Teaching in Bucaramanga

Jan 13

I just completed my first transfer here in Colombia. My companion and I are still together in the same area, which is fine by me. One of the things that we have been doing is lots of family home evenings in the houses of part member families. I think that the families enjoy them because they keep inviting us back. I figure that's a good sign.

We had five of our investigators drop us because in their words, the Mormon church expects its members to work and be active participants. They then went on to say they believed that the doctrine was good and they felt like they were drawing closer to Christ, but they don't want to change their lifestyle to accommodate the covenants and time commitments they would have to make to become members of the church.

I was thinking about their responses and the difference between a belief and faith. I figured that there must be a difference between belief and faith since we have two different words to describe them. I came to the following conclusion: faith is a principle of action. (as James 2: 17 says, faith without works is dead) but faith isn't just simply acting. Faith is acting in harmony with our beliefs. From this definition, we can see that the only way to grow faith is through action, because it's a principle of action. Just as the only way to grow our mind or our body is through using them. 

These people were not willing to act. I can help people have the desire to have a better relationship with God, but there are some things that I can't do. These people ultimately have their own agency and have to make their own choices. 

My companion and I hosted a movie night where we showed a movie in the chapel. It was a great activity. We had 42 people come and 15 non members. We're trying to work more with the members. We'd like them to invite a friend to read the Book of Mormon and discover for themselves if this book draws them closer to Christ. Christ said, "By their fruits ye shall know them. Can a man pick grapes of thistles?" People can put that principle to the test.

Life is good I think that I'm going to have diabetes because all they have here is white flower and people always give us juice and soda. They also eat a lot of cheese. Cheese with rice, cheese with fruit, cheese with bocadilla, which is a kind of candy. It's really delicious. 

Anyways, that is life here. I hope that you guys are doing well. Love you.