June 20, 2016 Pray to never be deceived

(Me and Elder Sialer.... on a mini cambio. Reppin my Peruvian soccer shirt haha)

a sweet view of the ocean with some container ships

Hey guys! So things are going good here. As you may have heard Chile beat Mexico 7-0 this week. So we will get to watch the semifinals game of the Copa Amèrica against Colombia on Wednesday :)

And don´t worry we are still doing missionary work even though the tournament is going on ;) haha. umm... this week we have had a few different experiences of where knocking on doors we got let inside. And they were nice people and stuff, but had their own strong beliefs and didn't end up wanting to accept our message as the truth. One example is that we decided to go knock on some doors in the very richest part of Lirquén (where our ward mission leader lives haha) and the 2nd house we knocked on this kid about our age came out and we asked if we could share something about Jesus Christ with him and his family. And he let us in, and was inside with a friend of us who had their bibles right their on the coffee table and they had just been studying. They go to the Methodist church. And I thought it was actually sort of cool to see 2 teenage kids like us studying from the scriptures for their own personal gain. So we talked for a while about our beliefs and theirs. And we shared about the great apostasy and about the Restoration of the gospel and of the Priesthood, and how the Book of Mormon is the evidence of that. And they had lots of questions for us, and I feel like the spirit was really there, and really helped me answer all their questions. My companion was pretty quite the entire lesson and didn't say almost anything. But its just sad to see people here the truth, and flat out reject it because "they want to just stay with what they already hve." And their excuses are ridiculous like "You know what, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. And no one gets to the father, but by Him" and we are like...... YEAH DUHHH! We agree on that. haha they just cant think of any other excuse, because I think they even might know our message is true just don't want to accept it.

Or they say things like. There is only One god. And it really doesn't matter what church you go to, the Bible is the truth. And you just have to guide your life by the "sacred word". So thats sort of frustrating when they cant even think of a good excuse why they don't want to keep listening. And the funny thing was that after the kid Manuel (like 20 years old) said the closing prayer, and he wanted us all to stand up with him. And he prayed for about 3 to 4 minutes and probably said "Señor Jesùs" ("Lord Jesus") more than 50 times. Im not joking. every 5 or 6 words he said it...... Talk about "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" right??? haha

Anyways, this other guy last night let us in and we got talking about the same things as the other lesson. But the interesting thing is that his church that he goes to already has a Prophet. William Branham who died in the 1960´s. And they follow his teachings and stuff. And this guy Carlos was totally agreeing with EVERYTHING we were saying from the Apostasy, the need for Prophets, the Restoration. He even said "the bible prophesies that there needs to occur a RESTORATION" haha and he talked about the 12 original apostles and even mentioned the seventy!!! (luke 10) which surprised me. But insisted that his Prophet is Gods representative on the earth not Joseph Smith. And actually he died a long time ago, but his son is in charge of the church but doesn't want anything to do with it so he is sort of "silently waiting for God to do his work" haha and the most absurd thing ever is that he showed us this black and white picture of their prophet at some church pulpit speaking. And there is this little blur of light in the picture above is head like a flash of some sort and they call it "La columna de fuego" (the pilar of fire) and that is a sign that he is a prophet. because some expert in Super natural stuff studied the picture and said that it had to be authentic, and that he is a prophet! hahaha I was dumbfounded when I heard that. That lesson really strengthened my testimony of OUR church.

So basically, its sad to see the world that we live in today. Satan is really good at deceiving the people (even the very elect). And so a suggestion for us all would be Pray for the gift of discernment so that we will never be deceived, and taken down forbidden paths of darkness....

This is the Church of Jesus Christ. I know it.

Elder Hartvigsen