Apizaquito

 January 9th

  Boy, do I wish that I knew how to introduce the Book of Mormon to people before my mission. Right now I have the advantage that many people in Apizaco are looking for the truth, but still, it's rather simple. You just explain that, like the bible, it's a record of the teachings and stories of ancient prophets, but it's about prophets in the Americas. We love reading the bible, but unlike the bible, the Book of Mormon is completely unccorrupted and contains the compiled Doctrine of Christ. Then you explain that the book contains the history of when Jesus Christ visited the Americas, after his resurrection, and invite the person to read a few pages (3 Nephi 11) and find a way to get back in contact with them. 

 a newfound curiosity about the Book of Mormon was one of the things that grew my testimony the most during MTC. I have had a testimony of the Book of Mormon for a while because I prayed to know if it is true, and you can always pray for the witness again, but I grew in my appreciation and understanding of the Book of Mormon when I heard about the more scientific studies of the Book of Mormon. I learned about all the professional research that Royal Skousen has done into the origin of the text, and it became more real to me that the Book of Mormon is a record of prophets in the ancient Americas, and someone had to translate it. I think we all grow our testimonies in unique ways, but the Book of Mormon is especially important for us missionaries because it is evidence of the restored gospel, and it contains the full Doctrine of Christ. 
 
  Concerning my name, Hirsch (Hersh, as they say in the US): I anticipated that people would have trouble pronouncing my name, so I decided to go with the proper german pronunciation (Heersh) because the "i" sound is the same as in spanish. But I still have the problem that "h" doesn't have a sound in spanish, and people will pronounce the "ch" instead of "sh" in "sch". And what I didn't realize is that many Mexicans actually do have a feel for English pronunciation, so they end up saying something like "Hersh" anyways. So that means I've gotten "eerch", "eersh", "herch", and so on. 
Sorry, I'm a bit of a phonetics nerd because of choir.
  
  Nothing too crazy happened this week, so I'll tell ya'll a story I forgot to tell you last week. 
  We accasionally visit people who have been less-active for a long time to invite them to church and ask for references. We had some spare time in our schedule so we went to the closest less-active's house. This time, we knocked on the metal gate with our keys, and the response was slow, but eventually a lady opened the door. We asked her if we could come in and share a message. She declared that her husband was not yet home, and therefore we could not come in, according to our own rules. Her body language and word choice were noticeably defensive, but not flat out rude. Her husband promptly came down the street and entered the house, so we were invited to enter as well. Before going in I, being cofused by her mixed signals, whispered to my companion, "I can't tell if she's our friend or not." And we went in. As we began the lesson, the wife seemed to be purposely unengaged, on the computer in the other room or occupied in the kitchen. She would occasionally drop in a comment, but continue with what she was doing. My companion was doing the usual drill, teach about one of the lessons, in this case the Doctrine of Christ, and invite the members to join in the work by thinking of some friends or family who they want to introduce to the gospel. My Spanish was even worse than it is now, so my understanding is limited to what I could pick out and what my companion explained after. What I grabbed was that the husband had a pretty solid understanding of the church and wanted to be active, but the wife felt hurt by previous church leaders who were not good people and had problems in her marriage. We were just trying to invite them to church and get references, but what we got was a worm-can of drama. The wife at one point said, "he's never repeated in his life!" It very akward in the moment, and kind of funny in hindsight.

January 16th
We walked in to the office in the Church today, and found that the church had been broken into. It's evident that the person was looking for money, because they locked rather thouroghly through several rooms and they didnt take our computer. I'm very grateful for that. The maintenance guys have already fixed and cleaned most the damage today. I think these photos tell the story pretty well.


Also we had some delicious food today.

Don't forget the Google photos link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zYipGbUUQK6y4rL86





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