3. Baptisms again
4. The shirts we got for P-day