Sorry I did not explain everything last week. As I said, I was pretty sick. But I miraculously felt better the next day! I am here in Asunción, Barrio Amambay (one of the oldest in Paraguay). There are two sister missionaries who share the ward with us. The name is one of the few that is not based on the location. If you want to look up it on a map, look for Mercado 4. That is the big market with a lot of shops, poor people, and streets to avoid. We are right on the border between the two missions.
I was just thinking about Brother Buss when this ward was doing tithing settlements (fudge!). He was such a nice man. I can´t believe Danny had never seen It´s a Wonderful Life. I guess he will be even jollier now. If that´s possible.
We´ll talk tomorrow, so I won´t write too much. We have been busy this week with a zone conference, travelling to three other areas to study or teach with other missionaries, and just knocking on a lot of doors trying to find people (that is not something I ever had to do much of before). I just want to share one experience I had while on a companion exchange with Elder Speedy in Centro (one of the only areas in the mission more urban than ours). On the street we started talking to a Dutch man whose accent and blond hair made him seem very much like an Indiana Jones villain. I have never had someone attack my testimony like that (and in my own language). He basically said, "I am much older than you and I have investigated every religion there is. You don´t know that your religion is true, neither can you convince me. Religion just causes wars, I have my own relationship with God. Your religion does not accept people the way they are. People cannot change." Wow, that must be what missionaries in Europe have to deal with all the time (I worry about Elder Claypool often--he has it a lot harder than I do in many ways). I have only ever had to fight against corrupt tradicions with weak logic. Never have I had someone here say things like that so aggressively, but also very logically. It startled me, but I testified to him that I know what I have felt is an answer from God, and this much good could not come from a false religion. I tried to teach that the Atonement of Christ means that people CAN change, but he would not let us say much at all. Though it may not have helped him, it strengthened me. I felt like Jacob agains Sherem, or one of the other Book of Mormon prophets. I now know that our faith needs to be tried and tested if it is to become "unshakable."
-Elder Wesley Morgan
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