Oral History Program Gilbert Baca Interviewed by Marion Mendez 25 August 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Gilbert Baca Interviewed by Marion Mendez 25 August 1971 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Baca, Gilbert, an oral history by Marion Mendez, 25 August 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history with Gilbert Baca. The interview was conducted on August 25, 1971, by Marion Mendez, in Baca’s home at 2929 Adams Ave., Ogden, Utah. Baca discusses some of the things he learned in bible school, some differences between the Catholic religion and the Pentecost religion, as well as some of his background. MM: Please tell me something about your life and your ancestor’s life. GB: I remember well of my grandparents of my mother, which are my great grandparents, their names were Apolinar Trujillo and Lila Trujillo. My grandfather died when I was barely 4 or 5 years. I got to know my grandmother better because she lived much longer. After she died, my mother was left with her home there. We like it there and we liked being there most of the time playing in the farm that she had with the animals and helping the grandfather. Their names were Candido Gomez and Suzena Gomez. My grandfather died about 10 years ago in the month of February and my grandmother still lives. Lately she has been very sick, but she is still among us, but that's the way life is. The names of my parents are Patricio Baca and Elisaida Baca. They are on vacation right now. We have had a good time. The religion of my ancestors was Catholic. After my father and mother heard the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, they were converted to this religion. My grandmother, who is my mother's mother, she was against it very much. She even cast us out of her home, but as time passed she too realized that what they had received was real and was true. Thank God she believes too in Christ Jesus as her savior. In my father’s home we are a large family we were 15 counting both of them until one of my brothers which was younger then I was killed in the war in Vietnam. It's been a few years ago, and the rest that exist are healthy and alive thank God. We have all had the experience of salvation in our souls. I received Christ as my personal savior when I was at the age of 17 years. After this a few years passed, and I desired to know more of God and I wanted to know what else he had to show me or teach me of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, I said my prayers. I usually 1 tried to keep myself away from the rest, trying to keep my living different, and clean before God, but there was a time that seem like I couldn't get anywhere. I couldn't understand things. There face one summer I didn't have employment I tried to run away from home, I was discouraged of life and even to keep following God, the one my father served. One evening while it was getting dark, I said to myself, “I'm leaving home.” When I started to leave home, it seemed like something guided me to the temple where my father was a pastor, a minister. There I entered to pray in church. As I tried to come to the front of the church at the altar it seemed like something didn't let me get to the altar. Instead it made me turn back to one of the little rooms that were in church, where my father was praying. There I kneeled down and I started to pray. When I first noticed it, I was crying together with my father, giving my life to God. That evening I can say I received Christ as my personal Savior. After this we use to have special service meetings, there were ministers that were prepared to preach the gospel. I seeked the Baptismal of the Holy Ghost, this is a doctrine that each Christian that knows Christ as his personal savior is necessary to receive it, because it gives strength and knowledge. Therefore that certain night I prayed to God that He give me that power, that I too may be baptized with the power of the Holy Ghost. When I decided and told God for him to do his will with me. He descended with His power- His Holy Spirit and baptized me, It is a very personal, very precious experience. In a way sometimes it is impossible to explain to other people that don't know or understand the word of God who is the Bible or that haven't accented Christ as their Savior and have heard the message of the Holy Ghost Like I said it is something impossible, but it is a personal experience, that only the person who is determined and gives his life to God and prays tobe filled with that power of the Holy Ghost can say and know that God baptizes and fills you with that power. Therefore a Christian’s life for me is a real experience, a personal experience, wad I can testify that there is a savior a baptizer, a King that is coming in glory to take his church to live for an eternity. It is true that in my personal life I received Christ as my savior. There is discouragement at one time or another. Maybe through employment even mocking that we receive through 2 other people. As we think very deep and meditating on what we have received from God, we can't less then to render again ourselves and say that we cannot doubt or deny Jesus Christ, because He is real, He is the one who gave his life for us. He's the one who paid the price of our salvation, therefore He is our savior, our life, He is our king who is coming in glory. This is the