Familia y amigos!
To start off my email, I shall say this..... WELCOME HOME ALEC!!!!!! Even though I am not there, I still will welcome you back home haha. Ok anyways.... This week has been amazing!
Anyways, guess where I am? I'm in Stamford, Connecticut and it is amazing here! It's really humid but it's awesome! We are a driving/biking mission here and I love to ride my bicycle ( if you sang along to that sentence in the voice of Queen.... You are what we like to call special and have a great memory. Also I sang it too so we are both cool then ;) )! My first day here my new companion (Elder Bailey who is from Preston, Idaho) and I had our first lesson with an investigator named Li Velez. He is a really good guy. He used to be involved with drugs and alcohol but then he was in a serious car accident and so he flipped his life around. He is willing to follow God because God gave him a second chance. And so we went and met with him. The craziest thing about this lesson was that I spoke fluent Spanish..... Crazy I know! My comp was so shocked as I was. Yeah the Holy Ghost is the key to success. We will be teaching him soon about the rest of the first lesson this Friday.
Ok this is a funny part, so every Thursday we will be doing service for a baptist church. They have a charity drive that they do where they make bags of food (like bread, "sweets", and etc.) and then they give them tithe homeless or the unfortunate. Sooooooo, the reason why this is going to be funny is because I experienced my first prayer.... Given by a black woman chanting.... Yeah it was hilarious but I had to bite my lip to not laugh. It went something like....
"These are YOUUUUUR people Jesus! We love ya and we know you rose the third day...." And so on and so forth. It was a good prayer about nothing pertaining to what we were doing (that's what my comp said haha). Man I was making people laugh so hard with my black woman voice haha. I love the black people here! They are so nice to us! White people be cray cray but yeah that was a given ;)
Ok now to my first Sunday here..... Let me tell you this, it was soooooooo loud. I was told that it wasn't always that loud but today was just a bad day. And, I couldn't understand squat! I had a head at the end of it all. Yeah but hey it was fun! They all are so confused with my last name. I same my name in really fast Spanish now so when they hear me say it they get all wide eyed and then go loco Spanish on me and I'm like, "lo siento! Yo soy gringo!" Hahaha it's hilarious. They don't call me venancio at all here! I love it! Ok now I have another experience.
Last night we visited a family where the whole family were members except for the grandpa. The grandma was a less active member and only went to church one time and hasn't gone since. Soooo, we went and visited them. So during this time I was having a hard time understanding them... Pero, yo empecé a aprender a ellos perfectamente. Yo aprendí que ellos no leyeron el Libro de Mormon... Mi compa compartió una experiencía cuando él leó el Libro. Y cuando mi compañero miró a mí para compartir mi testimonio... Yo pude hablar en español claramente. Yo compartí a ellos que la historía de conversión de mis padres y sus relatos a la momento. Yo compartí a ellos que mi padre dijo: "No quiero ser un Mormón!" Pero, cuando ellos leyeron y oraron, supieron que nuestra familia necesitaba ser bautizada. Y tambien, depues esta, les pedí leer en 3 Nefí capítulo 11 y Moroní 10:4-5 y despues, orar para saben el Libro es veraradero. They said that they would read it and do so yeah! We shall see what happens.
Ok so something that I learned from mi estudio de personal was in Alma. In this chapter, Alma is talking to the people of the church of God that have become wicked and that have become prideful. So Alma had to do some "clean up" and had to set them straight. So here is the verse:
To start off my email, I shall say this..... WELCOME HOME ALEC!!!!!! Even though I am not there, I still will welcome you back home haha. Ok anyways.... This week has been amazing!
Anyways, guess where I am? I'm in Stamford, Connecticut and it is amazing here! It's really humid but it's awesome! We are a driving/biking mission here and I love to ride my bicycle ( if you sang along to that sentence in the voice of Queen.... You are what we like to call special and have a great memory. Also I sang it too so we are both cool then ;) )! My first day here my new companion (Elder Bailey who is from Preston, Idaho) and I had our first lesson with an investigator named Li Velez. He is a really good guy. He used to be involved with drugs and alcohol but then he was in a serious car accident and so he flipped his life around. He is willing to follow God because God gave him a second chance. And so we went and met with him. The craziest thing about this lesson was that I spoke fluent Spanish..... Crazy I know! My comp was so shocked as I was. Yeah the Holy Ghost is the key to success. We will be teaching him soon about the rest of the first lesson this Friday.
