Latest / Adrian Milag Podcast / I Converted to Catholicism and Demons Attacked Me That Night

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I Converted to Catholicism and Demons Attacked Me That Night · Adrian Milag Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: When I mean even when I was trying to become Catholic, when I was going through RCIA, I was having nightmares like day week, or if I I wasn't having nightmares, I was being attacked um mentally in my mind.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_04: I definitely think there was some type of demonic oppression because they were very vivid, the nightmares that I would have about crucifixes breaking statues of Mother Mary breaking all of these religious nuns and people looking extremely demonic and they're trying to hurt me in their dreams, my body's being thrown around.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: And it was suffocating.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: Every time I tried to invoke the name of Jesus or Mary, it couldn't come out.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_04: But when it finally did, I could uh wake up, I would wake up from my dream.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, I was mentally getting attacked.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: I was hearing a lot of nasty words.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even know if I can like say it on camera about you again.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: Uh oh, okay.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_04: I mean you can censor it if you want.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: But uh the the words that I was hearing that I needed to kill myself, that I wasn't good enough, that I was a mistake, I was an accident, and they were telling me how to kill myself, like different types of ways, ways I could torture myself.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: Um and uh I remember like even hearing things like you you don't belong in heaven, you deserve to go to hell.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: It was just I couldn't stop it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: I would sit there for hours and just I I would tell my brother, like, I don't know what's going on.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_04: So my friend, uh, she prayed over me.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: She uh has the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I didn't tell her really what was going on.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: I just said, Hey, I feel like I'm gonna die.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know why, but I feel like I'm gonna die.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_04: And she prayed over me, and I didn't tell her this, but she she said, you know, God was reading my soul, and he said to her to tell me that they're saying a lot of nasty things to you right now.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm hearing all the nasty stuff they're saying.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, Yes, oh my gosh, I'm not crazy.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um and they were just other instances where I couldn't fight the urge to stay alive, like it was always just the idea of suicide over and over and over in my mind, and I couldn't stop it, I couldn't control it.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: Another person um prayed for me.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_04: All the way in Panama, she lived in Panama, but my friend who worked as a translator asked her to pray for me.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_04: So he gave me a translated version of what she got in prayer, and she heard that this the angel of death, the spirit of death, is hovering over me.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: I guess actually, is it okay before we start?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I would like to pray for because I forgot to name the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_04: Amen.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: Lord God, we thank you for allowing Adrian to work as your instrument to share the truth and conversion and the great power that you have to change people's heart.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: May you be in this conversation with us to move us to share more of your love and the truth that you hold.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: May you continue to bless Adrian and his mission and what he's doing for his country.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_04: As we pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_04: Give us this third day, forgive us.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_04: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Against us and be us not.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_04: Deliver us from evil.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Evil.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: In the name of Father, and Son, Father, Son, the Holy Spirit.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, uh Sister Laura Lee.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for saying yes to share your conversion to our show.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Many of our Filipino viewers will be blessed by your story.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_04: Of course, no, I'll forgot.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: You were asking the question, how have you been in the world?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: How's things going there after the death of Charlie Kirk?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, it it really impacted me.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_04: I was heartbroken.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_04: I it's just none of us, you know, would have expected this.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: I watched him.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_04: I really liked to watch.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen him in in person?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh have you already seen him?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_04: No, I never went to any of his talks, unfortunately.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_04: But I I would watch hours of him on YouTube, and you know, I I watched a lot of political things, and he was just one of the people I followed.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I don't really talk to anyone else about this.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's just me and my boyfriend.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, he's really into politics too, so we were just devastated.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_04: But I think the hard thing is that it was it was just so evil and tragic, and everyone that I knew around me didn't care.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_04: And they they said a lot of terrible things about him.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_04: So that after his death, I lost a lot of friends, and um yeah, I just right now I'm pretty much by myself, but uh I just learned, you know, their true self, their true nature.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_04: Um, right, and I think God was weeding out my garden, he was taking out the weeds, right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Pruning.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean God is pruning uh things that are not be beneficial to your growth.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: When did you start this listening to him?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh while you're still a Buddhist?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_04: No, I um only heard about him maybe maybe last year or two years ago.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_04: It was pretty recently, so when it started getting more popular online, uh, so I was already Catholic.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I had a lot of I guess conservative values already because uh when I became Catholic, which was seven years ago, I was still a little more um uh I guess liberal more of this world.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_04: I I still wasn't sure about things yet.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: He really changed your perspective about all this issue.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_04: He definitely helped me feel more confident about these issues because I already had these questions, but when he explained them, it made a lot of sense.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how about uh his political view?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Are you agreeing with him?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I do um he mentioned college is a scum.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_04: What did uh what did he mention?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, college is a scum.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he has a book owner on that.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: No, I totally agree with that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: I actually didn't go to college myself.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_04: I I never went after um high school, just a regular um curriculum that kids have in America after I finished middle school, high school.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: I never went to college.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: And so I I totally agree with him.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you go if you know what you really want to do and you have a passion in this.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but if you don't think you need to go get a degree, if you are very passionate about things and you can do your own research, uh going to college doesn't make you smarter.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: And I really like that he he said these things, yeah.