only thing we're waiting for Him to come as it is promise to on the Bible as we read, He shall come to take those who accepted him as their Savior. This is the only thing I recommend, and as I said it is a blessing in my personal life, just like it can be for any other person. There have been other experiences very great ones in our life. Besides being a large family as I mentioned before, a family of 15 at one time. My father being a minister, we ran out of money and out of food. Being he was a servant of God, who had a lot of faith in God, he went to church to pray. After spending quite some time praying to God, he came out. As he walked out he met with a person who didn't have a Christian experience. This man came riding a horse, and he had a sack of flour which we didn't have at home. This we count it an answered from God to the prayers we made before Him. Each day we know we can trust in him that he listens and hears us when we sincerely ask with all our heart to supply our needs. How many more experiences I could count. For example at one time, we were traveling by car, traveling down quite a long gravel road where there were high hills on both sides and, there was a river that run by the road. We were traveling in the night. I was driving the car which was my father's. There were rocks on the road, and I was tired of driving. I saw one which seemed small to me but was large, and I didn't move to a side. Instead I drove straight to the rock, and that one just about cast us into the river. We only called the blood of Jesus and this saved us. We stopped to see what happened to the car. We saw that the gasoline was coming out. We thought we were not going to get to the next place to do something with the tank so we could get to our place. Praying to God and singing while we continued to travel some 35 miles, and more or less distance to arrive to the next place. The gasoline did not finish until we got in front of the next church where there was another minister. There the car stopped before we turned it off. We gust slowed down and it turned off by 3 itself. This made us understand that the gasoline finished there. It didn't finish until we could get to a place called Socorro. Therefore, this is my personal life, and in reality I believe there is a live God, a God that made all things, that He loves us, andcan do a lot for us if we only believe in Him, and if we accept Him like our King and Jesus Christ like our Savior. When we first came to Ogden, we didn't come with a job that was secure. After going out and looking for about 4 days, I found a job. I was working for some 5 months or just about 6 months. In a job that was paying well, even though, it was not a stable job. After, through the means of my brother-in-law, I found the job in which I am working now, and there the Lord has blessed me. He has permitted me to stay at the job for close to 2 years. I have already raised up to manager of the store, and the Lord has helped us to supply the financial necessities of the homes Now I live her* in Ogden with my wife and two children. We can say even though we don't have all that we want we have the most important which is the food and clothes, and a place in which we can be living. I believe if God delays Himself to command if He doesn't present another opportunity in another place then this will be our permanent place in Ogden. I believe that is all I can say about my personal life. MM: How did you meet your wife? GB: My father being a minister there in the church of Chimayo, New Mexico, She attended there as a member of the church. We use to have young peonies meetings and there my sisters and she would visit each other. There we started, her and I, to talk and finally we became serious and after a good time of knowing each other we were married. I believe this is a very nice way to find your partner for life, maybe through religious reunions. We can call it like that or let it be of the same religion, the same belief. In this manner married life is made easier^ and one can live more happily because they believe the same and can look more for God. I believe it was the hand of God that helped us, my wife and me, to get married. MM: What brought you to Utah? 4 GB: Before I got married I was working in a food store. I wasn't making very much money it was only $55.00 a week. After getting married, I had to move from my place and do all the things like the head of the family. The money that I was making wasn't enough. Therefore, when my brother-in- laws told me they were coming over here, I asked them if there was a job for me. They told me yes there was. I said lets go and prepare the things and from one day to the next we prepared ourselves and we made the trip to Utah. Like I said right now, we took about three or four days to find a job, but God gave it to me. Like I said, I never thought of leaving New Mexico. I thought there was my home and there I'd stay. The place where I came from there is not very much work. There is not very much industries, therefor, hearing of opportunities here in Utah we decided to come and because of jobs, we came. MM: How did you feel when you had the job? GB: I felt proud or I felt I reached something in my life, because being^ a person who did not finish high school I believe this was a very big opportunity for me. Because there unfolded a lot of things that in school I