March 12, 2018
Family and Friends,
This week felt kinda long because every day felt the same haha. We have
two people who are preparing for baptism (Carole from Scotland and Edwin from
Bolivia), so we visited them a lot and most of our week was geared towards them
which was awesome! I realized that, while I know a good amount about the
Catholic church (which is kind of important because everyone here is catholic),
I'd never actually been to a Catholic mass haha. So we went to mass in the huge
cathedral in the tiny town where we lived. It was pretty interesting. A lot of
ritual repeating prayers and stuff. So now I can say I've done it haha.
We had a few fun family home evenings this week! We were without our bffs,
the Whalley's, who are this British couple, and one of our investigators
(Patricio) just showed up at their house for family night haha. We had a good lesson
and played a few games so it was fun. The other one was with a family that has
like 6 kids and it was crazy but definitely reminded me of family night when I
was younger haha.
In other news I finally got my hands on a "Bible" from the
Jehovah’s Witnesses. The place where I live is the JW capital of Europe, so
there's so many of them haha. It's super popular in Spanish-speaking places
because every time that the Old Testament used LORD which is a lot a lot it
says Jehovah in Spanish instead. So Jehovah appears thousands of times in the
Spanish Bible whereas it only appears about 4 or 5 in the English Bible. It was
also frustrating reading their Bible because they just change/remove any verse
from the Bible that disagrees with what they believe haha. I think that's kind
of lame but it makes talking to them pretty fun. It has really made me study
the Bible and really discover what it teaches. One basic doctrine that I found
was actually entirely based in the Bible is that Jesus Christ is the God of the
Old Testament. It's way better in Spanish but I guess you can settle with
English:
Jesus Christ created the world:
Hebreos (Hebrews) 1:1-2,8-10
Efesios (Ephesians) 3:9
Colosenses (Colossians) 1:12-19
Juan (John) 1:14, 1-3
God of the Old Testament (Jehova) created the world:
Isaías (Isaiah) 45:7-8, 11-12,15,18
Jesus Christ is the Savior:
1 Juan (1 John) 4:14-15
2 Pedro (2 Peter) 2:20
Juan (John) 4:42
God of the Old Testament (Jehova) is the Savior:
Isaías (Isaiah) 49:26
Oseas (Hosea) 13:4
Haha this is not an endorsement for Bible bashing, but every principle
of the gospel can be supported in some way by the Bible.
I love you all!
Elder Coleman
