This week on Monday
night we went to run to the bank to take out some money. It was running late and it was iffy as to
whether or not we would arrive home on time. We got to the bank and the ATM was
out of order and we weren’t able to take anything out and we were going to have
to book it home. Then we ran into a member and we stopped and talked for a
minute and I got to catch up with them. They bought us donuts and gave us a
ride so we could make it home on time.
What is really crazy
is that this last year the first time I met this family we were running late on
our way home as well, and we were crazy far and this family pulled up and gave
us a ride home so we would get home on time, and here I am a year later in the
same situation and the first time I run into the family again they are saving
us from being late.
This week we weren’t
able to get that one lady baptized we were going to get here baptized on Saturday
night when three others got baptized, but something kept popping up and making
it so she wasn’t able to get baptized. We
were able to get her to come to the baptism that night at least to watch and
she was about to get changed to get baptized too but she got a message last
minute from someone in her family with an 'emergency' that she had to pick up.
The date for the baptism now is for Thursday so we will see what happens.
On like Wednesday, we
were walking in the street and some guy called us over and asked me if I
remembered him, and at first I didn’t recognize him and then talking, he told
me that we had talked in Parral. He was
an investigator of some of the sisters and he was going to get baptized but in
the end he backed out and disappeared. We
talked a bit and I took down his address, the only thing that sucked is that he
didn’t live in our zone. He was living
in another part of Chihuahua.
Then I passed the
reference to the zone to which he belonged to. They ended up visiting him and a
couple days later at a training meeting we had with president I talked with those
zone leaders and they told me that the guy was awesome and that he was to get
baptized that week. Then on Friday the day before his baptism, we ran into him
working in another part (he is in construction and works around in a lot of
parts) and he told us that he was to get baptized the next day and that he was
really happy.
This week I have been
studying a bit on pride, it is a talk that comes from Ezra Taft Benson, and it
is really good. It says that it is a sin that is really misunderstood and many
are sinning in ignorance, it talks about how disobedience is a prideful power
struggle in which we are competing our will against God’s will wishing not to
align ourselves with him and his will but rather wishing that he would change
to be in harmony with what we want. It talked about how enmity towards fellow men
is a big part of pride as well, where we lift ourselves above others.
He says that the
prideful are not satisfied in having something just in having more of something
than someone else and that they have the mindset if you succeed I fail, and
that their self-worth is determined by the number of people below them on the
ladder of success (that is determined by the world) and that by doing this, or
fearing men’s judgement more than God's judgement we give up our independence
from the world and we turn in our freedoms to the bondage of men’s judgements. The
talk is really good and I learned a lot.
This last week I got
your package, thanks everything is great. In our house there are three gringos
living together and we are enjoying the American goodies. I am everyone’s best
friend now, haha.
Love Elder Blanchard