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh because you're an artist right now, I mean you you paint, and uh what how did you learn all these things?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I've always really liked drawing when I was a kid, I was very young.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and as I grew up, I continued doing it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_04: So I think at an early age, God really put that into my heart.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_04: I was drawn to beauty, things I think that revealed God's nature.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it really wasn't until COVID where I had so much free time, and um something strange happened which led me to draw again and try to make that a career.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I went to a lot of markets, uh, but only recently I I didn't feel happy about it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't the money that was making me happy, it wasn't the things I was drawing.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: I I felt God calling me to draw something for him.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_04: So that's where I am right now.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: I'm trying to do that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_04: So there's a lot of things I'm working on that I hope I can show people later.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we can uh definitely uh show that to our viewers.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe you can share a background about yourself.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_04: So I grew up in America, I was born here in Texas.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but my parents they immigrated over from Vietnam.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_04: So growing up here, I did start out speaking Vietnamese, but eventually I forgot it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_04: So I can understand most Vietnamese, but I don't speak it fluently anymore, unfortunately.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_04: And where I grew up, uh there really weren't a lot of Asians around me, actually.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up mainly around like black people, white people, Hispanics.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so I never really grew up with my my Vietnamese heritage or my culture.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I grew up Buddhist.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_04: My mom, she's a very devout Buddhist, and my dad grew up uh Buddhist culturally, so we practiced uh these beliefs.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_04: We have a giant Buddha shrine in our house.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: We still have it now, by the way, because my mom uh has not converted.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and we went to temple uh like growing up, and I really liked it, but it didn't have everything I was looking for there, obviously.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_04: So I grew up not knowing about God.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up like very American, but also I understand I'm Vietnamese, but I don't really connect with my Vietnamese heritage.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: That that's the nice stuff.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_04: After that, things got really hard.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: So if you have any questions about that, I can try to answer them.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: How does your conversion from Buddhist to Catholicism start?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what happened?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I was going through a lot as a kid.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_04: My family uh was going through a lot during the the really big recession here.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was 2000, 2000, 2007 or 2008 here in America.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_04: They were letting go a lot of people.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_04: So they let go of my dad.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_04: My dad lost his job, and he had been through so much to create a life and a family here.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_04: I think it just broke his heart, and he lost himself.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_04: And my mom, she didn't really know how to talk to him.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_04: I think she was um relying on what she learned from Buddhism, but that wasn't comforting him.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_04: And so they both became very different, my parents, and then they started going through separation, and then they started going through a divorce.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I was really young.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_04: I was in elementary school when this happened.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_04: I was maybe 10 years old, uh, 10 or 11.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_04: And then as as I was growing up, it was just really depressing because my home became really broken.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_04: There was a lot of anger, a lot of throwing things, seeing the people I look up to and I love just fighting each each other at home.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_04: It was hard.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I didn't have anyone to show me what I needed to do.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: I started becoming really confused.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_04: And in Buddhism, they teach you about reincarnation, about karma, right?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, with Buddhism, you know, they tell you the version that you are now doesn't really matter because you have so many past lives and you're going to have so many future lives.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_04: And the point is you need to give yourself up in order to have enlightenment.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_04: But then I didn't know who I was.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't know who I was supposed to be because I'm learning I have so much karma from my past life that I have to pay for.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: I thought that wasn't fair.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_04: You know, as a child, I just I was so depressed.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_04: I started asking questions.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, why am I alive then?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_04: What is my purpose here?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_04: And uh that led me to look somewhere else.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_04: I said, Buddhism isn't going to help me.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_04: I was really desperate.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_04: I was um having a lot of dark thoughts of taking my own life.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_04: So my cousin who is Catholic, my mom, she has a bunch of siblings.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_04: She has like over 10 siblings, and just one of them is Catholic.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_04: Her brother's Catholic, he converted.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so his kids were uh raised to be Catholic, and I saw that they went to church every Sunday and I go to temple.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_04: So when I met up with my cousin, I asked him, I was like, Can I go, you guys?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_04: So I went to Mass for the first time, and I tell this story oh yeah, over and over because I love it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_04: I was really scared of statues.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and when you walk into the church, you see Jesus crucified like on the cross, and it's really big, it's lifelike, and it looks uh scary because it looks like a real person who's hurting and he's bleeding and he's dying, and he has nails in his hands and his feet, and his head is bleeding from the thorns in his head.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: I was scared, but I was confused.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_04: So that's when I started asking my cousin who's who's Jesus, who's God?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know who that is.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um and he I think was really in love with his faith too.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_04: So he was explaining to me everything about the Catholic Church.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_04: I tell people it wasn't that hard for me because I didn't have to ask the question um, is it real?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_04: I just wanted to know what do you guys have that I don't have?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_04: Because here um there's there's some kind of peace, some kind of joy, and especially there's there's hope there.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_04: There wasn't hope in Buddhism.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_04: So he kept my cousin kept inviting me to come to Mass, and I kept going.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_04: And after a while, um, you know, God was slowly coming into my house, like as a gentleman, you know, he's like, Are you ready?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_04: Are you ready here?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: Just a little bit each time.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: Some years passed by, and around 2017, um, I had met with some Buddhist nuns, and they wanted me to really join the temple.