Ok this is a funny part, so every Thursday we will be doing service for a baptist church. They have a charity drive that they do where they make bags of food (like bread, "sweets", and etc.) and then they give them tithe homeless or the unfortunate. Sooooooo, the reason why this is going to be funny is because I experienced my first prayer.... Given by a black woman chanting.... Yeah it was hilarious but I had to bite my lip to not laugh. It went something like....
"These are YOUUUUUR people Jesus! We love ya and we know you rose the third day...." And so on and so forth. It was a good prayer about nothing pertaining to what we were doing (that's what my comp said haha). Man I was making people laugh so hard with my black woman voice haha. I love the black people here! They are so nice to us! White people be cray cray but yeah that was a given ;)
Ok now to my first Sunday here..... Let me tell you this, it was soooooooo loud. I was told that it wasn't always that loud but today was just a bad day. And, I couldn't understand squat! I had a head at the end of it all. Yeah but hey it was fun! They all are so confused with my last name. I same my name in really fast Spanish now so when they hear me say it they get all wide eyed and then go loco Spanish on me and I'm like, "lo siento! Yo soy gringo!" Hahaha it's hilarious. They don't call me venancio at all here! I love it! Ok now I have another experience.
Last night we visited a family where the whole family were members except for the grandpa. The grandma was a less active member and only went to church one time and hasn't gone since. Soooo, we went and visited them. So during this time I was having a hard time understanding them... Pero, yo empecé a aprender a ellos perfectamente. Yo aprendí que ellos no leyeron el Libro de Mormon... Mi compa compartió una experiencía cuando él leó el Libro. Y cuando mi compañero miró a mí para compartir mi testimonio... Yo pude hablar en español claramente. Yo compartí a ellos que la historía de conversión de mis padres y sus relatos a la momento. Yo compartí a ellos que mi padre dijo: "No quiero ser un Mormón!" Pero, cuando ellos leyeron y oraron, supieron que nuestra familia necesitaba ser bautizada. Y tambien, depues esta, les pedí leer en 3 Nefí capítulo 11 y Moroní 10:4-5 y despues, orar para saben el Libro es veraradero. They said that they would read it and do so yeah! We shall see what happens.
Ok so something that I learned from mi estudio de personal was in Alma. In this chapter, Alma is talking to the people of the church of God that have become wicked and that have become prideful. So Alma had to do some "clean up" and had to set them straight. So here is the verse:
Alma 5:57
57. And now I say unto you, all you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things(....)
57. And now I say unto you, all you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things(....)
I think it's interesting how Alma says, "... And touch not their unclean things..."
It's interesting to me because he (Alma) didn't even want the righteous people to touch anything that was unclean. This can be applied to our own lives as we live in a world with so much uncleanliness. We need to not even be affiliated with anything that is unclean or not in line with the standards that we have been asked to follow.
Now why shouldn't we even be affiliated with the unclean things of this earth? Many will say to us:
"It's only a movie." or "It's just a song that has a good beat." or even, "I promise we won't go too far."
No. The answer should always and forever be no to be asked to participate or test unclean things. The reason being, Satan will tempt you to go "just a little further" ( a quote from John Bytheway).
When you are far from the unclean things, you won't be tempted. I'm not saying that you'll be free from temptation, but I am saying that you will become more protected from the "knives" that the adversary throws at you. And your "protection" is the Armour of God.
Always strive to keep the commandments and do as Alma said here: "...And touch not their unclean things..." And I know that when we do this, we will be blessed for our efforts in striving to keep God's commandments.
I'm grateful to be part of this gospel and will forever be. I will strive to keep these commandments and will follow in the example of Jesucristo. I love you all and I can't wait to see you again, but for now.... Para siempre Dios este con voz. I love you all and I will see you later and by later I mean 2 yrs ha! Adios!
Love,
Elder Gallego
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