Holy cow! I'm in Ecuador! (and using a really weird keyboard, so I'm sorry if random letters show up.) My companion is great and very motivated. I love that she doesn't settle for mediocre work. It's great! A little about the mail here.
The address that EVERYTHING (letters and packages) needs to be sent to is:
Casilla de Correo 17-03-078
640 Robies y Amazonas
Quito, Ecuador
Can't be more than 4.4kg and it HAS to have a green sticker. The mission president's wife said the best thing to do is flat rate boxes and UPS, and FedEX is no good. I can recieve DearElders, but nothing from the pouch. I don't understand it, but that's the way that it is. I also have a lot more time here to read through emails, so feel free to send me one. (family only)
The people here are so amazing! They have so much love for the missionaries. I have to be careful and not say that I like anything in their house or else they'll give it to me. I've already suffered the consequences of them giving me anything. The food (that I've had so far) is good. Lots of rice, but it's pretty good rice, so that's alright.
I had and incredible experience on my flight from Chicago to Miami. I was disappointed because I sat next to a very unfriendly looking business man. As I was sitting there, going over my notebook I had used to take notes in all the devotionals and just enjoying the Spirit, thinking about how I was going to start up a conversation with the guy next to me. I then looked across the aisle and kiddie corner behind me there was a blonde woman reading a book and under it she had her bible. I could tell she was reading a Christian book. As I was reading through all the talks about boldness and testifying, and the Lord putting words in my mouth if I opened it, I was overcome with the familiar constraining feeling that I had to speak to her. I kept her in the corner of my eye. (I wouldn't be surprised if she knew I was watching her) I sat there for about 10 minutes trying to decide how in the world I was going to randomly start a conversation with someone in an airplane. Especially because she wasn't even sitting next to me.
I finally decided I'd ask her about her book she was reading. She finished a chapter and got up to go to the bathroom. I decided that I would ask her a soon as she got back. I had no idea what I was going to say after I found out what book she was reading, but I decided to let my faith worry about that and just open my mouth. So, as soon as she came and sat back down, I just did it. She told me what it was and she asked me where I was from. Told her Salt Lake City area and Tooele county. She told me she had lived in SLC for about 3 years and rubbed shoulders with many LDS people and worked or volunteered with various Christian groups. She was on her way to the Dominican Republic to look for housing for her and her family (husband and 4 kids) because they were going on a mission there to take care of kids in an orphanage and teach at the christian schools. They were going to go to Guatemala to learn Spanish for the summer and head there afterwords. I asked her what religion she was and she was non-denominational Christian. I asked her how often she read the Bible and she said very often and she was also very active in the church (hence the mission). The conversation got very interesting.
She told me she had had the missionaries teach her family before. I asked if she had read the B of M and she told me she had read parts of it but felt like she could discount it with the Bible. She felt like it was important to study the Bible and get close to God and live a good life and everything. "Give her whole self" she said. I then was able to testify of what I've learned about since I've been on a mission about giving myself to Christ wholely and serving Him and studying the scriptures. She asked about what we do to train, I told her that we study 3 hours a day in personal, companion, and Spanish study. And that in Spanish study we used the scriptures to help us learn. She asked how much instruction we get in language in the field, and i told her just personal study, my trainer, and speaking to people. We then went quiet and didn't talk for about five minutes. It felt incomplete though, like I knew I needed to say something else but I didn't know what. I tried with a feeble attempt to find another way commonality, asking her how much C.S. Lewis she'd read. She'd read a bit, but not for a while an dI now recognize that is not what I'm representing, so of course it didn't work. Again we sat in silence with a feeling of in completion. I was thinking, "How could she read the B of M and not know it was true? Especially if she was such a fantastic student of the Bible?" Then it dawned on me, as it says in Moroni, we must PRAY and ASK to know if it's true. So once again, thinking and remembering that her salvation may very well be on the line right now, I had a prayer in my heart, trusting that because of my calling I was receiving revelation through the Spirit and that I have been called to call to repentance. I turned around again and asked, "can I ask you one more question?" She said yes, and I couldn't' help but remind myself that there was no going back now, I then asked, "Did you pray about the B of M?" Immediately she said no. For the first time I felt sorrow for the stiffneckedness of men. It made no sense to me, but she explained why. She told me that she thought the Mormons were trying to do things to earn their way to heaven and that we just need to believe in God and come close to him and that was good enough. She wanted to make sure I knew she wanted to live a good life and do good things, but didn't want to earn her way to heaven. She also told me that she recognized that I knew the B of M was true, but she didn't believe it was. I told her I was grateful for her honesty, that I'd rather have her tell the truth than to lie to me, but then I testified with the strong testimony that I have of the B of M. "Like you said, I know the B of M is true because I asked God and He told me so."
I don't remember saying much more than that besides that she can know the truth through prayer too. I wished her luck with Spanish and her mission, she did the same with me. I then turned forward in my seat, amazed at the power God gives to His representatives of Jesus Christ when we followed the promptings of the Holy Ghost...... Her behavior after made me wonder if she had felt the power of the Holy Ghost testify that the B of M is true. After I turned around, I started thinking how could someone who repeatedly told me her goal in life was to get closer to God refuse to have the faith that God will answer a prayer? It was almost like she was afraid to submit her will and that she wanted to worship the way SHE wanted to and not the way God wanted her to. She was afraid the answer she'd receive would not fit into her life and what she held so tightly wouldn't be true. It pained me to think that she would never receive the saving ordinance of baptism as long as she continued to refuse the invitation to exercise a particle of her faith. you would think that a person with that much conviction to God and that is so sure in her faith would pray to God knowing she'd get the answer she wanted. If she knows the B of M is wrong, wouldn't God, who knows everything, tell her that? So what is there to lose? Ask, and find out it's wrong and move on with your life or find out it's right and receive the eternal bliss Alma talks about in Alma 37:44-45. I think she was afraid that someone would break her faith by her changing it.
Love you all! Until next week!!
Love Hermana Cooper
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