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_04: They wanted me to go to go through a ritual where I would be officially Buddhist.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't even know that was a thing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_04: And I felt it in my heart and in my mind that I wasn't supposed to go here, that I belonged to God, that I needed to become Catholic at all costs.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like this is so important.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know what caused that conviction in me, but it hit.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_04: So I I joined um at the time it was called RCIA.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's OCIA now.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um I I joined it and it wasn't very official.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: They didn't have anything crazy going on, they just had one volunteer.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: It was at this Chinese church that I was going to uh because my cousin knew some friends there.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_04: So it was a very small church and they had one volunteer.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, Hi, I can help you um with your confirmation.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_04: Uh bless his soul.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: And there wasn't anything crazy.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_04: I just had to show up every Sunday until Easter.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_04: And then I had my baptism, I had my um my first communion, I was able to go to confession.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_04: It was just it was a long journey.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, when you declare that you will go to Catholicism, what's the initial reaction of your parents?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so at this point, my parents had already gone through a divorce.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: My dad has his own family, they live in a different city.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but he just wasn't really involved with my life too much.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: He just said, Okay, she's doing another weird thing.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_04: Cause uh, you know, I still kept in touch with my dad.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_04: He just knew I kept getting into weird, crazy stuff.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: So he's like, Oh, this is another weird, crazy thing she's getting into.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_04: I'll let her do it.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_04: But my mom, you know, she she's a very, very devout and loyal Buddhist.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_04: When I told her this, she was not angry.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: She she didn't respond like people would assume she was.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, she just said, Wow, you know, good for you.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_04: Because she saw that I was going through so much pain, and I think she saw that God was offering some healing that I never really found before.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_04: So she said, This helps you, so I want you to have it.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's okay, and you know, you have your own life.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: She's the type of mom where she lets me do whatever I want.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: So she was supportive about it, right?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I didn't think I don't think there was anyone who objected or was against it.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so there's no resistance.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um no, not not at all.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh do you know uh Gabriel Castillo, the Rosary guy?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know him, he's from Houston, uh Texas.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think so.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wait, no, I do.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I I do know him.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_04: I actually sorry, I forgot his name.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_04: I passed by him.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: I went to Adoration with my boyfriend.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, um, yeah, my boyfriend isn't in his parish that he is yeah, because I I used to go there a lot, but I didn't know he went there.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_04: I my my friend uh uh I think has talked him, who has met him, uh, because my friend used to go there for I think confirmation class also.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_04: But I didn't know he went there, and then I was watching his video and he's like, Yeah, at St.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_04: Teresa and Sugarland.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, wait, that's that's the one I go to.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and I saw him in front of me at Mass once.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, that looks like his rosary, like the ones he has in the video.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_04: So I was like, oh, his daughters, I don't want to bother him.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: But then I went for adoration a separate time, and that time I was crying a lot.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Like my whole face is red, I've got peers and snot.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I was coming out the restroom, he's leaving, and I was like, you know what?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_04: I need to say it.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_04: So he passes by and I was like, excuse me, I'm subscribed to you.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for what you do.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_04: God bless you.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_04: And he's like, God bless, take care.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_04: He left.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_04: I think he totally thought I was a crazy person, but yeah, I know him.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know him personally, just I'm a big fan.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I already guess in uh in in my show.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think Christ already, yeah.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, I need to watch those then, definitely.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, well, I will share it to you uh after this interview.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, thank you.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: So from Buddhism to Catholicism, so what was the hardest belief to let go of, and what was the one truth of the Catholic faith you couldn't resist?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's the thing.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_04: I think it wasn't hard to let go of anything because a lot of it, um, I was using my sense of reasoning.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_04: None of the teachings of Buddhism, I mean, there were things that led you to be a a better person, uh, but the overall theology of Buddhism, it made no sense to me.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: So it was very easy to let that go.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_04: And as for uh Catholicism, I had these encounters with God.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um people hear a lot of stories about the saints, how there's a lot of uh mysticism of the supernatural side of God, where you know, there were these stepping stones where I was being led to the Catholic Church and you know, I was exposed to the Eucharist.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: And when I was in front of the Eucharist one or two times, um I am not sure why God allowed this, but I explained it as, you know, during moments of adoration when I'm in front of the Eucharist, uh, my whole body becomes very light.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and I I fall, I fall down, and I really cry.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I do.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_04: I just I just can't control my body.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_04: And I cry uncontrollably.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_04: Like I can't, I'm sobbing and I'm I'm like shouting and wailing and screaming, and I'm like, oh, there's so many people around me.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: And they hear me just crying like a baby, and I can't stop it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_04: And what that was, I think, was um because I was so open and I accepted that though I can't see God in the flesh, that is the Eucharist is God.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, he was taking that suffering and that pain that I had, and it came out in that way where I would rest on the ground and cry uncontrollably because afterwards there was a great sense of peace and calmness.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so I think that was God healing me, and I experienced that in the Catholic Church, you know, and when I did more research, I found out other churches don't really I guess believe in the Eucharist the same way that we do, right?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and Laura, many say all religions lead to the same God.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: How would you how would you respond to that now as a Catholic convert?