did not learn and that I would not have learned had I stayed in school. I say.it is a very big opportunity, and a privilege, and I felt proud, because after being manager of one of the departments of the store, this has made me feel happy and know that if one puts his life in the will of the Lord one can accomplish something in his life and learn more. Even though, in the school maybe I didn't learn and I left school before time, usually when one personally forces himself to unfold, asking the help of the Lord one feels very content -with the job that he has. MM: How does Jesus save? GB: If we read in the Bible, Jesus Christ came to this world and took the form of a child. Like the prophecies say of how God saw this world so full of sin and corrupted with bad things and it needed, someone to make a sacrifice so the people would repent and be forgiven the sins of man. On earth you cannot find a perfect man to make such a sacrifice for the salvation of others. Therefore, Jesus Christ being in heaven with his 5 heavenly father which is God, He offered Himself and said He would give His life to rescue many. In this w a y only have to believe in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Like the Bible relates that He gave His life at the cross. He died and was buried and soon after being harried in 3 days He resuscitated and now lives. Because He lives we too can live. Like I said, if we only accept Him by faith, it is by faith that a person can accept Christ as his savior. Jesus Christ can save through means of His sacrifice at the cross of cavalry. MM: What doessalvation mean? GB: Salvation means rescue, or saved, rescued from danger, because the soul of man encounters in danger to go to eternal condemnation which is hell. A lot of people don't believe there is a hell that God can cast people into, but He has given the opportunity that through the means of Christ they can be saved. Salvation means to be rescued from danger, be rescued from evil, from sin, and inter a new, clean, pure life that will please God and in this way to be sure of eternal life, when God terminates this world. MM: What is the Holy Spirit? GB: God is made up of three persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, which is the Holy Trinity. Now it is somewhat impossible to understand the trinity on how God is, but I will give an explanation of the trinity. Using an example that we understand real good. It is an egg. An egg composes of 3 things, which is the yellow of the egg which is inside, and then the white of the egg, and the shell of the egg. They are 3 things in one. This is the egg. In this way we can explain not that it is really like that, but in a more profound way, but so that we can understand it is like that the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit and the 3 are one which is God. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. That power does not only come and give us spiritual strength so that we can serve God but also to give knowledge to understand the word of God. Like I said before that it's the Bible that is why it's necessary to have the Holy Spirit. It gives us power and it is part of the trinity, or we can even call it God. Therefore the Holy Spirit is God, and it is power for the people, so that the people can live a Christian life or have a clean life in front of God. 6 MM: How can you receive the Holy Spirit? GB: The same as you receive salvation through faith; file Holy Spirit is something we can call more holy. One has to separate himself from all sin, of all wrong,to receive a genuine experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. To receive the Holy Spirit you have to deny all things That God does not like, and to be able to understand all the things that God does not like, we only read the Bible and go to God in prayer. After God through the means of His Holy Spirit and our conscience will make it feel that it is bad, and it is what God does not like. In this way we are clean from all sin, and ready to leave all bad things. Through means of faith the Holy Spirit comes and enters our life and we can call it a spiritual experience, because we don't see anything with our eyes that comes and enters into us, but it is something spiritual that comes and abides in us in a very personal way an experience very real that one can feel. You can receive and feel it in different ways. Like maybe some have felt and received it they can maybe scream, others maybe are just quiet, and to receive it depends on the emotions of the person, but the Holy Spirit is the same as salvation you receive it through faith. MM: What is the difference in being saved and receiving the Holy Spirit? GB: To be saved is to accept Jesus Christ as your savior. If we recite a verse of the word of God in the Bible that says, that Jesus Christ came to find and save that which is lost, and that which was lost is us. To go to please the flesh, to do wrong, and to sin. The difference between salvation and the Holy Spirit is that salvation lets us free, it cleans us, our sins are pardoned and the Holy Spirit comes to give us strength. It is something to encourage the person and to make him see what in reality he has received from God. MM: What do you think about the spiritual revolution that involves young people around the world? GB: I believe that within the young people seems like you noticed