Wednesday, November 23, 2016

"Prozlytzing"

Hello dear family and friends,

There´s a lot to talk about this week, and I doubt I am going to remember it all. The biggest thing is that we went outside of the CCM on Saturday to go prozlytzing (I am 100% sure I spelled that wrong) with a member of one of the wards about 20 minutes away from the CCM.

It was a pretty poor part of the city. Smelled really bad, the traffic was terrible, the streets were gross, and in a lot of places just dust. However, the people were really cool. We didn't end up actually teaching anyone because both of the appointments that were made before hand fell through.

The member we were with was an older dude who lived nearby, and we went into his house for a little bit. It was super bare, except for a pretty nice tv he had for some reason, but whatever. His table was just a simple fold out table with three fold out chairs.

Elder Garbett had the good idea of sharing a message with him, so we both just told him our favorite scriptures. I shared 2 Nephi 4:17-21 with him and pointed out my favorite phrase to him, which is at the end of verse 19. "and when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted". Super good scripture.

Based on what other people told us, the guy we were with had a pretty nice house compared to the other ones. There was a pretty bare dusty mountain nearby with really steep stairs, and apparently that´s where the poorest people live because they have to climb up there all the time. I was told that the houses up there are all super small and bare and not really that well built. Someone else told me about a house not on the mountain that was about the size of my living room plus kitchen with only three rooms that had 6 people living in it. I´m so excited to teach these people.

It reminds me a lot of Alma 32 when he´s teaching all of the poor people that were cast out of the other churches because they were so poor, and how humble and ready they were for Alma´s message. I hope I get to start off in one of the poor areas.

Anyway, on Sunday we watched a devotional from Christmas in the Provo MTC a few years back with Elder Bednar. He talked about Christ´s character verses our own character, and how because Christ´s character is to always 100% of the time turn outwards he was able to perform the Atonement, while most of the time we turn inwards and worry about ourselves. He was pretty straight forward in his message, talking about how we need to stop caring so much about ourselves and get to work, and that we will only find ourselves we aren't looking but are rather focusing on helping others.

One thing he said that struck me a lot was "Who cares what you want?" I can´t remember if it was just my thoughts or he actually said it, but the answer is the natural man, who is an enemy to God. Of course Christ also cares for us, but in a different way than we would care for ourselves, a non-selfish way. It was a super good devotional and I did not all do it justice, so I would encourage you to watch it if you have an opportunity.

Anyway, only two weeks left here. I´m excited to leave and get to work serving the people of Perú, but I also don´t want to leave mostly because I´m going to miss my district a ton. They are all super good people, and I feel like I´ve known them forever.

\Luckily a lot of us, all of us except Elder Marcum and Elder Lunt and the Hermanas, are going to the Lima East mission, so hopefully 1 or 2 of them will be my companion in the future. We had lots of funny moments this week, but I don´t have time to share them unfortunately.

Apparently the cooks are making us Turkey and potatoes on Thanksgiving, and there´s gonna be a special devotional that we´ll get to watch from the Provo MTC, so Thursday is gonna be an awesome day.

Love you all.
Bye for now.
Elder Draney

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