Friday, October 13, 2017

I have been very slow about posting Skibby's last two emails, and I apologize!  But here they are. My attempts at translations & explanations are in brackets and italics.:

Date:  October 9, 2017 at 10:22 AM
Subject:  La Madred de todos Los libros [The Mother of all Books]

Hello family:)

Here are the haps of the week:

We met with Adrian to teach him about the 10 commandments. So I brought the Bible. Adrian is a really good person. He asked us why we do this if so many people reject us. It if is worth it. So we read d&c 18:10-16sh and we said, "does that answer your question?" Respondió "bastante" [He responded, “quite”]. Anyway, we were about to start the lesson and so I said, "look what we brought today!!" And I heaved over my bible. His eyes got all big and he was like, "que es eso? La madre de todos los libros! [what is that?  The mother of all books!]" And as he finished saying that, he flipped open to the page that says: "LA SANTA BIBLIA [THE HOLY BIBLE]" it was very dramatic. So we taught him the 10 commandments. He was interested to know that the Catholics have a hard time with commandment #2 [thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image]. He had a lot of good questions and in the middle we started talking a little bit about the plan of salvation, and he was wondering about perfection and asking if it said anywhere in the scriptures that we couldn't reach perfection here on earth. But by the time we finished with the commandments, I think he had changed his mind completely about if perfection was possible. We all decided that we love teaching Adrian because he has good questions, and then listens to our answers and understands them. Then asks other good questions.  He is a thinker. He thinks about why some people are natural runners, and why do they have that talent and not others? And what would happen if somebody had all those talents combined, so they were like, more complete? That's when we started talking about perfection. And how is it that we as humans only use about 20% of our brains? We would ask him on every commandment what he thought it meant, and he would give his opinion, but when we got to #7 we said, "que significa adulterio [what is adultery]?" And he said "dímelo tú [you tell me]," and we got it all sorted out.

We had a killer lesson with Carolina. I don't think I've told you about her, but she is from the Dr [probably Dominican Republic]. She has 2 little kids. She receives us throughout the week, and then the testigos [“testigos” translates as “witnesses.”  Maybe Skib is talking about the Jehovah’s Witnesses???] on Saturday. We wanted to show her why it is important to go to church every week. So we talked about the Sabbath day. She read 1 nefi 2 (Woohoo!) and we talked about verses 9-10, and how God also wants us to be constant like that too. It was a well structured lesson. I like well structured lessons. She also talked about what day the Sabbath day was, and how Jesus had talked about helping the ox or buey [ox] on the Sabbath day. I had mas o menos [more or less] randomly studied those 2 things recently, so we were able to pull them out and read them. Even though I wasn't specifically studying for Carolina with those things, I do not believe it was coincidence that I had read about them (D&C 84:85). She committed to come to church, not because we invited her, but to better keep the Sabbath day holy. Only then we found out that another stake had stake conference in our building and our meetings were changed to the afternoon. She said she couldn't go.

A few weeks ago, this guy named Juan Jose called us, asking about English classes and we ended up meeting with him. We works as a waiter (which means basically you have no other time). He has Wednesday nights and Thursdays free. We taught the restoration and he said he would read. Well we met with him Wednesday night, and he had read up until 1 nefi 4. I think he has a photographic memory or something because he started talking about 600 bc and stuff like that. It was cool to see how much he had understood the bom. He said, "si termino el libro es seguro seguro” [Google translates this as, “if I finish the book it’s safe insurance."  Not sure I’m buying that translation…]. But he is reading because he wants to learn, not necessarily because he wants to become closer to God. But he is really cool. We'll see him again this Wednesday.

Devi sent us a wassup saying she had lost her phone or something. We'll meet with her Wednesday too hopefully. I really like her.

Kebaptism-- there's a Turkish fastfood place called Kebap here. Hna Eckel hadn't had it, so the elders said we had to go to kebaptize her. Missionaries love kebap here so much, It's basically a second religion.

We did video chat with Angel and Maria (peruanos) [Peruvians]. They said they are still kindof struggling. We are trying to pass them off to the hnas in b1.

Jinzuro: we talked to him about the importance of the scriptures and how they are God's words. He agreed to read 5 versus every day. We asked what he had learned about nefi and he said, "yo nefi, nací de Buenos padres" [I Nephi, was born of goodly parents.”]

Ivan (son of Yvonne) has almost learned Grande eres tu [perhaps this is the hymn, “How Great Thou Art”?] all the way (with the right hand in C) 

There were some hard things in the week, but all in all, things are going well. I am really grateful to know and work with all the people here.
Love you!

Hna Christensen 



Skibby email on Monday, October 2, 2017:

Date:  October 2, 2017 at 11:01 AM
Subject:  PROFETAS VIVIENTES [LIVING PROPHETS]

Hello Family! It's Belén anpther great are haré at the olé 
It's been another great week, here at the old coral. (That's how Spanish autocorrects that sentence)

Here are the deets 
We met with Jinzuro and helped him with English. He is confused. He doesn't know if he should believe in Buddha or God. We helped him a lot with english.

Devi: her phone is turned off or out of contact. No contact

Lourdes: finally called me and said she would come to general conference. But she didn't come. It is so hard to help people when they won't let you.

Adrian, Flor, and Carolina came to gc Sunday night=Sunday morning for you people. I was worried because oaks had talked and uchtdorf and also Holland. And I was just praying that they would save elder BEDNAR to speak so they could hear his powerful words. Thank heavens he did. That was an awesome talk, and exactly what all of he needed to hear. We'll see how they took it this week.

All of b3 was at the conference.

Victor came and found me

I loved pres. NELSON'S talk. 

We taught all about profetas this week. I love teaching about them.

We talked about some American history to a member who is taking an English course. America is cool! Never know what you're missin til it's gone. 

Hna Eckel was kebaptized. I'll explain next week.

Love and hugs, but no kisses. JK. besos is the only way we salute here.



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