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_04: I I I contemplated on this for a little bit that all religions lead to the same God, yeah.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um yes and no, because yes, we eventually go to the one true creator, because that's what we're all looking for.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_04: We're looking for the truth, but you know, we will talk about other religions and they'll say we have the same God.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, no, we don't, because their idea and their belief of him is not the same, otherwise they wouldn't be living out their lives the way that they do.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then someone asks, uh, how about those people who die uh as a Buddhist?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: How they can be saved.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I could say that for everyone around me.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_04: Bone of them are Catholic.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like, but you know, I learned that God's mercy is abundant, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: A drop of sin um into like his ocean of mercy.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_04: It it's nothing, it has no effect on it.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_04: And I think, you know, I think about Jesus on the cross, what he said.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: He said, uh forgive the fathers for they do not know what they do.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's God's mercy on these people who don't know about him and they don't understand.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: I think people do understand maybe they commit sins, but they don't understand the consequences of it, that they truly genuinely believe that they aren't bad people, that they aren't doing anything wrong, that you know they don't they don't want to believe in God.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: But that's the thing.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not God, we're not God, we don't know how merciful he is to these people.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_04: And we have this concept of not concept, we have this reality of purgatory, that after we all die, we do meet our creator, we meet God, and he's gonna ask a lot of questions.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: And who's to say he doesn't have the power to convert them even after death, right?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, purgatory is a place that purges all of our sins that we can't let go of, but it's still um part of the church, it's still a passageway to heaven.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_04: So I I put my trust in God with everyone who doesn't trust and believe in him that you know granted mercy, and these people allow him um to forgive them of their sins.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_04: I I think they can still go to heaven, definitely.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the biggest misconception you had about Catholics that turned out to be totally false once you entered the church?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_04: I think the misconception I had might be different from other people because I was so in love with God and I was so in love with what I was learning about the Catholic Church.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_04: So I thought everyone thought the same way as me.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_04: I thought we all thought the same way.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_04: But then when I entered, I learned most people don't believe in the Eucharist.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of people also do not believe in the saints and the Virgin Mary, and you know, it was heartbreaking to hear them say, Yeah, I go to Sunday mass, you know, every week, but I don't know if I really believe in God.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_04: They don't believe in God.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_04: And that there was a Catholic person that I spoke with.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_04: She said, Um, I believe we're all robots walking on this earth, and when we die, there's nothing.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_04: Well, there's nothing after.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_04: So that that was just what confused me.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_04: I thought everyone was a believer.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_04: That was the naive part of me that I just had a misunderstanding of.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_04: But I didn't hear any rumors about the Catholic Church before, any of the scandals.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_04: I've never heard of it until I became Catholic.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_04: So it didn't deter me or scare me away.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why Catholic?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why not to become a Protestant?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why Catholic Church?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: They are.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um that's I've been granted so much grace from God that immediately when I became interested in Christianity, the first church I found was the Catholic Church through my cousin.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so praise God for that.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I asked him, uh, you know, what really is Christianity?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_04: And he was explaining to me, yeah, the different denominations that they have, that there's the Protestant church, there's Baptist, Evangelical, Lutheran.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I said, I didn't know you guys had all of these branches.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like, is it all the same?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where he was explaining, it's the same God, but definitely different teachings, and it's not valid for us.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_04: I know that's like an intense thing for Protestants to hear.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but you know, I I took my cousin's word for it, and eventually, you know, it wasn't really hard.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_04: I wasn't interested in the other churches yet.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I did go through my own research myself to see what was consistent, and the Catholic Church is always consistent.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_04: And if you look into Protestant churches and other churches, it's not.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_04: There's always some type of error or um I see man-made understandings being used as doctrine, as theology.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it's not like that in the Catholic Church, yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested about karma.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So now you've become a Catholic.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: So do you think uh it's okay for us Catholics to believe in karma?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I don't think it's good for us to believe in karma because it's not um a teaching, it's not something that I think makes I mean it it in principle it might make sense with what we believe in, right?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_04: Where it's like you do good and God will reward you in heaven.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_04: But the point of it is to always serve and to give yourself um without expecting anything in return from the goodness of you know God's love.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_04: God chooses to love us um and he doesn't expect anything in return.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well, with karma, karma is a um this idea that doesn't quite come fully from God, right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_04: Where if you do something bad, bad things will happen to you.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_04: And if you do good things, good things will happen to you too.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_04: But it builds up almost like a coupon card or like a credit, it's just gonna keep adding up, and you have to somehow lower all of that the actions that you've done, and it'll keep following you um forever.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_04: So I I think something about karma, there is a a lie within it that doesn't allow people to genuinely live their life to the fullest.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: So, no, I don't think we should um like believe in karma.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there's also people Catholics who are who are believing in re reincarnation.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, it's it's not real.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_04: I know that's hard for people to hear, but it's if you are a Catholic and you believe in our Father, God the Father, and everything that he says, that is the reality.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_04: If you believe in something else that uh contradicts him, then you are not, you are not listening to the Father, you are not obeying him, you're trying to believe in something that is not of him.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any spiritual battle or temptation tried to pull you back after your conversion, uh, Laura?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yes, definitely.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_04: Gosh.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_04: When I mean, even when I was trying to become Catholic, when I was going through RCIA, I was having nightmares like daily, or if I I wasn't having nightmares, I was being attacked um mentally in my mind.