May 2, 2018 - Lazarus

Alright so we have to start off this email with the weirdest experience that has happened to me yet on the mission, which is saying alot since I have been two years in the Santiago Ghetto.

So Yesterday me and my companion and chilling and eating some barbeque with some investigators that had invited us to their house for lunch. So all piola right, and then all of the sudden we got a call from two other Elders in our zone and the call went something like this:

"Tilghman"

"Yes Vargas"

"Hey so some lady just called us, her brother died, and she wants us to go in her house and resurrect him."

"....... yeah we will be over there in 20 minutes."

So we went to the other Elders sector and got there so that they could explain us better the situation that was going on. Turns out the Lady who called was a less active sister who was at her brothers funeral and she felt prompted to call the missionaries so that they came to her house and sang hymns to her family and if so prompted by the Spirit we could revive her dead brother. First we went in the 4 of us to the house and saw the casket and the dead body, we told the sister we would sing and then see if she wanted us to do anything else. She then looked at us and told us it was ok, we did not have to resurrect her brother, we just had to sing so that his soul could return peacefully back to God. Long story short, we sang for an hour in this house to the less active sister, her son, and her dead brother laying in the casket. All of the other funeral guests were out back smoking, drinking and having a barbeque and listening to rap music because "This is how we respect the dead". In the middle of us singing Amazing Grace, a little kid ran up and licked my companions hand front to back, and then people started swearing at each other. As we were leaving the weirdest funeral of all time, I went to go take a look at the dead guy in the coffin to see what he looked like. He must have been a super gangster becuase they dressed him up in gold chains, a blue Addidas jacket and a soccer jersey from his favorite team.

It was so weird.

I love the mission I have learned so much from my experience and from my time as everyday I have the chance to grow closer to the Lord. I love you all and hope you have a great week, write me while you still can!

Love,

Elder Tilghman

1 John 3:18