The Earth is a Snow Globe

September 30. 2024

 Ahhhh good morning beautiful people! It's so great to see your smiling faces! This week has been absolutely crazy, so let's get into it.

          Zone conference

       *plane sounds* *more plane sounds*

     Welcome to Aruba! We just got off of a 20-man propeller plane, in which half of the passengers are the missionaries. I love zone conferences, it gives us an opportunity to fly to Aruba and see the rest of the zone for a few days. Zone conference is always filled with shenanigans, so here are a few:

     President Van Gils and I decided we wanted the taco shop past the airport to cater for our next zone conference. And what's the best way to ensure that? Baptize him. Soooooo Carlos is now taking the missionary discussions. I'll let you know how it goes!

     We didn't have a full 14 elders in one apartment this time, but we had a full 6, which is plenty for our own stupidity. These included heated games of Texas Hold em', black jack, and belting out Spanish music. We, the elders of islands, truly are built differently.

     A lot of the elders get along incredibly well—well, to the point where now we need to get ahold of a 10-man apartment for college in a couple of years. Someone get started on that and let me know how it's going. Other than that, zone conference was a great reminder of many sides of the missionary work.

          The Earth is Flat Everybody

      I'm quitting missionary work and joining the Flat Earth Society. We were talking to an old man the other day with completely white hair (which becomes important in a moment). When we asked him about his relationship with Jesus, he said, "I tell you WHAT, you all think the earth is round. But explain to me, how could God flood a round earth? He can't. But that's because the earth is flat." So, for those of you wondering, yes the Earth is flat, and the earth from the flood all those years back is on the other side of our flat earth. Oh, the other planets don't exist, but don't tell him that you can see Mars, *whispers* he doesn't like that very much.  He also explained to us that knowledge is a sin but also doesn't exist because blind faith is the key to the universe(the one that doesn't exist). And about 30 seconds later says, "look at my hair, see this white hair? That means wisdom." Soooo does that mean your hair is a sin? Or does your hair not exist... Deep doctrinal questions. 

          Book of Mormon

     Okay this story might not be too important to most people but it's incredible for me :). I don't know if I've explained this before, but the islands don't have a full papiamento Book of Mormon. But this last week, a man named Todd Harris from Salt Lake came to Curaçao in hopes of fixing that. They are running a trial on their new translation methods, and they picked papiamento to be the language! So come a year from now, we will have a fully translated Book of Mormon that we can begin giving to people. We spent several hours over the course of the week talking with him about the translation methods, timeliness, and his overall time with languages. He speaks 7 fluently and has the basics of 65.

     But a full Book of Mormon would be incredible for the people here. Not everyone can read Spanish, so it's a miracle that soon, the amazing people here will be able to read the complete Book of Mormon in their native language.

     On another side note, both of my languages made a pretty solid leap this week. We are teaching a man who we found in my first week when I knew five words. When we went and saw him a few days ago, he almost started crying, talking about how far I've come and how happy he is that we can talk to each other. 

       "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" Romans 8:28. Just a quick little reminder that everything in this life is meant to make us better and help us progress. I love you all. We're all children of God, and he loves us more than we could ever imagine. Make sure to watch conference this weekend!

-Elder Aldrich (the Flat Earther)

(please email me haha)