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: I definitely think there was some type of demonic oppression because they were very vivid, the nightmares that I would have about crucifixes breaking statues of Mother Mary breaking all of these religious nuns and people looking extremely demonic, and they're trying to hurt me in their dreams, my body's being thrown around.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_04: And wow, it was suffocating.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: Every time I tried to invoke the name of Jesus or Mary, it couldn't come out.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_04: But when it finally did, I could uh wake up, I would wake up from my dream.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, I was mentally getting attacked.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: I was hearing a lot of nasty words.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even know if I can like say it on camera about uh okay.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_04: I mean you can censor it if you want, yeah.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_04: But uh it the the words that I was hearing that I needed to kill myself, that I wasn't good enough, that I was a mistake, I was an accident, and they were telling me how to kill myself, like different types of ways, ways I could torture myself.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um and uh I remember like even hearing things like you you don't belong in heaven, you deserve to go to hell.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_04: It was just I couldn't stop it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_04: I would sit there for hours and just I I would tell my brother, like, I don't know what's going on.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_04: So my friend, uh, she prayed over me.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: She uh has the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I didn't tell her really what was going on.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_04: I just said, Hey, I feel like I'm gonna die.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know why, but I feel like I'm gonna die.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_04: And she prayed over me.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: And I didn't tell her this, but she she said, you know, God was reading my soul, and he said to her to tell me that they're saying a lot of nasty things to you right now.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm hearing all of the nasty stuff they're saying.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, Yes, oh my gosh, I'm not crazy.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um and they were just other instances where I couldn't fight the urge to stay alive, like it was always just the idea of suicide over and over and over in my mind, and I couldn't stop it, I couldn't control it.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_04: Another person um prayed for me all the way in Panama.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_04: She lived in Panama, but my friend who worked as a translator asked her to pray for me, so he gave me a translated version of what she got in prayer, and she heard that this the angel of death, the spirit of death, is hovering over me like every day because that's how close I am to death.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: And I felt that even after I converted, that I was struggling with this temptation to take my own life, so it was this battle of am I mentally ill?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_04: Is it, you know, demons messing with me?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_04: Because whatever was happening, uh, it did like lead me away from God for a little bit.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_04: It's not that I wanted to leave the Catholic Church, but I stopped depending on God.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, this is so hard.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I don't really know if you're there.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_04: So I start having a lot of doubt in Him.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but you know, that'll happen even today, a little bit, maybe less intense than that.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but I've come back to my faith where I rely so heavily on praying.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_04: I pray the rosary every single day.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_04: I try to go to daily mass when I can, you know, I try to receive the Eucharist as much as I can to protect myself from these things because I realize if I don't ask God for help, you know, the evil forces that try to take me away from him, you know, they they're very strong and I can't take that lightly, lightly, yeah.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, that was a the crazy stuff that was happening to me.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm curious, uh in Buddhists, uh, do you do they believe in hell, um in demon, in in this diabolic stuff?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_04: I think yes, to a degree.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_04: There was a photo my mom showed me where it shows um something that looked like hell.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_04: There are these people who are getting chopped up and they're on fire.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_04: It's a crazy thing to see as a kid.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but there are a lot of paintings of things that uh describes hell and a lot of things that look like demons there.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: There are these giant um guards that are killing these people in this place.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I asked my mom about that.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_04: You know, are there such things as demons and evil spirits?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_04: And she told me, yes, we have things like that.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and those are the things that tempt us.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but she didn't really elaborate on it.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's very similar maybe to how Christians believe in ghosts and spirits and need to.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Laura, as an artist, so how does your Catholic faith shape your creativity?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And do you ever struggle between art for self versus art for God?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_04: That's a great question.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I definitely struggled with that, struggle with it now because I I really wanted to put my worth in how successful I could be.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted to be this artist that people respected and I could make a career out of it because I was just struggling financially so much that if I could make a lot of money from being an artist, people will finally respect me.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_04: So I tried to draw things that people would like and um maybe things that were trendy because I was selling a lot of um pop culture art, anime art back then.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but you know, there was still something missing there.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't fulfilling.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_04: Of course, I mean anything that didn't involve God with me wasn't fulfilling.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, so then I started to pray.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, God, I know, I know you gave me this gift, and I know you gave me this love for art, and I want to bring beauty into this world.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_04: I've never drawn anything that is inappropriate uh because I felt like that was an abuse of my talent.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_04: But I knew um that I could bring beauty into this world, and I felt like the the beauty that I was drawing didn't even come close to what God has revealed to me.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_04: So I started praying.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_04: I asked him, I was like, You gave me this gift, so I want to give it back.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_04: What do you want me to do with it?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_04: It's not about what I want to draw anymore, it's about what you want me to draw.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so I started praying, and one piece that I worked on, uh, I've been working on, it's about Saint Teresa Lassault.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's a work in progress.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_04: But I realized, you know, when there's just so much pain and patience into making this, I think that's an a reflection of how God works with us.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we're the clay, he's the claymaker, he takes time to make things perfect, to make things beautiful.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's how it should be with art.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_04: I just kept trying to push things out quickly, but then I realized, no, it's about it's about taking it slowly, appreciating the process.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_04: And throughout the entire process, I give that to God.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_04: And I think by drawing like that, it gives glory to him.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_04: And I know this because I was drawing a a photo of Mother Mary a long time ago for fun.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I didn't know that my uh my relatives, my uncle, my aunt, they took that photo, they took it to church, they got a priest to bless it, and now it's slay.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_04: So then I realized, you know, I think people are looking for that.