more liberation or that you see they are more frank. They do things that are not gracious, therefore, there is a necessity for a spiritual revolution to come to 7 move the lives of the people and they leave from doing things that do not please God, things that are ugly even for the man himself to see that others do them. Therefore, a revolution of the Holy Spirit in the young people is necessary. I believe, if every person would realize it, we would personally start to seek God and pray. I believe God could revolutionize the world through means of the Holy Spirit. MM: How are the missionaries elected? GB: First the people in church that have been serving for many years in different positions for instance teachers, or leaders of different groups. When these people consecrate themselves to pray, suet they start seeing the need of the world they start reading and hearing of other places like Africa, Asia, or other far foreign countries. These persons feel the need and passion for the souls that they may know Christ as their personal Savior. Therefore, they first receive 'a desire to go out and preach in other places. A person who has a missionary sprit can be elected or has a desire to be a missionary; from there they put their application in our general office. They consider them and they give them an examination, they consider them by their test then they are send as missionaries. As far as I know this is the way they are elected or chosen as missionaries. MM: How do they decide where to send the missionaries? GB: About the same way, because it is difficult and it is strange for us, in the asses way that the Holy Spirit works with us. A lot of times like I have seen and heard of missionaries that have testified that they have felt the love for a certain place and they say that God is calling them. They say God is calling me. I feel God wants me to go to that place. It is usually when the Lord wants for some- one to go to a certain place, then God deals with a person giving him a desire to go to such a place. In a lot of other occasions a person wants to go and doesn't have a place in mind where he wants to go. They are sent where the leaders of our church feel there is a need. MM: What is the Main goal of the missionaries? 8 GB: The main goal of the missionaries is to preach the gospel and through the means of the gospel the people of that place, where they are serving like missionaries, they come to know Chris as their Savior. MM: Have you gone to bible school? GB: Yes. It has been approximately 5 years ago that I went to a bible school. My first year I can just about say that I never went to any place alone. In this occasion that I went to the bible school I didn't have anyone to take me from my home. Therefore, I went by £us and arrived, I passed the place and I had to call the school so someone could go and pick me up. After waiting a few minutes the principal and another person went for me where I was waiting for them. After they took me to the place where the Bible school was, I got out of the car, I got my suitcase, and I entered into the boys’ dormitory. I didn’t know anyone. I only entered and waited for them to give me orders of where to put my things. All I did was stand there in front of the door. Finally one of the young people that was there got close to me and said hello and he told me his name and we introduced ourselves there. Then told me “why don't you bring your things over here.” He showed me where and there we put them. Then we sat down to talk. After a few weeks he and I became good friends. He laughed at me because he says I just entered into the boys’ dormitory, stopped, put my foot on top of the suitcase, my hand on my face, and very serious I looked to all sides like I was scared and didn't know what to do. This first year was a new experience and different. Like I said; I never went out of my home alone. Usually someone from the family was together. That first year I met a lot of boys, I made a lot of friends. I can say that I learned a lot that maybe in another way I wouldn’t have been able to learn about the Christian life or of the bible, like we believe in our religion. It was a blessing for me^ that first year. After getting out of the first year, I went home. I had to work to pay the bills for that 2nd year. After returning to school again that 2nd year it was already different, harder, because it was already my 2nd year in school. There were two other new teachers that we didn't know and at times it was hard to understand everything. Like it is in other schools they ask questions or they comment about the lessons. I can say that just about by the other ones 9 making questions and comments I could learn that I was very quiet. I usually didn't say anything I didn't even talk in class; little alone make a direct question. Always the boys tried to find out why I was so quiet. Maybe it was because I never went out of the house; I usually never talked very much. That year we had a revival or special services where I could experience by means of seeing with my own eyes the manner of which God manifest Himself. God also manifested Himself in me. It was another glorious and pleasant year. After that finished I went to my 3rd year, my last year. God also helped me so that I could study and pass with good grades and by able to graduate from that school. What took me to that school was