Drunk Grandpa Sanchez/Crazy Lady Rosa

Ok, so there´s lots to talk about today.  Let´s get to it!

Changes - Nothing happened with me and my comp.  Yes!  We´re both here in Guarambaré todavía.  Which is good, because I get along with him better than with any of my past comps, and we work really well together in terms of teaching, so it should be good.  One elder got changed and his companion is training a new guy this change, so I´ll have to go there tomorrow to get to know him and let him know that if he needs anything he can give me a call because I´m his district leader.  Just a little pow-wow.  I talked to him on the phone the day he got here, and was like "hey how´s your Spanish?" and he said mas o menos haha.  So I was like "well we´ll test ya.  Talk to my companion for a minute, he´s Colombian so see if you can understand him".  Didn´t understand a thing.  Hahah poor guy.  Everyone starts like that, but it was funny.  But yeah, the work continues!

Temple Prep Classes - Oh goodness I love them.  Teaching members who have a base knowledge of the doctrine and stuff is totally different than teaching an investigator.  I´ll be extra lucky if I get called to be a Sunday School/Gospel Principles teacher when I get home or something, I would love that.  I love teaching.  We have 4 people that are currently participating, and one who just came this past class to get started.  We´ll have to find a time to teach him the 2 lessons he missed so he can go to the temple.  But the classes are going fantastic and I love them!

Ward Conference - This Sunday is our Branch Conference here in Guarambaré.  Extra special day - President and Hermana Callan are going to be here, AND the temple president and his wife are coming!  Big shots in Guarambaré this weekend haha.  They´re all 4 going to talk I believe.  My comp and I want to sing a hymn as a special number, so we´ll ask our Branch President for permission.  It would be the hymn "Oh My Father".  Never knew it in English, learned it here on the mission and I looove it.  I´ll let you know how it goes next week.  President Callan wrote me today and said that he´ll be here for Sunday, so he wants to get to know some of our investigators.  He is going to do some visits with us!  That is just so aaawesome, I cannot WAIT for that!

Crazy lady Rosa - Ok, so.  Like 2 days ago at 9:50 at night, we were getting ready for bed and we get a phone call from this lady whose number is saved in our phone but we don´t know her.  It was from missionaries from before, she is an old investigator.  She started talking about how they left her when she needed them most, and that now she doesn´t want to live anymore and she has sins that can´t be forgiven and she´s garbage and all this CRAZY stuff.  We were like "Where are you at right now exactly?" trying to get some descriptive information from her.  She said she was walking towards a lake and she was going to throw herself off the bridge and kill herself in the lake.  We were like what the heck is going on here, this is not a normal thing lol.  We tried to talk her out of it and calm her down, but she was crying and wouldn´t listen and was just like "I know you guys have a lot of faith, so just pray for me" and then hung up.  So we called the cops and gave them all the info we had and they went to go look for her.  We tried to call her back, but her phone was turned off.  We looked up her teaching record (everybody the missionaries teach, they make a record of them in a big binder), and we found her old record.  The old missionaries wrote that she had tried to kill herself 3 times before and her daughter had done the same once.  It was really strange.  This lady was totally off the reservation.  We tried calling her again the next morning, and she answered but hung up right away, so I guess it turned out alright.  Just a weird story that not many missionaries have lol.  Not a fun thing.

Drunk grandpa Sanchez - Hahaha ok so.  We were taking some youth back to their house at night after doing some visits with us.  We get there, and their grandpa is wasted drunk.  He´s like 80 years old, and they always say he´s violent when he´s drunk.  We had talked to him drunk 3 or 4 times before and he never got angry with us or anything like that, so we didn´t really think anything of it.  I tried to talk to him and distract him (which was difficult, because he speaks literally 0 spanish haha) while my comp was teaching their nephew who was there and who isn´t a member.  Every few minutes he would try to get up and walk over there and disrupt, but I managed to stop him twice.  The third time, he didn´t listen to me and walked over to where everyone was sitting.  There was an empty seat next to my companion, so he goes and sits down there.  As soon as he sat down, he yelled "I´M CATHOLIC!!!" and socked my companion in the face!!  Hahahaha it was so nuts!  So the whole family bull rushes him and grabs his arms to drag him to his room and lock him in.  My comp and I take over and drag him the rest of the way (because they´re all girls, they can´t carry the old guy and he´s not going to walk, he´s fighting it) and they were like "just throw him on the bed and slam the door!" so we did hahah.  But we didn´t slam it hard enough, so he got out and we had to drag him back in and throw him on his bed again (with a little more force this time haha) and slammed the door shut.  There´s no handle on it, so it locks and he can´t open it.  There is a side door though that doesn´t lock, so he kept trying to get out, and one of us would have to hold it shut while my comp finished teaching the nephew haha.  We ended up tying it shut so he couldn´t get out hahah.  It was really funny.  Crazy night.  Also not a usual missionary experience, but it was really hilarious.  Elder Martinez didn´t get hurt or anything, he didn´t really make contact because his arms are too short and he was drunk, so it was excellent.  I love missionary work =P

Article of Faith 9 - "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."

