Samayac Suchitepequez is finally starting to show some good progress. I am convinced that missionary work requires a lot of patience, it's something I am working on personally, but it's paying off. We had five people in the church yesterday and several less actives. We have had some pleasant suprises recently from some relatively reluctant investigators. Also, many very positive new investigators have been placed in our path as well. Yet it is proving difficult to know if people are really receptive to the gospel or if they are just being hospitable. Sticky traditions are difficult to dispel as well. For example, the majority of the people here are Charismatic Evangelicals or Catholics and their practices are much different than ours. We can show a mountain of scriptural evidence that we have the truth, but its very difficult to ask people to leave generations of tradition. In the end, you just have to trust in the spirit and hope they pray... If they pray, genuinely pray, they usually convert. Yet its incredibly hard to get them to take you and the commitments you extend seriously, because they have a lot of faith... they just don't understand the action part. They slap Jesus stickers and bible scriptures on everything, literally everything. For this, I think a kind of lazy Christian culture has been created. Many tell you that God accepts all and that it doesn't matter what church you attend, or if you even go to church, as long as you have faith in Him you are saved. Its hard sometimes to tell them that that is not the case. This is also the root of a ton of inactivity, it is overwhelming how many inactives we have to work with.
The work here is testing me in so many ways, but I know there is a reason for all of it. I am learning all of the time of the importance God genuinely loving the people here. It sickens me the lack of love in many missionaries. I admit that it is difficult sometimes, but as true disciples of Jesus Christ we have to come to have it. My testimony of the scriptures is growing a lot as well, I am not going to lie, for much of my life the Book of Mormon has been something difficult to accept. Given my interests and the things I have studied, it has been a bit of a trial of my faith. Yet now that I have left my self naked to the spirit and truly immersed my self in the words of that book, I know that it is the word of God, and the fullness of the gospel of our Savior. The church is true!
-Elder Davis
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