Càstulo

February 17, 2014

Hola familia y amigos!!

I`ve got a joke... What do mexicans use to cut their pizza??....... Little Caesars!! Hahaha. Gosh I laugh about that joke every day. So things are pretty good here in Morelia!! Transfers passed over us, Elder Ormeño and I will serve here together for another 6 weeks. This transfer I will be serving as district leader, so I`m pretty excited to get to know the other people in the district better. This week was such a good one!! We went to Guadalajara and had a mission conference combined with the other mission in Guadalajara. We were 500 missionaries between the two missions. It was so cool to be with so many missionaries and listening to a member from the quorum of the seventy, Elder Christianson. He said a lot of good stuff but my favorite thing he said is that we are the hope of israel. I was so tempted to throw my fist into the air and yell "POR ISRAEL!!". I always get way too pumped at conferences.

This week we had such an awesome experience. I think it was my favorite of my whole mission. We were walking in the street and we stopped and started talking to this guy that was sitting on the sidewalk. Long story short, his life is rough. Càstulo has a ton of problems with his wife and kids and he has turned to drinking to get away from it. So we asked the guy, "do you want to change?" and he thought about it for a while and looked up at us and said he did and then he invited us to his house. We sat down and started talking and he poured his alcohol into a soda and started sipping on it. He was sober but said that he had to start drinking. He told us about all his problems and was crying and was saying that his life doesn`t matter anymore. We told him that he`s got to stop drinking if he wants to change but he told us that if he stops he will die because his body depeneds on it so much. I promised him as a representative of Jesus Christ that if he would stop drinking that night the Lord would help him leave his addiction and his body would no longer need alcohol. His wife was there and was saying that he has tried to stop many times before and he would never be able to quit. Càstulo was just crying and trying to tell his wife that he loves her. It was so intense, I swear it could be in one of those mexican television shows! I was like Càstulo, pour out your acohol. And he said he couldn`t. He said the next day would be a better time to quit. He said to his wife that he loves her but he just cant stop. I yelled to him "Càstulo pour out your alcohol if you love her!!!!" I said "You have the Lords promise that he will help you stop!!"... Gosh my adrenaline is pumping just thinking about it! haha... But he looked at us, took the cap off the bottle, and started swearing a ton and poured out the alcohol. he stompped on the bottle and gave us a hug. haha it was awesome. He asked us like five times, "did you see that?!?! I poured it out!!" haha his little grandkids came out of their room and said "look, grandpa isn`t going to drink anymore!". He asked what next and we told him we were going to clean his house and then give him a priesthood blessing. We are so excited for Càstulo. We gave him 3 pamphlets and a book of mormon to keep himself busy and we are going to keep helping him out. He told us that that morning, his wife told him he needed to change or he would have to leave. He said that he left the house looking for someone to help him change his life and when he saw us, he thought we were glowing. He asked us who sent us and the only answer we had was that God had sent us. I know that the Lord put us in the path of that man to help him change. Last night when all that happened was one of the best experiences I have had on the mission. I love this work :) FOR ISRAEL!!

Love,
Elder Del Toro