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_04: They're looking for a reflection um of what heaven looks like, and it's it's definitely not through secular art, it's definitely um, you know, I've been battling with AI because it's like, oh God, AI draws it so much faster than me.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but he's like, that's not he's like, that's not what I'm asking for, though.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_04: I'm asking for you to draw for me.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, that's that's where I am right now.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if someone said that the Catholic Church kills creativity because it's too strict and traditional, what would you say?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, I I don't know why people have an issue with that.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's we're as God's creation, we were made also for beauty.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so when we look around and you know, automatically when you see something really pretty, you're drawn to it.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_04: It gives us a feel it invokes a feeling of you know being in awe of God because God is beautiful.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_04: If we look around everything in this world that we find beautiful, imagine how beautiful he actually is.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so I don't know why some people may have an issue with things that are traditional, things that are beautiful.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think there's some type of hardening in their heart where uh it's just even if something is good, they deny it.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: What do you find most difficult about living as a Catholic in today's culture, especially in the US?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_04: It's I don't I think it's lonely.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's a very lonely life.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um because there aren't maybe it's just where I am as well, there aren't many people who have this this desire to know God, to love him, and to practice out their faith and to seek him out.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um so even within the Catholic Church, when you find a community, the community there, a lot of the people, young and old, they uh they forgotten everything.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_04: They they don't believe in it.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_04: So they're kind of just going through the motions, and I find that to be very lonely because it's like I'm I see this pathway towards heaven and I want you to walk with me on it, but they decide not to.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: So the culture today just makes us so numb and apathetic towards God and his greatness and truth and beauty.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so here in America at least, I'm I'm hoping that there will be people who will understand that with me, where we can in the church we can truly uh be united.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you mentioned later uh that you lost some of your friends because uh of your belief, right?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh uh mainly it was about Charlie Kirk.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, okay.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but they didn't relate to religion or just politics well, uh politics issue.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't religion that pushed them away ever.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_04: I think a lot of people actually did say I was the rare exception where they didn't like Catholics, they didn't like Christians, but then after talking to me, they were like, Oh, you're actually really cool, but then it's the political stuff that gets to them, yeah.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so because they are on the other side and the left the real liberal or progressive.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and yeah, you know, it's just so difficult because I've been friends with these people for like 20 years, I've known them since I was a kid, and I I thought, you know, they know me well enough.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_04: This shouldn't get in the way, and I know them, I'm not gonna hate them and call them an evil person just because we disagree with something.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_04: But for them, they start calling me all types of names.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, You're a terrible representation for Christianity because they brought they brought Jesus into it.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_04: That's where I had a problem with it too.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_04: And uh they're like, You're psychotic, you're racist, you're homophobic, you lack empathy.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_04: Like, as a Christian, how could you follow him?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought that was crazy.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, Charlie Crooke was a devout and faithful Christian.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_04: I think you've got it wrong.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean, um, how can you be Catholic and then believe in abortion or I mean, all this about same-sex marriage?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh very conflicting.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, um no, people are very progressive here.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you've heard we have Catholic churches who will uh bless same-sex marriages, you know.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: They they will really push the LGBTQ plus agenda in Catholic churches.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um and I'm like, that it doesn't make sense.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um and also pro-choice for abortion.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, I'm a Catholic, but I believe in abortion.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_04: That's really normal and common here.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and it yeah, that that's what makes it so lonely because it's hard to get them on the same page as you.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, uh, what's the reaction of your of their bishop?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is not our line to our Catholic faith.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_04: So uh Yeah, I honestly think there's a lack of guidance within people who have authority in our church.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: I think we need to be more vocal, especially those who um are our shepherds.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and that's what I admired about Charlie Kirk.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_04: He wasn't a priest, he he wasn't a politician, he was just a normal Christian who really helped remind us, you know, what what God says, what is true, and because he's God, we we must listen to him.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I haven't really heard of any bishops and priests here who really try to defend our faith openly.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I've tried to bring these topics up with uh other Catholics and they're like, ah, you're just in your head.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, well, there are so many people thinking this way.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_04: If we had said something earlier, maybe people would be less confused.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: In in in our today's culture, when you speak about truth, uh people will resist you, they will, I mean, try to silence, just like what happened to Bishop Strickland, been very vocal and it's been um silenced.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: What Catholic teachings shock you the most at first, but later give you peace and freedom once you embrace it.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_04: Let me think about that.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_04: It's been so long.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, purgatories.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_04: Uh that one was easy.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_04: Confession was great.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_04: That one was easy.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Saints.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_04: No, that was great too.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_04: I love that.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_04: See, everything uh I I loved it.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think I I really ever questioned it.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_04: No, there weren't any Catholic teachings that I questioned.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I just accepted it.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_04: I think that truly was.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I know for sure that was the grace of God allowing me to do it.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_04: No, I my yeah, I thought I love you know, I love art.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_04: I I thought the statues were beautiful.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_04: I I was like, I I really like it here.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it was my really close friend.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_04: She was the one who brought it up.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_04: She's like, Oh, you guys worship statues, you guys pray to statues.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh that's what Catholics do.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, Where did you hear this from?