Week 31 in Laguna (has it been that long??)

Hola, everyone!

I'm glad that I got to stay for another transfer, because if I was leaving, I wouldn't have been able to go to the biggest feast of the pueblo, which was last Tuesday.  We went to 4 houses- which means we had 4 meals.  No, it was not "breakfast-lunch-tea time-dinner".  We wish it was that simple. No, we had our own breakfast, then we had 2 lunches, and 2 dinners, which also means that we had all 4 of those within about 5.5 hours...  and with how windy it was, we got a 5th meal with how much dirt ended up in our mouths.  Man I love this area. XD

Also, today was our "Missionary Monday" which is the day that the Albuquerque temple opened just for us missionaries to go and do an endowment session!  I was able to go through for one of my ancestors that I found, and it changed my whole perspective on this work that we are engaged in!  I also got to see a lot of faces I recognized from El Paso, and if I were to count how many times I heard the words "you need to come back to El Paso"  I'd probably be around 30 times just today.

I gave a baptism interview last week, it was really cool!  The person preparing for baptism is in the YSA, his name is Kai, and he's doing awesome!  He's being taught by the sisters in the zone, and because the sisters are in my district, with me as the district leader, I got to talk to him to see if he is ready!  It was really weird, but pretty sweet!

It's General Conference week!  I'm super pumped because that's our time to receive personal revelation from the words of the living prophets and apostles!  I promise you that if you watch conference with a question in mind, and if you go with a desire to know of one thing that God wants you to do to become better, you WILL receive your answer, and that one thing is going to push your limits, but allow you to become more like Christ in a way that somebody in this world needs you to be! 

Someone needs you today for who you are right now,  and more people need you tomorrow because of what you become today!  Keep moving forward with faith, even while the world seems to be falling in fear- fear is not part of who God needs you to become!

Te whanaunga mo ake tonu!

Elder Eli James Dial

Time flies....when the clock is thrown out the window ;)

Hola, everyone!  

This week has pretty groovy for the Laguna, Acoma, and To'hajiilee area, I think. I wasn't there for most of it, I was on exchanges twice in the last week, both times I came in to Albuquerque, so I only got to spend like 4/7 days in my own area.  Speaking of which, I have been in Laguna for right around 7 months now... and I'll be here for another 6 weeks!  This next transfer will be my 6th in Laguna, which is unusual, even for this area!

Exchanges with Elder Robinson, the zone leader here, was a lot of fun!  We ended up talking with some people who are from the Bi-hi faith.  Long story short they believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet, but that somewhere in the Book of Mormon he prophecies of a man named Ba'ha'u' lah, who is "in fact, the Risen Christ" and that He came about 200 years ago.  We asked about the 1000 years of peace that's supposed to come with Christ's 2nd coming, to which we got the response, "God's timing is mysterious."  -_-  Yeah, we taught her about the Book of Mormon, and how Joseph Smith's own words aren't even in it, but that we have the Doctrine and Covenants that are his words.  Elder Robinson told her that he had read all of the Doctrine and Covenants and that he hadn't seen any reference to Ba'ha'u'lah, and this lady said, "Clearly you missed it."  

Needless to say, we left without setting a return appointment.  XD

Then, on exchanges with Elder Furlong, I was able to test out my Spanish (that I didn't try very hard to learn while I was in El Paso), and it turns out that I can understand the gist of what they're saying, but I can't respond in Spanish.  It was cool to have that feeling of having no idea what's going on again!

Don't ever give up, I'll talk to you all next week!

Te whanaunga mo ake tonu!

--

Elder Eli James Dial

Is that Tevya???

Hello, all!

This week has been pretty great, I finally got to go somewhere that is not normally open to the missionaries... Sky City!  A little background, Sky City is on the Acoma pueblo that we're technically not allowed to go.  Sky City is on top of a mesa that is off by itself, and it's sacred to the natives, and if you go on top without permission, you could potentially (98% possibility) be in prison for the rest of your life.  But, on feast days, they don't turn anyone away-and Sky City only has 2 feast days a year: the one this last Saturday, called the Governor's feast, and one near Christmas.  The kindness of natives is pretty epic!  Naturally, no pictures, but it's still a great memory to have!

We went on exchanges with the Spanish Elders this last week, and it was weird to be in a house or two where the people didn't speak English... I kinda miss having that feeling of having no idea what's going on because it's all in Spanish!  It was cool, and those Elders, Elder Eskelsen and Elder Furlong, are doing amazing things in the two Spanish branches they cover! 

Now, for the part referencing the title of the email: Tevya.  He is the main character of "Fiddler on the Roof".  Something that happens a lot in Fiddler on the Roof is traditions are broken... and this area is all about traditions.  We invite people to learn more about what we teach, and they say, "I believe in my traditional religion [which is a mix between Catholic and Native American Culture]."  Over the years that this area has been opened, some traditions were created. Elder Jackman and I stopped one- all our planning was dropping by people, we wouldn't have return appointments.  We now set return appointments with a lot of people, sometimes people don't cooperate, but that's alright.  Elder Cornelison and I are tackling another tradition that this area has- what missionaries call the ratio rule.  The ratio rule is a rule that says that there has to be three members of one gender in a house or room to be able for us to enter said room or house, and we've been told that the ratio rule applies to us on the rez, because we wouldn't be able to teach anyone if we did...    Most of our investigators are single older ladies that enjoy having us over, but we have been telling them that we can't go over unless we either bring another male with us, or two more ladies with us or... they can invite their friends!  It's been difficult, but for the last 4 months or so, we haven't had any of our 15 or so investigators keeping commitments.  Just on Saturday, we found out that 2 of our investigators are both progressing- reading the Book of Mormon everyday, praying daily, and they both attended church this last week-along with one of them being on date for baptism!  It's really cool to know that as we are exactly obedient, miracles happen!

That's it for me this week, just keep your head up and never give up!

Te whanaunga mo ake tonu!

--

Elder Eli James Dial