Aug 18, 2014 True Religion

It's weird when life in a third world country gets normal. Weekly traffic accidents, people selling food on the side of the road, shortcuts through slums, naked children running through the streets, the sick just moaning in their homes because they don't have money for the hospital, people living in their own trash/waste, ancient women begging in the streets, open sewers right next to the new mall, everything. Nothing even phases me anymore. It's almost like a doctor in the ER. I've seen all the blood and gore and fatal wounds already and everyday is just more of the same. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. There are millions of people that are suffering every single day of their lives here and we don't even know, or we just don't pay attention. How many times have we joked about wasting food by saying, "there are starving children in Africa" without thinking about the children that are actually starving in Africa?

Sometimes it feels so useless. I can't reach all of these people. The best I can do is bring some hope to the maybe 15 people I meet in one day. Give some people some knowledge that maybe they'll apply to change their life. We can only do so much and then it's up to them to take what we have given them and go with it and it's so ineffective! I have personally seen at least 6 or 7 people completely escape the poverty cycle because they came to church, got involved, learned, went on missions and/or got married. They are now happier, more successful and on the track to real lasting happiness. But we can only do so much. President Monson urged us with the words of a favorite hymn:

Have I done any good in the world today?

Have I helped anyone in need?

Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?

If not, I have failed indeed.

There are ways to get involved. There are no shortage of people who need help. Not all of them live in third world countries either. Find a way to help someone today.

We listened to a speech the other day. I wish I had written down the name of the youtube video. It was just something a member showed us while we were at the church. It was at a conference of world religion. The thesis of the speech was that "religion ceases to be religion when it divides." Pretty cool. One thing was that was not cool were the subtitles. It was clearly not very professionally done because they used siri to dub it. It didn't work very well. His accent was pretty rough so I tried reading the subtitles. That didn't work. It was like trying to play Mad Gab (isn't that right?). Words like "religion" came out as "real asian". "Together" becomes "two weather" and so forth. The guy that was showing us the video asked us to explain some of the words and we couldn't because we couldn't understand either! People that don't speak English very well do funny things sometimes. See my photo of "white jew's ear". 

We had just finished teaching a lesson in a poorer area and were ready to head to the next appointment when my companion started talking to someone. I sat down and tried to strike up a conversation with an older woman and talked to her grandkids. One of her grandkids thought my eyes were just the coolest things ever. "Why are your eyes colored?" I explained that I was from another country and stuff but she had more questions. "What is that black dot in the middle of your eye?" I told her it was my brosrey pnek, or my pupil and that she had one too. She thought about that one for a minute and then said, "No I don't my whole eye is black!" When I tried to point out the pupils in her sister's eye she said the same thing. Pretty funny. 

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27) Believe it. Apply it. 

 Love y'all,

Elder Vore

Me mixing eggs and sugar with a spring.  If you hit the eggs and sugar for about an hour it rises to nearly triple it's original size.

Me after a rainstorm

                                                          

Elder Quirante and I were at the church waiting for someone to show up when one of our new investigators asked us to play volleyball with him. We only got to play for like 5 minutes before our guys showed up.