"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."