that I felt that I should be a minister and preach the word of God. I hope that I have not failed God in a bad way for not putting in practice what I studied in bible school being that the desire to preach took me over there. I graduated from the school. I never took out a license to preach like a minister for the ministry. I inly continue in the church in different positions such as superintendent of the Sunday school, and president of the young people. Going to bible school or biblical seminars if that is what we can call them it was a very beautiful experience and I would recommend and would say that any person that goes can come out with a good desire to live a life for God. MM: Where is the Bible School? GB: Our religion or domination of the Assemblies of God has two Bible Schools here in the United States which are in La Puente, California; the other is in El Paso, Texas. I attended the school that is in El Paso, Texas. Being that it is closer to my home. MM: Can you say of some experiences in the school? GB: In the classes like I mentioned that I was very quiet, I didn't ask very many questions. Sometimes the teacher that we had asked me questions, and me being bashful I rarely answered or I just moved my head that I didn't know according to the question if it was no or yes. I didn't respond with words. They just about never could make me respond to a question verbally or being with words. This was an experience for me, 10 because I could learn that in that way I could never get anywhere. If I wanted to learn or wanted to be something in life, I had to talk for myself. When they asked me, I should talk and say what I think of the question or what I knew of the question. Like I said this was an experience so I could learn to come face to face with the problems of life and questions that they asked me. Other personal experiences can be having to wash my close alone and iron, take care of my body that I had to keep it clean, take care of the beds that they were fixed right and all in order. This was another experience for me. We also had to take turns working in the kitchen. When we finished eating it was the boys turn in. One time and the girls turn the other time to work in the kitchen, and it was to wash the plates and sweep. All of them were experiences that are serving me right now. Because I have had to stay alone and I already know how to do it, that has helped me in bible school also. That is all that I can remember about the experiences I had. MM: What did you and the other young men do when you didn't have anything to do? GB: We played baseball, football, volleyball; also we would go in the evenings to town. If we had money, we went. If we didn't have, we had to stay there. Sometimes, like I said, we played and sometimes we sat down to talk of bible school, or talk about our places, talk about what we were going to do after we got out of school, and that is how we past the time. We also had to use our time to study and to do our lessons that they gave us to do for the next day. Thus the time was very short, because we always had to be doing something. MM: How do they teach in bible school? GB: The way the taught is everything in Spanish. All that they taught refers to the bible, and things that will help you in the ministry or if one inters the ministry as a minister they show you how to conduct yourself, and how to know people, how to help the people, and you yourself teach the word of God, awe like in any other school they gave you lessons. They ask questions or the teacher talks and they also give studies to do after classes. They use all kinds of methods to teach the different things that we were studying. Maybe we can 11 teach some of the things that we studied down there. One of them that I can say is the main one it is the doctrine of our religion. Another one that we studied was the history of the Christian Church, and they teach you how to be a teacher, and the prophesies we find in Bible, and they show bookkeeping and how to typewrite. The people who are there teaching are intelligent who know and understand that have been there for a long time and also are grateful to teach. In this manner they teach with prepared people and by the means of different books. MM: Can you tell me the history of the church? GB: I don't remember very well of the beginning but one of the events of the beginning of the church or the Christians were people that follow Christ that accepted Him as Savior were persecuted, a lot of them were murdered, some were stabbed to death, others were burned, ^others were cut up with a saw. The church suffered a lot in order to be established. They never had a church established because of the persecution. After there was peace of the persecution. The people with more knowledge got together started building Assemblies. They made districts and divided the different places and sections so there wouldn't be so much confusion, so they wouldn't have to travel so far to special meetings this would help by dividing the sections. The church was able to establish itself and now I can just about say that for the major part of the world the church of the Assemblies has been able to establish groups that live or believe the doctrine of the Assemblies of God. MM: What can you tell me of the doctrine they teach? GB: Talking about the book that we use as the textbook we start with the