AUG_13_18

 Mother!!

Thanks for the birthday wishes!! I still have a few days until I can call myself 20 years old, but it's pretty crazy. Like John said, now all of your children are in their 20s! That's insane! I've been a missionary every day for this past year, so I feel pretty fulfilled. 

Lancaster, PA sounds pretty familiar to me. From what I remember, it's pretty close to Harrisburg, which means that it's super far away from where I am now. I think it's even in the Maryland, Baltimore Mission. We always get a lot of rain. Elder Taylor and I have had to hide under several awnings to keep from getting soaked. But I wouldn't say that it's raining here any more than it normally does. This really is such a humid, wet part of the country. Practically like Oregon and Washington. 

Over the next two transfers, we will be gaining 54 new missionaries. This is because we lost so many over the past two transfers, and have been fairly low in terms of missionaries for the past few months. So it is very likely that I will be training again sometime soon. Especially since Elder Taylor will be going home at the end of this transfer. I'm excited at the prospect of training, but at the same time, I kinda wanted to leave Pittsburgh, and if I train, I'll be here for another 3 months. That's my only reservation. But either way, I'll be happy with what happens!

This has been kind of a crazy week. I came to know myself a bit better than I did before. What did I learn? That I may or may not have a bit of an attitude sometimes when it comes to defending my faith. I haven't really been into too many Bible bashing situations on my mission, and generally, I do a good job of just shaking my head and walking away before anything gets started. But last Monday, as we were walking around the streets of downtown Pittsburgh, a Christian Minister approaches us and asks if he can walk with us. For SOME reason, Elder Taylor said yes. The minister then proceeds to ask us about the doctrine of Jesus Christ, then the idea of us becoming Gods, then the Premortal life, and modern day Prophets. I almost felt sorry for the guy. It was clear that he did his research, but he had picked the wrong guy to mess with. Up until that point, I had had a trying day, complete with headache and whatnot. So basically I just unloaded on him. I refuted every argument that he had, and I could tell based off of the look on his face that he felt pretty dumb. I kept looking to my companion for backup, but he just stood there, encouraging me to go on. At the end, I just bore a sincere testimony, and walked away. Elder Taylor told me that he was just ridiculously impressed, and was taken aback by my knowledge. A prideful part of me felt good that I could stand my ground like that.

But the rest of me felt sick. When it comes to Bible bashing, there's no real winner. There's just two losers. The man was seeking it out, eager to showcase his misguided knowledge about the Mormon Church. And the natural man in me wanted to win. But even though my companion invited him to walk with us, I could have still chosen to stay silent. Contention is always of the devil. 

But i totally won. 

We had another interesting day yesterday. It was about 8:30, and we were about to start for home. But we decided to knock on a few more doors. We'll, we knocked at this one house, and an old African American guy answers the door. He Invited us in right away. We thought we had hit the jackpot!! He brings us to his dining room, where there is another African American man sitting at the table. We sti down, and for the next 30 minutes, they just begin to tell us about the injustices of slavery, and how they deserve compensation for the way their ancestors were treated. Towards the end of their rant, they ask, "What can you Mormons do for the African American community?" I start to share the message of the Restoration with them, and they begin to get angry. They say, "I don't need you to save my soul. I don't care if you are the one true church. I don't need a church. I need to know how you can help me NOW. In this life. Not the next life." I told them about how the Gospel could help improve their quality of life, but they still weren't having it. 

It pained me to see how the natural man has just completely overtaken their existence. Their motivation is purely for worldly pleasure. They want everything NOW, and don't care about the future. The old man kept saying, "I know that God has brought you to my house for a reason, but I can't figure out what it is." Every time he would say that, I would say, "THE CHURCH IS RESTORED. WE HAVE THE TRUTH. YOU CAN FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF." Then he would just shrug his shoulders and say, "No, that can't be it."

It was frustrating, to say the least. We ended up getting home at 10:30 last night because we were trying to get him to understand why we were there so long, we missed our bus. 

Oh, the joys of missionary work. It can certainly be frustrating sometimes, but it's fun defending truth. That's what makes it bearable.

Lots of other stuff happened this week. I went to KFC for the first time on my mission. Had Zone Conference and interviews. Saw the Pittsburgh Skyline in the dark for the first time (since we were so far away from home by nighttime). But none of it really matters and is all that interesting. Here's to next week! Love you! 

Elder Jake Gonzales 

On Aug 12, 2018 10:19 PM, <perucalica@aol.com> wrote:

August 12, 2018

Dear Buddy Boy,

First things first, (sung in an operatic voice) Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Jacob, Happy Birthday to you. (Sung with a Peruvian accent) Cumpleanos feliz, te desamos a ti. Cumpleanos felices, te deseamos a ti!

OK, now that that is out of the way, we can move on to other things.  I know that today is not your birthday but you can reread this email on the 17^th, if you so desire.

Everything here is the same old, same old.  Dad’s and my life have gotten to be pretty routine over the last little while so not much changes from day to day.  I did survive my first week of classes with my kids.  They are a typical class.  They just change their names from year to year.  I have my token 2 year old acting child in my class and then you have your goof offs along with your kids that are reliable.  That pretty much sums up my whole class.  Fortunately, right now, there are only 23 of them and so they are manageable

.

That being said, Primary, on the other hand, is a chaotic mess but I won’t get on that tangent right now.  It makes my blood boil and surely can’t be good for my blood pressure.

I read today in the news about a sinkhole that appeared in a parking lot near some stores in the Lancaster, PA area.  It appears that you have gotten quite a bit of rain down there.  I do believe that we have forgotten what rain is here in our neck of the woods.  We actually have had many fires going on in the surrounding areas so now we are all breathing the brown air.  It  got so bad last week at one point that we could not let our students out to play because of the air quality.  (And we wonder why our eyes are burning and we all have headaches).  It appears that half of the State of California is on fire.  I guess that the Lord is just trying to prepare us for the days of final judgement when the whole Earth is going to burn.  California will probably be one of the first states to go up in flames as, in my opinion, we’re not far off from being akin to Sodom and Gomorrah. At least that’s what all the Utahns tend to think anyway. (Sorry for all the sarcasm.  I am feeling rather sarcastic tonight for some reason or other.)

I have to meet with my Principal on Tuesday about my observation and I have back to school night this next Thursday. Pray for me!

I hope that missionary work is going spectacularly this week and that your investigators made it to church today.  I remember that it always felt so good when they would actually show up.

I’ve been seeing posts on the PPM Facebook page about several missionaries who just entered the MTC headed for your mission.  I wonder if you will be training one of them.  It seems that there will be at least 6 or 8 elders headed your way this next transfer.  I haven’t seen anything about any sisters but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

I will refrain from boring you any further.  I can’t really think of anything else to say.  I’ll try and be in a better mood next week when I write.

Have a great week and a spectacular birthday.  We’ll be thinking of you.  You can count on that.

Love,

Mom