Well, how´s it going?
Anyway so about the title of this email, this past week we were eating with this wonderful family from Venezuela and Columbia and they are honestly the greatest in helping us with missionary work and whatever thing that comes up. This was complicated a bit because before we ate I had two baptismal interviews to do for a companionship in my district, and these individuals were so wonderfully prepared and it was truly a cool experience to do 3 interviews in one day, but in returning to our area for the lunch appointment we weren´t able to find the correct bus and we ended up arrived 15 minutes late. We apologized to the hermana, and continued until about half way through the meal, the Hermana began playfully threatening her kids to pick up their rooms, and she picked up her sons really nice nerf gun and began to wave it around in the air like she was going to shoot them to get them moving, but what ended up happening is that she accidentally pulled the trigger and the bullet passed right by my right eye and bounced off the back wall to hit me in the back of the head. To this I jokingly responded, sorry hermana, it was only 15 minutes, and her husband (who is the second counselor in the bishopric in the ward) just was laughing and everyone in the house was just rolling on the floor because the sister truly had no idea that it was going to fire and was apologizing up and down, but I said no pasa nada hermana, and just went on laughing and joking, but it was kinda sketchy because it could have messed up my eye pretty good, haha!
Due to some changes this past week, a Sister in my district had to go home for some health complications. The food here was really difficult for her stomach and sadly she is waiting to be reassigned to a different mission right now! But as a result of these changes we have been able to work both areas in Felipe Carrillo! The other area has the large majority of the members in it so it has been really interesting to get to know them better, work more closely with the ward leaders and accomplish a lot of wonderful things here in our ward!
My companion and I are doing great, I have battled a bit with some sickness, but nothing is stopping us from teaching the children of God! We have been able to encontrar (find) a lot of wonderful people and as of right now we have several families being prepared to get baptized! The individuals that we have been teaching are so wonderful to us, and it is such a blessing to serve the Lord here.
I just want to take a moment to explain a bit about some of my favorite events throughout the week!
Salvador and Mauricio: They are a father and a son who are so wonderfully strong in their faith in Christ. The father wants to teach his son how to be a good person and as a result of his desire to serve God and be a great father, and after having felt that this is the true Church, they have plans to be baptized in the end of this month! Salvador works in various restaurants delivering and sending food supplies and he is honestly the sweetest man and it is such a joy to teach them!
We had a wonderful lesson with Nancy and her family as well, and they are all committed to come to church which is wonderful! They are slowly starting to grow out of their Catholic traditions and desiring more of the gospel knowledge!
This past week I read "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" by Clayton Christensen and that revolutionized my perspective about the work! I realized that I was not incorporating the potential of the members as much as I should have, and so we will be spending the large majority of this week with more members in our lessons, bringing the youth to accompnay us, and refining the wonderful potential of the ward to work with.
As a spiritual thought I would just like to express how truly essential is the attribute of humility in our church.
We have a gospel where the expectations are that we can become like our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, which means that there a lot of potential growth in each and everyone of us. In order to accomplish the grand means of growing in our faith and devotion to God, I would like to invite each of us to reflect about the indicators of Humility given in Preach My Gospel which work on a scale of 1 to 5 in our capacity with this characteristics and they are:
- ___ I am meek and lowly in heart. (Matthew 11:29)
- ___ I rely on the Lord for help. (Alma 26:12)
- ___ I am sincerely grateful for the blessings I have received from the Lord. (Alma 7:23)
- ___ My prayers are earnest and sincere. (Enos 1:4)
- ___ I appreciate direction from my leaders or teachers. (2 Nephi 9:28)
- ___ I strive to be submissive to the Lord’s will, whatever it may be. (Mosiah 24:15)
I testify that as we seek to be more submissive, grateful, and sincere in our desires to have the Lord mold us, we will be able to pass through our difficulties as a refiner´s fire, make us stronger in our testimony and more capable of serving others with Christlike love!
I testify that this is a gospel of grand expectations, but that we are never alone! Christ is always guiding, cheering, and inviting us to take the next steps, to make the small sacrifices that bring forth the great blessings of heaven, and that even though many voices criticize us for our way of being, I have found that I really resonate with the words of a Christian song Come as You Are which states Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure! I love this principle and I love each and everyone of you! Keep striving and believing in the miracles which are not seen but will come if we stand strong and committed to the only being who gave his all for us! Let us be Faithful and True, and never stray from the fold of the Good Shepherd!
Love,
Elder Raven
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| Elder Hernandez and I eating the Best Food Ever, Campechanas!!! |
Intercambios with Elder Hernandez (With Some The Best Food Ever, Campechanas!)
The Rosalez Chino family (We baptized their son Kenai, and helped reactivate the rest of the family! They are the greatest!)