studies "Who is God?” like I already explained before, God is composed of people which is the trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. From there I could learn that God is eternal by saying eternal I want to say that God didn't have a beginning nor has an end. This has become a confusion to a lot of people, "How could God not have a beginning?", but He's all a mystery that we probably will never understand until we get to heaven. This can only be 12 accomplished when we accept Christ as our Savior. He will come to his church to go and live with Him in Glory. God is eternal and He is the one that made everything. Now, I don't think this was an evolution that by a spark that came and started to turn to evolutionized until it turned big and bigger and from there the world started and then from there the plants started to grow and everything else. Like I said, it wasn't necessary for none of that, because that spark if that’s what we want to call it God, He didn’t have to do such things like evolutionalize Himself, God only gave His word and the things started to form until He saw and created man. We also studied the creation of man. Before that we also studied about the Angles, How it was that the Angles came to exist. These Angels from the beginning are eminence or they are eternal souls that have existed with God before the foundation of the world. There are Angles that abide with Him in Glory, there are Angles that separate themselves from God, they are part of the Devil. Which is an individual that also was an angel before who abided with God. Being one of the main Angels He thought He knew everything, met He tried to be bigger than God. Therefore, God had to cast Him out of Heaven. That is why now days you hear of "Fallen Angel of Satan", the Devil, or of enemy of the Souls. The angels have different states or positions. We can call them in the heavens there with God some are Cherub, others are Arch-Angels, and others are just Angels. These in all the different capacities that they have serve God, and they worship Him, and they praise Him day and night. There are a lot of Angles that wecouldn’t even count them, because there are a lot of Angels that abide with Him. The Angels are also spirit they don't have a body like Jesus Christ my God doesn't have a body nor the Holy Spirit but they are individuals, we can call them people because they can feel, hear, and talk. To explain or to be able to say how I know they feel, hear, and talk is by personal experience. We feel the presence of them we canned see them but when God is with us we can feel Him because you feel something we say strange or something different with us. Like we can say a lot of times being scared. When one is scared, one knows He isscared, because you feel like chills or you feel shaky or nervous and it is about the same thing when you feel the presence of the Lord, therefore, there persons that 13 have a feeling. We also studied the man. How the man came. God made man; God formed him from the dust of the ground. This is the mystery that he did that we cannot understand. God gave him breath in his nostrils, and that is how he gave him life. From there man started to multiply. Man has his advantages and disadvantages in this world because after our first fathers who were Adam and Eve disobeyed God being that God had placed them in a paradise and they could enjoy the fruit that was there. God had ordered them that from a certain tree they should not eat, but they disobeyed and ate. Therefore, God had to put them out of paradise from the precious place that they had. From there man had to start on his own to force himself to serve God and to part from sin by himself. Without our will God could not do anything for us, even though He is powerful. Man is somewhat mysterious. We can call it like that because the scientist have been for a long time trying to make maybe they have been able to make part of the body that they have able to make them work making them themselves, but the life that is in a person they havenever been able to give it and never will. I believe, because God is the one that made man and is the one that gives life, and only He has the power to do it. Man has a lot of privileges in this precious life, a lot of precious privileges; he can lose the happiness of life if he disobeys God. The other study that we had was about the Holly Spirit, and like I explained before the Holy Spirit is a person because he has feelings. The Holy Spirit strengthens and gives you power and is also eternal being part of God we can say it is God Himself for He also didn't have a beginning nor will he have an ending. He is for all eternities. The Holy Spirit takes part with God in all God does. When God made the world, the Holy Spirit was with Him. When Gog formed man, the Holy Spirit was there. When God made all the things even when God deals with man, it is through the means of Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is a very important person that man should receive and obtain. That is about all I can say about the doctrine that we studied with the book that we call "Biblical Doctrines". MM: Please explain how you conduct your services. 