What's up everyone! This week was another amazing one full of spiritual experiences and great service opportunities! I'm absolutely loving the mission field and my new area here in newport!
Anyways this week if you remember last week I told yall about Chris and Brittany they are getting married and baptized this week on Wednesday and they quit smoking! They haven't smoked and are going strong so thank you all for your prayers!
So some random things that happened this week. There were trees that had fallen in the road from the storms so we cleaned those up. There was this turtle outside of an investigators house and we were playing with it and it was like snapping at us I'll see if I can get a video to send haha we also ate this food that's horrible for you but I'll say it tasted so fire! They call them STD's haha it stands for super tuna-dias. I'll send a picture of my companion eating it! But it is a quesadilla with mexican rice and refried beans with green sauce and tuna. But yeah super fire and I recommend trying it if you want a heart attack. Or just make it in smaller portions haha this week was also one of my companions birthdays so we went out and ate for that and that was dope!
Okay so this week we got to go to a Baptism from a different area. One of my companions is going home this Wednesday and it was people from his last area. But it was an amazing Baptism and afterwards one of the girls that got baptized said some awesome things that stuck with me! She said "my face hurts so bad because I cant stop smiling" , "I feel different and I love it", "I want to share this feeling with others", "if you guys didn't knock on our door that day then me and my family wouldn't be able to live together forever". Some powerful words from her. But it was an amazing experience and I loved it!
We had a fire lesson this week with this lady that has been taught by missionaries a lot of times before but we were able to get through to her and get past her stubbornness as well as her husband likes us and was chasing off all the other missionaries. But it just goes to prove how important having the spirit is and teaching by the spirit. She said at the end "that's it I have to find out if this book is true" so she took the BoM and said she was going to study and pray about it until Tuesday and we will talk again then so we are going back tomorrow and I'm so excited to here what she has to say!!
And last but not least this week was zone conference and it was so fire! I could talk about a million things but I just want to talk about one thing in specific and that is "Being your brothers keeper". So we are all our brothers and sisters keepers. This phrase comes from Genesis 4:9 "9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?" So what that means is that we are looking out for our brother and sisters. I like to think of it as having people in a watch tower. The watch tower is to look out for things that are coming and to help us know when there is danger.
So when we are being our brothers keeper we are looking out for them helping them see the right and wrong but not in a nagging or judgmental way. So there is also 2 sides of that. We might have people in our watch towers trying to help us and look out for us. So we need to be humble enough to accept correction and understand the Lord can speak through others!
Anyways that's a great take away I got and I hope yall can apply it in your lives! The church is true and there isn't anything else in this life that will bring you more peace than the gospel! I love you all and hope you have a great week!
-Elder Bastian
Also sister powers is awesome here is some pictures of her with her gun and her moonshine😂