I don't have much time...I'll just talk about Fransisco today. About 4 weeks ago, at 7pm we were walking up and down this street trying to find this one address. We decided to go up one last time to find this house, didn't find it but as we were going up this guy in the middle of the road was walking toward us. We went right up to him and started doing a contact - but turns out that he is a member of our church. He was baptized 25 years ago as a kid, and grew up in the church and everything. He was about to serve a mission but ended up marrying someone who wasn't a member of the church and become inactive. He raised a family but apparently something didn't work out, and he ended up separating and became an alcoholic.
Fast forward to four months ago, Fransisco moved here to look for work or something. He gained a desire to return to church but he didn't know where church was held or anything. So he prayed that he could know, and sure enough, he ran into us. He expressed a lot of desire to return to activity in the church and to be worthy to go to the temple. So we passed by his house to talk to him. He lives in a place called a 'kitinete' which is a super small, super poor apartment. If you removed everything from our house in Vancouver except the entryway, the living room and the bathroom, you'd have a bigger sized kitinete than his. All he has is a moldy mattress and some clothes, a pair of shoes, some documents and the Bible. We brought him a Livro de Mórmon [Book of Mormon] and a pair of socks, we still need to buy him a toothbrush. He needs a lot of help. He isn't able to resist beer when handed to him. Fortunately, he's been able to mostly avoid the bar but sometimes he still goes. We've brought him to the Alcoholic Anonymous place, which seems to have helped.
I get pretty upset at Satan when I see stuff like this. Fransisco is exactly how Satan wants him to be. Miserable and without hope. Satan really uses the little things to drive people to be the worst. And he even is able to get the most elect to follow this trail. I thought a comment by Elder Bednar at general conference was interesting - the hypocrisy that Satan uses as his main weapon, something that he does not have - a body. I can testify to you that when people say there's a war on Earth, they're not exaggerating. There is! And it's brutal. I have learned a lot of things from Fransisco. He is very humble. Whenever he gives a prayer after one of our visits, he starts with something like, "Father, now I enter into your presence. I know that I am not worthy of this privilege, but I also know that I am your son, and you will hear me." I don't know what else to write about him. We've already talked with the bishop and priesthood leaders and are working on a solution. Maybe he'll have to go to another state where his siblings live.
That's all for now. Eu amo vocês!
Elder Bradford
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| Three 'generations' of missionaries in the field Elder Hill (left) trained AJ, who is now training Elder Zacheu (right) |
