Not the Lamanites

September 8, 2014

Hi Everyone!!!!!

About the pictures. I'll send some soon, but I can't take many. If I do I may get killed by the traditional people because of the sacred nature of the villages (I'm not kidding either). Old Oraibi is a village here and is the oldest continuously inhabited place on our continent. Non-natives are forbidden from entering it. It is pretty serious stuff.

So here's the scoop. I am having a great time. Elder Hooton is from billings Montana and we are getting along great. We cover the entire Hopi reservation we have a couple of really great investigators. Ted is struggling to stay clean from illegal drugs but he is progressing like a monster! Eric lives in a plywood shack because his family kicked him out. He is a recovering alcoholic and is mending ties with his family, he is also making good progress. And there is Leroy he is also doing very good he was an alcoholic (most people our here were) but has been clean for a few months. We committed him to a baptism date for October 25. for some reason he thinks that everyone who has heard the name Jesus should have been baptized and if they weren't or hadn't heard of him it is their own fault and they should "burn in hell" he really doesn't like the thought of the spirit world after we die. We were kind of stumped.

I forgot my Holland notes so I'll give them some other time. However when we were in Farmington (4 hours from Polacca) we went Wendy's. there were 5 Elders in the truck and they messed up our order so we knocked on the drive through window. Nothing... So our zone leader opens the window and starts yelling for someone's attention. We lost it, it was hilarious. But it was all repaired when we drove away we had given both windows a pass along card. Another funny thing is we taught an investigator who we hasn't been visited for a couple of months and when we asked him where he was with his reading he flipped randomly through until he landed in the index. (he wasn't being truthful).

Okay now here is the spirituality. I have a testimony that I am not among the Lamanites. Here is a background on the Hopi. Their legends say that they came across the sea in boats. (Think Book of Mormon). They were attacked for years by the Navajo tribe, but they couldn't defend themselves because they had buried all of their weapons. They were eventually protected by another tribe called the Tewa. (Sound familiar yet?). All of this was told to me by a very old Hopi-lady in our ward when we went to visit her. Now here is something cool. A few hours from where we are there are what looks like 70' tall cliff faces, but they are actually walls. centuries old stone walls that remind me a bit of the fortifications around the ancient cities.

Some more history and prophecies for you. The land is barren yet the Hopi prophecies say that is the richest land in the area. Modern scans show coal, oil, and diamonds underneath the Hopi reservation. They also prophesied that turtle-men would infest the land, what did the old Spanish armor look like? And here my favorite one...

They prophesied that their traditions would all die (I am witnessing it each day) and they would all run to a church to try to be saved. Along with this prophecy they say the 2 men in white with a line down the front will come to bring them this truth. (white shirt and a tie?). Wow this is amazing. It is difficult though because their traditions are so similar to our church that they think they don't need it. They baptize at age 8. They have eternal marriage, they have temples, now I don't want to make light of the temple but they even do some of the same things that we do. I won't go into detail.

Now some of this gets really deep so I'll stop now but I have never had a testimony of the Book of Mormon so strongly. I am being safe and having a great time.

Love,

Elder Warnick