The principle of divine revelation is the lifeblood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It is the oil that makes the machine flow smoothly and correctly in the greatest form possible.  We worship Jesus Christ; what greater way to know His will than for Him to tell it to us Himself?  The concept of divine revelation is simple: God calls a prophet on the earth to be His spokesman, and to this chosen man reveals His will for all the children of men.  That is the function of a prophet.  Learn the will of God, and teach it to all men, standing as special witnesses of Jesus Christ.  From the beginning of time, God has worked in this form.  He worked in this form when He walked the earth.  He works in this form today.  He will continue to work in this manner until the end of times.  God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  Let´s break down the scriptural basis for divine revelation, and then look at how it has been used in the past, how it is used today, and how it will be used in the future.

Jesus Christ Himself declared the necessity of divine revelation in perhaps one of the most misunderstood of all Biblical writ.  In Matthew 16, the Master is talking with his servant Peter (the Simon Bar-jona of whom it speaks).  He asks Peter who people think He is.  And then he asks Peter himself of his opinion: "But whom say ye that I am?"  Peter replies that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  The Messiah replies to him with a blessing, saying that he knows that He is the Christ because God revealed it to him, not because a man told him.  To put it in other words, Peter received divine revelation.  Then, the Lord goes on to explain the purpose of His questioning, the verse which is vastly misunderstood in most of Christiandom.  Verse 18 reads "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."  Let´s analyze a bit.  The Lord specifically clarifies the name of this Simon Bar-jona as Peter.  This is important.  Peter in Greek means "rock".  Peter in the verse that immediately precedes this had received revelation from God.  Thus, the "rock" by which Jesus calls Peter has reference to the importance of revelation.  He says "upon this rock will I build my church".  The rock is not Peter himself, as many Christian denominations believe.  The rock is divine revelation.  Christ founded His church upon divine inspiration - an element 100% essential in the true church of Jesus Christ and in the salvation of men.  If God speaks not to man, man is lost.  Written word and scripture - though of inmeasurable value - will never suffice nor replace the importance of current, constant revelation from God.  Upon the rock of constant revelation through a living prophet the Lord established His church on the earth, as demonstrated to and through His apostle Peter.

Adam was the first prophet on the earth.  He was the first man to receive divine revelation from our Heavenly Father.  The Lord instructed him in His ways, and Adam taught these things to his posterity.  The prophets after him did the same.  They received divine revelation and instruction from the Father.  They wrote their revelations, which when compiled together are known to us today as the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, and other scripture.  However, as I mentioned, if they had not received constant revelation from their Maker, they would have written no scripture.  Scripture cannot take the place of heavenly instruction - for scripture IS heavenly instruction in written form.  They had to receive it before they could write it.  All of the prophets from Adam up until Jesus Christ received revelation from God - Christ Himself in a very specific and direct manner.  The standard works and scriptures are evidence of divine revelation about all that God has revealed.

We have a prophet today.  His name is Thomas Spencer Monson.  God is now revealing His intentions and secrets to men.  He is currently in this very moment making preparations with His children on earth for their eternal salvation, and He is doing so through His prophet which He has placed on the earth.  I never understood why people can´t comprehend or accept that God would talk to man today.  Does He not love us like He loved the people of olden days?  Has He lost His power to communicate with us?  Or maybe He doesn´t care about us and has no interest in the affairs of men.  It makes total logical sense that God would be interested and active in the affairs of His family, especially in today´s corrupted world where we need Him now more than ever.  God is revealing His will in this day and age.

God will continue to reveal to His prophets the secrets of His Kingdom.  It will continue in this manner until the coming of the Lord in all His glory.  There will never be a time before the second coming of the Savior where a prophet will not be on the earth and God will not be preparing the way.  The Master will reveal His plans to His chosen prophets - who in turn will reveal it to us - until the great and final day when the great Jehova says "It is finished."  I testify that this is the work of the Lord.  He is speaking to man.  Divine revelation, should we choose to act upon it and obey it, will provide the works and actions necessary that through the grace of Jesus Christ, all mankind may be saved.  I testify of this as a set-apart representative of the Master Himself, using my authority to speak in His name, that all of this is true.  I do so in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

-Elder Moore