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: You know, um, where you're coming off very aggressive.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just I wanted to talk to her about God because she believes in God as well.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_04: She just goes to a different um church, I think it's non-denominational.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and immediately there were these uh assumptions and accusations that were really hostile about the Catholic Church.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's when she brought up the statues.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_04: And then I learned a lot of people have problems with that.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_04: It was never a problem for me.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think because of uh I mean your Buddhist background of of being religious, uh, did you have also all these do you also have these um images and this um just like what our uh the Catholics do?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_04: I think so.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: So I think that definitely helped.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I was uh I believed in Buddhism, like all of the teachings that it had.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, you know, at all these temples, there's a bunch of statues there.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_04: Those statues scared me definitely more though.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know why.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_04: I always felt uncomfortable around Buddha statues.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe now I know why.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't of God.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_04: But I think so.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it was just another it became instead of temple, it was a church.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_04: And instead of Buddha statues, it was uh with saints and Mother Mary and Jesus.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and they looked more realistic to me.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_04: They looked beautiful.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't this, you know, Buddha with like long ears and a weird hairstyle, and um, they're sitting on top of a lotus.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_04: It they look different, but then you see these saints, these people, and you see Jesus, and it just they look like humans.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I just thought it was beautiful.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_04: I never I I have a lot of common sense.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think when people are praying, they're not praying to a statue and they don't borrow that that statue's real.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's just it helps remind us what's actually there.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm curious uh about Buddhism.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give us some background how it is?
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh is Buddha, is the is a god, a prophet?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share with us just a brief of it?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I can share, I guess, what I know of it and what my mother taught me.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_04: So with Buddhism, it's a religion where there's multiple uh Buddhas, and so it's not multiple Buddhas.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so there's not even just one Buddha you pray to, there's several ones.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_04: There's one for fertil fertility, one for intelligence, uh, one for prosperity.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_04: There's different ones.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_04: That's why you'll see like one that's like a little fatter, you know, the bald one.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_04: You'll see a woman one, you'll see the one that is usually displayed in every temple, which is uh based off, I think, of a person named Siddhartha.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_04: There was a story of him, yeah, being a prince.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: So he grew up in wealth and luxury, and he didn't know much about people um dying.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_04: He didn't know that they could get sick.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_04: So when he had left the um the palace and he went into the real world, he saw all of the suffering and he knew that this was coming for him as well.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_04: So he wanted to escape that.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_04: So in this story, it's about him, the prince, who gives up this life of luxury, of royalty and wealth, and he becomes a nomad and he lives um in you know the jungle, the forest, and he learned through fasting, through giving up oneself and all the pleasures of the world, uh, you don't have an attachment to it anymore, and nothing can truly affect you.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_04: It really was a mind over matter thing.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, if you change the way you think, then uh all will be well.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_04: And he uh started to spread that to several people, and I think that's that's when I'm not sure if that's the origin of where Buddhism came from, but it definitely spread more, and he is the center of the story of it all.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and there were uh concepts of once you reach this level, the state of mind of um no longer being attached to the world, you reach enlightenment, you reach nirvana, this place that is really only allowed for um people who are able to reach that.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_04: And you also have to and then the the the concept of karma came that you know that life that you have is made up from all of the karma from your past lives, so then you just have to keep repaying that until eventually and you have to keep giving back.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_04: So then when you're alive again, reincarnated as someone else or something else, you could reincarnate as an animal, as a bug.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and then you somehow have to have good karma.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_04: So then the next one you can make up for getting as but I don't remember my past life, I don't know what to do when you're an animal.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_04: And there will be people who will claim that they have reincarnated and that they remember their past life.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, no, it's not real.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and uh, you know, she told me this uh concept that's very similar to how we see the saints, where if you reach this level of enlightenment, you become Buddha.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_04: So that's where all these Buddhas come from.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_04: They're from people.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_04: So I was thinking, you know, that sounds a lot like how heaven works, how the saints work, it's just described very differently.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and there are traditions in Buddhism where I mentioned where there's people in purgatory who um are they can't move on to the next life yet.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_04: So people will burn money, they will burn like tiny fake houses and tiny fake cars, and they think when they burn it, these gifts are moving on to the next world to be given to our ancestors, our relatives, so they can have something nice while they're in purgatory, they can have money and a car and a house and clothes where, yeah.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, so there's strange uh traditions that we had in Buddhism with that.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I see.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you could say one thing to your to your younger younger self uh before discovering Jesus, what would it be?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_04: I uh I wondered that for a little bit.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I now what I would tell her is that there's someone named Jesus, and he loves you very much.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_04: And no matter what happens, he will always be there, he will always love you, and he will always take care of you.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_04: So don't worry about anything because there's someone really amazing who loves you.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I would tell her.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And what's your dream for your ministry as an artist, uh Laura?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, um, well, I I struggle a lot with money currently.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_04: So I I'm basically still relying a lot on my mom to help me out.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, she gets me these little gigs that helps me pay for things.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_04: And the only time I really spend money is on food.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_04: Everything I have, these are all gifts.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_04: This headphone was from my boyfriend, this chair, just everything you see, I could not buy with my own money.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, God bless him, and God bless my mom too, and my brother.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, so I wondered if I wanted money through art, through the ministry of art, but ultimately I just want God to provide me enough.