4 Dec 2018: "If I Only Had a Brain"

Hola todos!

"If I only had a brain"
in someone's front yard

It's been a great week! We had exchanges with our district leader, Elder Rodrigues, and we learned a lot about finding people, and just regular mission stuff. 

About the title: when we were on exchanges, we met this lady with the coolest front porch in the business. Her husband had built their entire patio, and built a life size tin man, and scarecrow. I will attach a picture of it. It was pretty sweet.

Saturday night, the guy who called me "7G" because of my Latter Day Saint Heritage, had us over for dinner, but after awhile, it was clear to us, that he just wanted to bash on our religion and beliefs. It was pretty pathetic at times, but what can you do? The teenager side of me wanted to fire back with argue points, but the missionary side of me told the teenager side of me to be quiet. 

I won't say the things he was saying, but it wasn't pretty. He wasn't swearing or anything, but it wasn't a good time. He did give us cookies though! 

We had a nice visit with Jesus Galindo the other day. He wants to be at church with us and be baptized, but he won't do it unless his family and girlfriend is there. Patience is an attribute of Christ. 

Today as we were shopping, as I was about to pay for mine, before I could get my card out, a member from another ward swooped in and stuck money into the thing. Such a sweet thing to do. That happens a lot, but usually we have the opportunity to refuse the money, because we aren't supposed to accept money. This time I didn't even get the chance to refuse. I love the members here.

 Sunday night we were walking around, and we decided to visit someone we were previously teaching. We met with her, and she had been reading the Book of Mormon! Finally someone kept their commitments! Hallelujah! She was so sweet! When we shook hands ready to leave, I didn't have gloves on, and she was like "Ay! Your hands are so cold!" And she invited us in, and we had a super awesome spiritual lesson. Spiritual awesomeness, people, is where it's at. 

Spiritual thought for the week:

Helaman 5:12 ran through my head after the bashing session we went through the other night.  

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

When he was attacking our beliefs, my testimony did not falter one bit. No matter how many doubts I have had in the past, in the face of actual adversary, I did not doubt my belief in Christ, and His Gospel. That was the true test of my faith and testimony. 

Spiritual thought part 2: 

Watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional! Its awesome! Also, visit lighttheworld.org. I invite all of you to focus on how you can emulate the Savior while participating in this program. It truly is amazing. Light the world this week. Light your community next week, Light your family the next, d the last week, light your faith.

Love you all!

Elder Lovell

Snow in the desert! In the mountains, on the
other side of the valley

It rained and flooded a bit this week. The
puddle next to my bike covered a bit of the sidewalk