October 5 Letter

Dear Family,

Hello to all! How are you all doing? How was conference for everyone? Here it was great! However, our mission president made a rule that we couldn’t watch conference in English because we needed to sit with our investigators. My companion and I had one investigator that went to the priesthood session, but that was it. Luckily, our zone leaders got permission for us to watch the last session of conference in English. I was so grateful because Elder Holland’s talk about the Book of Mormon was so dadgum powerful. It’s true. Everything he said. As hard as people try to break down the Book of Mormon, they will never ever succeed. Why? Because it was inspired of God. Revelations and testimonies given by His prophets. Nobody who reads the Book of Mormon with a sincere desire to know of it’s divinity and know their Savior more deeply will be denied the testimony. I can’t believe how many people I have met here who have said, “Oh yeah, I’ve read the Book of Mormon and I don’t agree with what it says.” Every time I ask them if they prayed about it, they say, “I always pray.”—“Do you pray SPECIFICALLY and with sincerity to know if it’s true?” They can never say yes. One man told us that he didn’t agree with when God cursed the Lamanites and gave them dark skin to separate them from the Nephites. I just wanted to be like...“dude, revelation from God comes true and God is just...what more do you want?” People read it just to know what’s in it and to study it and compare it with other books that have been written and with the Bible. You can’t do that. You can’t ever know if it’s true if that’s the only reason you read it. However, those who do read it with a sincere heart will gain everything Elder Holland testified of. Peace, comfort, and a new love for their Savior and a sincere and deep desire to follow Him. Is that not enough of a promise?
Crazy thing happened. I met a guy who just got back from his mission in Costa Rica like 4 months ago and guess who he met, knew and was companions with? Aaron Brooks!!! Crazy! Dadgum, this mormon world is soooooo small. Also, Elder Ramos, an Elder in my district from Peru, was looking at my pictures and he saw Caleb asked who he was. I told him, “that’s my cousin that served in Peru Lima East.” He looked at me with a very surprised look and said, “I know him, he served in my stake back home. He always got really emotional when he talked about God.” It runs in the family, what are you gonna do? It was crazy!
This week my companion and I got sick from walking around so much unguarded in the cold weather last week. It’s kinda funny because since we got sick, Hermana Miller sometimes has to wake me up at night and tell me to roll over so I don’t snore. She finds me sleeping on my back and I can’t breathe through my nose so I guess it gets pretty bad. Last night she had to do it twice. Hahaha, oh poor girl. I’m glad that doesn’t happen when I’m not sick. Today we are in downtown Córdoba and we went into a store that sells mostly only sweet things. Chocolate, alfajors, bon o bons (Mom, you may have to explain to some what those are. What did you think of the ones I sent by the way?), everything one could possibly want as far as sweets go (minus ice cream). Since my comp and I have been sick, we bought cough drops from this store to satisfy the dryness of our throats. We go into a huge candy store and what do we come out with? Cough drops. Oh well...we’re desperate okay?
As far as investigators go. We found a man and a woman who are married! Darío and Alicia! Finally! However, when we passed by their house before conference yesterday, Darío told us that Alicia had left him. Crap. We tried everything to get him to come to conference, he said he kinda wanted to go, but wanted to stay home as well. We literally tried every angle, every promise and blessing in the book, but, he wouldn’t budge. We’ll see what this week brings with him. Anyway, I must be on my way, I think we might go to the zoo or something, so it’s been great, I hope I get those letters I told everyone to write about conference soon. I’m glad Brent at least gets one Sunday off a month. I’ll be praying really hard that he can have every Sunday off. You just can’t miss out on the blessings you know? Anyway, I’m glad everyone’s doin great! The church is true, the Book is blue and God is Mormon. C: Talk to you all next week!

Hermana Shumway