14 GB: Our services that we have to meet together to start by the means of prayer we ask God to come and be with us. Not in a literal person or in a human body- but by the means of his spirit He comes to be with in our mist and He comes to help us while we finish the service, it is a service that we render to Him. We start with prayer and maybe read a portion of the Bible, we sing, and then believing in God and having faith with one another we present our requests and then all together we pray for them, trusting and knowing that God listens and responses to our prayers. After praying for the petitions knowing that we should |no» longer feel troubled for the personal necessities of life, we feel free from them. We can have testimonies that is testify give thanks to God for the blessings that He gives during the week. One of the testimonies that some of the people give is they give thanks to God for life, and health that He leads us up till now. After the testimonies, we collect the offering which is for the church itself to pay payments of the church. After we have the sermon, by a minister, a person that they ask to bring the night sermon. After the sermon the same person that preaches can call the people forward to the altar, to pray, or He passes it over to the minister who is in charge of the church and H he makes the alter call. After a few minutes of prayer depending on how the atmosphere feels, we are dismissed from our services. MM: Why do you have fellowship meetings once a month with the churches? GB: Fellowship meeting: the word fellowship means to get together or have commune with each other. Therefore, fellowship meeting is to have a meeting with one another. To meet with other churches wecan call them neighbors. It is good to meet together to worship God and tint we share the testimony of each other to each one that comes to this fellowship meeting. In this manner not only in one place we give in testimony but other persons will hear it in other places and they can see how God blesses us and helps us to be more strong in our faith. In a fellowship meeting it is important it is necessary, because one has commune with the other people in other places to give courage to one another. MM: How do you feel toward the Catholic religion? 15 GB: One could talk a lot relating to it, but first talking about sincerity of the people. The people who have been raised in that church, which is£ the Catholic religion, they sincerely believe in their doctrines. One can say they have never been taught different. They were raised there. They believe it is the right religion. Like we believe that our belief is the truth, but there is a difference between the Catholic religion and ours which are the doctrines. This makes the difference a very big one but sincerely relating to the Catholic religion I believe what the Catholic brethren lack is the personal experience with Christ. In another way I believe that there teachings are good. If we only put them in practice with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ accepting Him as our Savior. Like I said before, it is a personal experience that no one can explain, but only that person who wants to receive it can do it by faith in Jesus Christ. MM: Can you please explain to me the difference between the Catholic religion and the Pentecost religion? GB: The difference between these two beliefs are the doctrines. The Catholics guide themselves more by the Priests and ceremonies that are composed by the same people, they make their rules, they make their studies of them themselves. Changing the real thoughtsk£ that the Bible has. They do not believe in the personal experience of salvation like us, but only to confess their sins before the Father they believe their alright. Our confession should be with God. Believing with faith we make our personal prayer with God. In this way^ we confess our sins to Him. He is the one who forgives us and not another person. That is one of the differences on how to accept Christ as your savior. The other difference is the Holy Spirit. They do not believe in receiving the Holy Spirit. Like is written in the books of Acts; the first two chapters, where it says that h they would receive power when the Holy Ghost shall come upon us and would talk in other tongues this is the difference to receive the Holy Spirit which they don't believe. They believe it is very ridiculous for someone to talk in other tongues, not knowing that it is the Holy Spirit that makes them talk in that way and it is not the person himself who is falsely talking like that. Those are the two major differences that we can say. 16 Besides other differences in doctrines and beliefs, like he prayed they don't make personal prayers, but they read or recite prayers that other men have written, and we make personal prayers with God. MM: What can you say about the Lord's Supper? GB: The Lord's Supper is the communion, we also take it. This is one of the things we should do. One of the things that we do in obedience of the word of God, remembering the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and of his resurrection and also remembering that he made the promise to come for us some day to go to live with Him in the heavenly mansion. So the Lord's Supper is a symbol of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and in this way we accept Him and it makes us get closer to Him thinking about his death of how he gave his life for us and I believe it is a very good practice. MM: Thank you for your time that you have allowed me for this interview. 17