pilar

These three words explain what I have been hearing for the past 6 weeks in Pilar.  Everyone and their 3 dogs are part of la gran y abominable catholic church here.  They are all willing to invite us in, but then they say that they love to listen to the word of God but dont want to change their religion.  It is ridiculous!  They all worship idols (los santos) like Saint Mary.  They even pray to her like she is some God...sometimes it scares me!  It is pretty sad that they are praying to some object or picture instead of the direct communication with our Heavenly Father.  We were teaching this old man who grew up the catholic church (like everyone we talk to) about the 10 commandments and he kept arguing that the are only from our church. Yet we explained to him a million times and showed him that we were reading from the bible.  Then he wanted to confuse the ten commandments with the 2 great commandments of God.  AHH, I am not going to lie, I did get kind of frustrated inside.  So I asked him if he would rather believe the customs and traditions of his parents than believe the teachings and doctrines of christ in the bible.  He didnt have a response and went right back into babbling about how great the catholic church is.  Wow...people are so closed hearted here.  So are so blinded by the lies and traditions of their culture that they cant and dont want to see the light of the restored gospel. 

I am sure learning a lot about enduring to the end.  We just keep working even though we know that we are going to get rejected. We are running out of ideas.  We invite all the people that we can to be baptized and they all say no because they dont like to make commitments.  The ward is falling apart and the members wont help us.  They all sit and complain about the ward and the work that is not being done instead of getting up and fixing it.  We are being super patient and trying to work with the members that we do have but we cant change their will.  We are diligently praying each day and each moment to find ways to preach to the hearts of the people.  When we receive answers, we put them to work.  And they we have to pray again to find out what else to do.  I feel like when I am succeeding in one thing, the other seems to fall.  For example...things seem to be going ok with the hermanans in my zone, but our work is really lacking.

But overall, I see a glimpse of hope and I know that as I am a servant of the spirit, the Lord can speak through me to help us find the people that are prepared to hear us.  Right now we have only one investigator that there is a glimpse of hope.  Her name is Vanusa and she is super sweet but cant seem to let go of the catholic culture.  We just got a new President and little by little the ward will start to work together.  WE are planning super fun activities so we hope that they excite the members.  WEll I love you all and I hope you are saying your prayers.  If you can, I have learned a ton from saying prayers out loud.  I shut the door and I talk to the Lord. I have a testimony that in the hardest of times he is the only one that truly understands and can help us.  

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Gunter