Hola Familia,
This week went by so fast and so much happened! My
companion and I saw miracles that I will never forget for the rest of
my life. President has been teaching that as missionaries we give three
fruits to the Lord: obedience, diligence, and baptisms (in order of
importance). I have been meditating on this all week long and even had
the chance to apply this doctrine creating the opportunity to have a
huge miracle!!!!
So, Friday Elder Madrid and I had 12 people that were all going to
come with us to church. We were doing everything we could to keep them
excited to come to church by passing by everyday that we could and
teaching them as powerfully as we could. However, Saturday night at
about 7pm we were looking at 1 person that was actually going to be able
to come with us. I was stressed and sad at first but the words of
President about the importance of obedience and diligence came to my
mind and I realized that I still had 2 hours to find and invite people
to come to church. We then started stopping by references that we had
been given and no one was home. I was starting to lose hope when a
thought very clearly came to mind to look at a list of former
investigators that I made last week. As I scanned the list a certain
family stuck out to me. We quickly arrived at the door of the family and the mother answered. She didn't look too happy to see us. However, we presented ourselves and then asked her if
she had a moment. She then whipped out the pretexts that we always hear
like "I'm busy" or "my kids will make too much noise." We were
determined to enter this house and so we started promising her blessings
and that we would only share something small and quick.
She then said "ok, but something quick." Relieved and excited for
the opportunity we walked in and started getting to know the family.
The mother is 27 and has 6 kids!! She and her husband have been living
together without marriage for 13 years and they had practically nothing
in the house. We sang the song, "Families can be together forever" and
started talking about the Gospel of Christ. 30 minutes later they all
wanted to be baptized like Jesus Christ. We then invited them to come
to church and the mom responded "yeah, we'll go" and then she turned to
her children and asked them to which they responded enthusiastically
"YES!" We then, super happy, ended the lesson with a prayer and the
mother asked why we had to go so soon and that she had many, many
questions for us. We explained to her that the next morning we would
pass by and then throughout the coming week we would pass by to answer
all her questions.
The next morning we stopped by and the mother and 5 of her kids we
all ready to go to church!!! To top it off, they loved the church so
much and the mother even signed up to give us lunch this coming
Saturday! What a blessing it was in this moment to decide to be
diligent and fight even though it would have been so easy to give up and
be ok with the one person that wanted to come. We would never have had
the opportunity to see this miracle and even less the opportunity to
help this amazing family.
Even greater and better was when we went to church. We arrived and a
member came up to us with her boyfriend that had been to church a
couple of times and wanted to hear the lessons. The sister missionaries
taught lesson 1 and then found out that he lives in our area and so we
taught baptism and put him on date and he accepted!! We now have this
wonderful family and someone else that just fell from heaven! The Lord
is blessing us tons and tons and I know that it was for that decision
we made the other day to be diligent when it would have been tons easier
to be lazy and sad. What a great lesson learned and definitely
something that will I apply the rest of my life!!
I hope that you all have a great week and I love you all lots!!!
Love,
Elder Janis
