Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Words from Elder Kade Garner in the Peru Lima West Mission

"Well, sorry I am a little late and sorry, but this email will be a little short as I do not have time. I sat in the post office for five hours today. They were having some problems. But I would like to thank the Young Women in the ward for their package. It was great! And also all the cards from the ward and from the seminary. This week was so great. And it was not great just because I heard a lot from home. It was just a great week. I would just like to share some of the experiences we had this week.

 So we have been working a lot with members lately. We were not having very much success and I was a little frustrated with God. I decided that I had to repent of my attitude and search for some revelation. One day as we were planning the word ¨members¨ came to mind. So, I took it to prayer. I felt as though we should be visiting every member that we know in the area every week. Both the actives and less actives. When I recieved this affirmation I committed myself to doing it. I told my new companions that that is how we would be working for a while to see if there was a difference. After three weeks, we finally saw the difference.

 As we visisted the members they started introducing us to their family members who were not members and who did not listen to the missionaries in the past but who are more willing do do so now. We also started finding less actives that do not exist in the ward directory. This lead us to more people to reactivate and more people to challenge to baptism. And we now see some progress.

 Yesterday the son of one of the families that we almost fully reacivated (we still do not have the dad fully reactivated) came up to me in sacrament meeting and asked if I would baptize him. He told me it was his 8th birthday and that he wanted to bet baptized. I told him to talk to the bishop, so he did just that in that very moment. The bishop got up in sacrament meeting and intouduced the ward to little Hugo. He told us that Hugo asked to be baptized and then asked if his father was in the chapel. In the moment Hugo´s dad walked in the door. For the first time in three months that we have been teaching this family he came to church. The bishop then announced that Hugo would be baptized and that his dad would do it. The bishop interviewed Hugo´s dad and found him worthy to baptize his son. After the ordinance hermana Blanco, Hugo´s dad, promised to be a better example to his family and be fully active in the church. I could not help but be so happy. I may have cried, but hey only real men cry.

 We also had something cool happen with our investigator Mery Vilela. She is 52 and is going to be baptized this Saturday. She usually works Sundays but we worked out a deal. She cooks on Sundays and has a contract that she cannot break. However, she decided that on Saturday she would buy all the groceries so that she could go to church on Sunday morning. Well, she was robbed in the market and she lost everything. She was feeling as though God did not want her to go to church, but then she reminded herself that it was just a trial of her faith. She went to church and was so happy in all the meetings. She left and ended up being late to her job. Her clients were not very happy and basically fired her for the day. She was feeling upset with God so she decided to overcome these feelings by reading the scriptures.. the Book of Mormon. When we got to her house she was just so calm and had such a relaxed sense of being. She told us that she knows God is allowing her to be tried right now to see if she will be true to what she knows. She is 100% determined to be baptized and Saturday and I am 100% sure that she is 100% prepared. I do not know if I will ever meet someone with the amount of faith in Jesus Christ that this sweet woman does every again.

 So, those were only some on the many miracles we had this week. We had so many. I just layed in my bed last night and thought about how blessed we are. I know that we can recieve revelation and when we do I know we have to act in it. At times we may not be fully confident that it is what God wants, but that is to see if we are fully confident in Him. If we will learn to listen to what the Spirit tells us and then will act on what he tells us, I know God will bless us more than we can imagine. I really do love being a missionary. I really do love my Saviour Jesus Christ. I really do love the chruch. I really do love my family. I really do love the people of my home town. And I know that I have a love for these things because they are blessings of my loving Heavenly Father."

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