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I told him I love drawing, and you know, I just want to give that to him as well.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm hoping that with this art ministry, I can leave something in this world that reminds people that heaven is real and the beauty of God is real.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_04: That's all I'm hoping for.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_04: And whatever financial issue I have, I just trust in the Lord because you know, I'm still here, I still have a place to live.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, so he's he's been providing, he will provide um with you know art as well.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't even have to be my main focus, it's just part of uh the journey that he put me on that I could give back art.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_04: Ultimately, I however I can through art, through talking on YouTube, uh through talking to people, I just want to go work for God.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: And why you love being Catholic?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, because it's true, because it's real.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I get to go see Jesus every day if I want to.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I get to talk to my friends who are the saints.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_04: I get to have a wonderful mother in heaven who loves me, who helps me throughout my whole life.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, that's why I love the Catholic Church.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is your opportunity to promote your artwork or viewers right now?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so right now um I answer through emails and especially mainly through my Instagram.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_04: I put some information in my highlights, uh, how someone can reach out to me.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I can definitely talk to people, showcase my work so they know what they're getting into.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, so if they find me through Instagram, if they email me, I will definitely take commissions.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, do you have a sample of your work that you can show to them?
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I have something on my iPad that I've been working on this.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's taking forever because I was reading this book um about the saints and how Saint Terese wanted roses, lilies, violets, and bees.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: The little flowers.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was like, that's a lot of flowers you want.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's gonna take some time for me to draw.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_04: So I have been working on that.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_04: So let's see.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_04: I hope you can see it all right.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_04: This is her, and this is some of the flowers.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's a work in progress.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nice, yeah.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_04: So it just takes time to do all of this, and I will post it when I'm done.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: You do it in the in the iPad.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_04: I mean I do, yes.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, because it's it's just a faster process.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_04: I have yet to um do paintings or paper.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's where I started.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_04: But when I started moving to um doing all these markets and drawing things to make stickers, I went the iPad to do things digitally.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for this incredible opportunity to have you in our program.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, um, I learned so much from you and uh uh your background, and I mean, super awesomely blessed uh by your story.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing your story to us.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_04: Of course, no, thank you for having me.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Our community will be praying for you uh in your ante war, and I'm sure um God will uh bless and prosper the works of your hands, and he will use you in in a very uh powerful way uh in your journey to Catholicism.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_04: No, of course, thank you.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_04: I definitely will be praying for all of you as well.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_04: I I totally appreciate the prayers.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_04: I'll need them.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: And could you uh close us with a prayer if you may?
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_04: Uh of course, yes, I shall.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_04: All right, in the name of Father, Son, and Father.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_04: Lord God, we thank you for allowing us to speak to one another, to share our most sorrowful mysteries, to unveil your truth and your love and your light.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_04: May you continue to bless Adrian and his ministry to share about your truth about the Catholic Church and defending it.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_04: And may you bless all that he loves and everyone that he holds dear in his heart.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_04: May you continue to allow more opportunities to come uh to us to share more of your good news.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_04: May more invitations come, may more openness come, and that we may reflect your love through one in us.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_04: In your name we pray.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_04: Amen.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: What a powerful prayer, uh Laura.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: And please also pray for me and um let's keep in touch.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to meet you and God bless you always.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_04: All right, thank you.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_04: It was lovely meeting you.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_04: God bless you.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_05: Bye-bye.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to have early access?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: You could be the first to watch the interviews I've done with guests on our program Historian Catholico.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can do that, my fellow believers, by joining my Patreon group.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: In conducting interviews with various guests here in the Philippines and abroad.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't been able to edit and upload them right away.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: I still have a lot of backlog because I'm a one-man team.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: So most of the time I'm really the one editing.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I edit all the interviews and vlogs on this channel.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: As much as I want to upload them right after the interview, I can't do that because we need to edit and enhance the interview by adding slides and information that are very relevant and will be more helpful to you.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can access it by joining my Patreon group.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Once I finish the interview, I immediately upload previews to our Patreon group.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a recorded interview.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, my fellow believers, by joining our Patreon group, you also help me in our online evangelization.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know what we are doing is not free.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: We have costs what we use, transportation to go to those I interview face to face, etc.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: In due time, I'm planning to build a studio, a home studio.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: The cost is really significant and will be spent here.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, my fellow believers, by joining my Patreon group, you will help me improve and make our online evangelization better and continue further.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not only will you get early access, but you will also help me in our online evangelization.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: In a way, you will be my partner in doing this.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have the gifts in what I do, in speaking, interviewing, but you have the capacity to help me in this mission, it will definitely improve.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's partner.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: I will do the inviting, interviewing, but at the same time, the Lord knows that you help me and you've been partnering with me in this mission.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, my fellow believers, to join our Patreon group, I will put the link where you can access this Patreon group.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: It has a cost, a small fee, you just need to pay, but the spiritual benefit for you will be overwhelmingly abundant.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: Bless.