I Love Food

Thanksgiving. Sooooo much food. That's pretty much enough said for the week but I know that wouldn't fly with my parents so I guess I'll expound.

So Wednesday we had a pre-Thanksgiving dinner which wasn't your traditional Thanksgiving dinner. They decided that since everyone was going to be eating tons of turkey on Thursday they decided to do something different so as to not turkey every one out. So instead they did barbecue. And then ceviche. AT THE SAME TIME. It was so good. Fajitas, chicken, ceviche, potato salad. I ate enough to last for me several days but Thursday our Bishop invited us over for dinner with him and all his family plus his wife's family. I think there were like 7 or 8 families there? All with several kids. It was a mad house. But 4 turkeys and a ham later, we left with enough food in our stomachs to last us a long time. All in all a great Thanksgiving. To top it off, the weather gods were with us and Thanksgiving Day and the following day it was over 60 degrees outside. It was a Thanksgiving Day miracle! And then Saturday came. That's a different story.

But then to top it all off, we had another baptism this weekend. I don't know where we keep finding all these people but we do so here is the story of William (as you can guess, not his actual name - or is it a her?!?!? The world may never know). Anyways some missionaries had talked with William (Will for short) a few days before I showed up here in Othello. They didn't get the chance to teach him at all so I got to teach him the first lesson and start the whole process. It was pretty slow at first but little by little he kept progressing here and there. We had invited him to be baptized once or twice but he never really accepted a solid date. There comes a time about a month and a half ago where we don't see him for almost two weeks for one reason or another since he hadn't done much and wasn't making a lot of progress. We decide to give him one more try and knock on his door, but we went in with the intention of dropping him for the aforementioned reasons. We sit down and start talking and come to find out he had read almost half the Book of Mormon. Since that was some pretty marked progress we humble ourselves and continue on the teaching process and set a date for about a month out. The date kept getting closer and we still were pretty far behind on the lessons since we had to help him overcome some concerns, which caused my companion and I to discuss pushing back his baptismal date a week so we didn't have to cram in the teaching last second. We bring a member over the Friday before his baptism (not the day before the week before so like 9 days) and on the way to the lesson that member said he saw Will in the store the night before and expressed how he was ready and excited for the 29th. I didn't feel like letting his hopes down to get baptized on that date since he was looking forward to it so much so we say sure and then express that we would have to meet every night for the next week to finish off the teaching process. He responds that he doesn't work since picking season is done (and then we thank the cold weather) so we start coming over every night until last Saturday, which was the baptismal service itself. Not a lot of people came, but the Spirit was there. Last night William shared with us how he has felt like he was walking on clouds since Saturday night. We asked him after the service was done Saturday night how he felt, and just the way he responded back with "I am filled with joy and happiness" is something that I won't soon forget.

The quote for the week comes from one of the lessons with William during that week of cramming in the lessons. We were discussing tithing and money and what not when someone made a comment about millionaires having lots of money but no faith. William said:

"I'm a millionaire, but with faith."

Classic quote. Gotta love the humble people in the world. Well, hopefully everyone's food coma has worn off since Thursday night and now we get to start working it all off, just in time for Christmas! Let the Christmas music binge listening begin.

Have a holly jolly Christmas,

Elder Kupferer

General Conference

Well first off General Conference was this weekend. Always a neat experience. I loved how they had almost all the speakers speak in their native language. I'm a little disappointed that President [Dieter F.] Uchtdorf still spoke in English but alas he is still a great speaker. And I don't think his talks would be the same without his accent. But either way it was pretty cool for us since I am serving in a Spanish ward there were headphones with the Spanish translation available and so for the speakers that spoke in Spanish we got to hear them in Spanish. It was way cool. 

A funny story about one of the talks; Saturday afternoon Elder Jorg Klebingat of the Seventy talked in part about things we can do to gain spiritual confidence. One such thing was maintaining healthy bodies and treating them well and watching what we eat. Well that came as a little bit of a rebuke because literally an hour and a half before we went to a pizza place for lunch with some other missionaries and stuffed our faces full of pizza and soda. I guess no more "one last slice" for me. 

So Thursday night we were walking around town talking to people when all of a sudden we hear this lady from down an alley call out "Elderes!" We were caught off guard and look around for the source of the salutation when we find an older lady whom we had never met before. So we go over and talk with her when she asks us if we had eaten dinner or not. It being 8:20 at night we say yes but then she asked us if we like shrimp, to which we replied in the affirmative. She then told us to wait for a second and that she would come back in a minute with some food. We were kind of surprised but waited and she came back with a container full of the best ceviche I have ever had in my life (ceviche is like a shrimp soup/salsa dip). We asked if she was a member because we aren't used to random strangers giving food to us like that and she said no but that a lot of her family were members and she just liked feeding the missionaries. It’s good to know there are still good people in the world. 

This week we also had one of the coolest and most stressful lessons of my life. There is a member in the ward here who was a mission president in Argentina a few years ago and between then and now had also served in the temple presidency for the Colombia Bogota Temple. Hands down one of the most spiritual men in the ward. Well imagine our great surprise when one Sunday after church he comes up to us and says "Elders! I have a family I would like for you to start teaching. His day off is Thursday. I'll see you a little before 4:30 at my house." I was torn between having what seemed to be a super solid referral and having to give a lesson with someone with such a spiritual resume. Well the time for the lesson comes and we have a mini-lesson with him before we go to the actual lesson and the lesson went great. He basically taught for us. It was an amazing experience seeing someone get so involved with a lesson. 

On a side note, after the lesson the family we had visited offered us some pupusas (think fat tortillas stuffed with food) and although they were good, it was a miracle that steam didn't start shooting out my ears by the time I finished it they were so spicy. I think I went through two or three glasses of milk by the time I was done. 

And in closing, I would like to refer back to the nice lady that gave us the ceviche. We were talking to her for a little bit afterwards about her kids when we come to find out they were both adopted and it was a miracle the oldest daughter was still alive. When she was but a few weeks old, the doctors had given her two years to live, to which the lady with whom we were talking said she would find a second opinion. Imagine the doctor's surprise when she comes back 6 years later and the little girl is doing fine. He demanded of her who her doctor was and how to find him. She said:

"My doctor is Jesus and He is found in the Bible."

It’s amazing what the power of faith can do. From moving mountains to answering a mom's simple wish, anything is possible to him that believeth. 

And with that may you all have a faith filled week!

Elder Kupferer