Hola Familia,
WOW, Chad you are going to go to Germany!!!! I can't believe it and
even did a yelp of surprise here in the internet cafe! What a great
experience you will have there in Germany. Man, for like two months
there will be three of us in the mission. What a blessing it will be to
go on your missions Elaine and Chad! Wow, I can't tell you guys how
excited I am for you all. There is nothing like the mission and nothing
will ever compare to it. I love it and every day is such a blessing!
The best thing you can do now to prepare yourselves is understand that
all the success in missionary work comes from 3 things: 1)
Obedience-Missionary work is impossible without the Holy Ghost and it
is impossible to have the Holy Ghost without being
100% obedient. President has taught us that we give fruits
to the Lord and they aren't baptisms; they are obedience. 2) Diligence-With this amazing opportunity comes a great responsibility; we will be
held accountable for what we do with the time the Lord has given us and
there is no way you can be an instrument in the Lord's hands without
lots of hard work. Some of the most satisfying moments I have, other
than a baptismal service, have been coming home beat tired, feeling that
my legs are going to fall off, and emotionally and spiritually
drained. 3) Desire-Faith and charity/love are expressed in your desire
to work and look for the elect of God prepared to except the Gospel.
If you start the mission with these habits you will be SUPER powerful
missionaries. HAHA, I am going to be sending you both lots of advice
like this and cheerleading you both on through your service so I hope you
don't mind!! I love you tons and tons and know you both were prepared
from before this life to be where you were assigned to labor.
So, I had a pretty trying week with looking and looking all over
for families prepared to hear the gospel. We have set a goal as a
companionship to find 7 families every week. We found tons this week
but none of them came with us to church. However, the Lord had a little
different plan for us this last week. We did have someone come with us
to church that is preparing for baptism but the baptism we were going
to have fell through. We went to our food appointment sad but excited
for the opportunity to see what was in store for the coming week. We
were eating when we got a call from my Zone Leader who told me that the
zone had 0 baptisms. That is something that has never even happened
while I have been here in Mexico. I could not believe what we were
hearing and Elder Thompson and I decided we were going to do everything
that we could to baptize Sunday. We made a list of all the
people that had attended church and started making contact with all of them
when a name came to our minds. TINA ROJAS!! She was someone we had
left a couple of weeks ago because she angrily told us that she would be
baptized when SHE felt like it.
When went quickly to her house and we found her family in the parking lot.
They asked us to come in and give her husband, who is member, a priesthood
blessing. We went in and gave the blessing and then sat the family down
to see what miracle the Lord had planned for this family. A quick side
note: we had put into our backpack a talk by Elder Eyring called "algun
dia" which is about not procrastinating repentance. We had it
there because we were thinking about using it with another investigator
which I now know was really the Lord preparing all the elements for the
lesson we had with Tina. We pulled out the talk and read a couple parts
and testified to the message it gave. We started the lesson out with
her usually hard hearted resistance but after reading the talk and
testifying, the Spirit began changing her heart. We saw a softness in
her eyes and a change in her face. We then invited her to be baptized
that same day and she said YES! We were excited and utterly surprised and tried
to contain ourselves as we started to get things ready for the baptism.
That is when she expressed her desire that her husband be the one that would baptize her. He, being super sick, couldn't do it so we made plans for
the next possible day to do it which would be tomorrow!! We left that
lesson overly amazed with the display of the Spirit and the power of the
Lord. I can't wait for Tuesday!!
Well, I am so happy and excited to see what is coming this week and
can't be more excited for you guys, Elaine and Chad! Brazil and
Germany have no idea what's going to hit them when you guys get there!!
Love,
Elder Janis
