Loving Denver Harbor

Marko July 17, 2012 2 Comments

Dear Family and Friends,

I love life here in Denver Harbor! This place is straight up NUTS!!

Pulled Over by a Nice Cop

We were biking when a cop pulled us over the other day. He just wanted to talk to us. He said he sees missionaries riding around a lot and whenever he sees new ones he pulls them over to give them a low down on what the area is like. He told us about the rival gangs here that are divided by the freeway. The “Lil’ Red Clique” and the “Backstreets.” He said that Denver Harbor is a big narco hub and there is a lot of drug trafficking going on.

He about freaked out when we told him we go inside people’s houses. He freaked out even more when we told him that we cover 5th ward also. He said that he doesn’t even go in there unless he has to. Then we told him we lived there. It was pretty funny. Its’ not bad.

Here, you just need to mind your own business and your fine. But we do know that there are some crazy things that happen. There was a shooting outside of one of our investigator’s houses last week! Our neighbors had both of their cars broken into twice last week… about 20 feet away from where Elder Erickson and I sleep! We have baseball bats next to our beds just in case haha.. but the cop asked about the church and stuff and asked about BYU and before he left he said, “Brigham Young’s got a good football team, those boys know how to play ball.” It made my day hearing someone from Texas say that!

Rain, Hot, and Humid

Well anyway I forgot my journal today so I will have to try and remember some of the things that happened this week. It DUMPED rain on us. SO HARD! It’s been raining all week … we will be riding our bikes and like nothing we will get caught in a huge downpour so hard you can’t even see the next  intersection down the street! It’s so bad! So we get home soaked and lay our sopping wet clothes out in front of the fan every night.

The worst part is.. as soon as it clears up after a storm it gets SO HOT AND HUMID!! The mosquito’s come out and you just sweat so much.. it’s almost unbearable sometimes! Elder Erickson and I sprint to a park 5 blocks away and work out and then sprint back every morning… by the time we have gone one block we are both just dripping and drenched in sweat. It’s definitely nothing like Utah!

Margarito

As far as people we taught this week… we were trying to find Margarito for a while. He was never around. When we finally caught a hold of him, he said he didn’t have time for us and that he was going to start going back to his  Pentecostal church. He just would not listen to us. It was a little discouraging.

Ray Trevino

As we were riding our bikes one day, a tall man named Ray Trevino told us to meet him at his house in five minutes so we went over. He told us about his lifelong addiction to heroin. He is 60 years old and he is still an addict. He is so skinny and worn down from his addiction. He said that his family calls him “Rehab Ray” because he has been a junky for so long and has tried everything. We had a lesson on the Restoration and left him with a pamphlet.

When we came back he had written in it and taken notes and answered all the questions in the back. He wants to learn, but he is having a hard time kicking the addiction. It’s terrible. He was crying and telling us how God is probably sick of him and thinks he’s the biggest hypocrite. With tears in his eyes he told us how God probably shook His head and said, “there goes Ray again, there goes Ray again,” over and over every time that he sticks that needle in his veins. It was so sad. He is hooked. I don’t know how to help him. He got “dirty” again a couple days ago. It’s hard to see someone struggle with that.  But we will do our best to help.

Maxelo Lopex

We are teaching this 20 year old man named Maxelo Lopez. He is from  Honduras. That’s all there is here, is Hondurenans and Mexicans. And they don’t get along very well. Anyway, he has been doing really well. He read the whole pamphlet and said he knows the Apostacy really happened. He
has been reading the Book of Mormon and we hope to give him a date for baptism tonight. There are a group of cousins we are also teaching now
that seem really interested in the Restoration as well.

Polo Martinez

We met a man named Polo Martinez who has been taught by Jehovah’s Witnesses. At first, he started throwing all of this JW doctrine at us and we were about to leave because we thought he wanted to bash. But then we talked a little more and we saw that really, he just wants to learn. He thinks these things are true and he wants to learn more. We left him the Restoration pamphlet and he read it. He is interested. In one of his prayers, he started crying and asked God to please bless his family so that they will listen to the message of the Gospel. He thanked Him for sending us because he is lonely and has no friends. He is so sweet. I guess we are really good at making people cry or something.

Missionary Church of the Disciples of Jesus Christ

Something pretty sweet that happened on Saturday… we had nothing to do and all our plans fell through around six o’clock so we decided to knock
an apartment complex we thought for sure we were prompted to go knock. We knock on the first door and it opens… it’s a chapel! Turns out the
complex was really a mission for the “Missionary Church of the Disciples of Jesus Christ” or something. They were all wearing white slacks with a
red stripe down the side and white jackets and they were wearing caps. They looked like they were in the navy or something. They were really nice and
invited us inside.

In a district meeting, the stake president of our new stake and our mission president came and spoke to us about the growth of the church in our part
of Houston. They said that they want to strengthen relationships with other denominations and churches and actually encouraged us to visit them when
invited!

So we went in and sat down for a bit. It was a little strange, there were some things that freaked me out a bit. But for the most part, the pastor just read off a bunch of scriptures the whole time. He was talking about how the Law of Moses is discontinued and we don’t need to live it anymore. But, for some reason they still believe the Sabbath is on Saturday and they don’t eat pork. Don’t ask me. They kept asking us if we had anything to add but we just kept quiet. They were really nice. They loved the fact that I am from Spain. haha everyone here, even the members, just call me “España.” I guess it really is a plus being fluent in your mission language. Even though I can’t really understand Hondureñans sometimes. Their Spanish is brutal!

Well, there are a lot of churches here. A lot. Growing up in a place where there was a Mormon church on every corner, it has been a shock coming here and
seeing all the different beliefs, all the different denominations. It’s really a testimony builder, because if you don’t have one, you need to get one fast.

Everyone loves to talk religion. We never bash, we don’t like it when it gets personal. But we love talking to people about the Bible. You learn a lot. I have learned so much about the scriptures and the Bible. Unfortunately, as soon as we bring in the Book of Mormon people don’t want to listen anymore.

Love y’all! Have a good week. Just loving life here in Denver “dog kickin'” harbor. That’s another thing. There are SO MANY mangy, smelly, nasty stray dogs everywhere and they all like to chase us. There is a really mean one on the way to Port Houston that is really big and super fast! It’s always fun riding by. Elder Erickson got a sweet video of it as we were biking away. It came up on us so fast and tried to bite the camera so you can see it’s crazy mouth and teeth! It smells like wet dog here after every rainstorm. It’s nasty.

Anyways, talk to you later.

Elder Viitanen

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