Hola
Familia,
A lot of
things have changed this last week for me here in Mexico City. I love the
blessing God gave me to train during my last transfer. My new companion and
last kid’s name is Elder McMullin. He is from Redding, California and is
super-obedient and ready to learn. He got here the first day and hardly
could say anything in Spanish. It was hard to see him struggle and so I
thought about waking 30 minutes earlier with him and doing a language study
together. He liked the idea and it has been fun working on Spanish
together. It has been great for me to review the grammar too. I can
already see progress and he is starting to take more and more initiative in the
lessons.
I love my
new area! Sadly, the members and other missionaries keep telling me that
baptizing here is super hard and that all the people here are hard-hearted and
will never accepted the gospel. Satan is throwing negative thoughts at us
from all directions. However, I am doing everything I can to not let any
of those thoughts take root. The moment they appear in my head I throw them
out. Sometimes when people reject us or it starts pouring rain and no one
is home the thoughts come but I do everything I can to not let them linger.
The success we will have here is going to come a lot from the mentality I
maintain. I want to think of this area as if it were any other "gold
mine" area in the mission. I know there are tons of families
prepared. The challenge will be purifying myself so that I am worthy of
the Spirit as I find, teach, and pray by the Spirit. The Lord has blessed us with
some wonderful people to start teaching. Here are some of the families we
found:
Familia
Palma-They let us in and we started teaching the dad and daughter. They
seemed slightly hesitant at first but we taught baptism and the gospel of
Christ. By the end of the lesson they were so drawn in by every word
coming out of our mouths. When we finished the lessons we testified that
the change in atmosphere in the house was the Holy Ghost testifying that what
we taught was true. They then explained how grateful they were because
right before we arrived, the family had a huge argument and the Spirit had
brought peace back to the home. They then explained that they believed in
Christ but had been lacking someone to tell them what they needed to do.
They were so happy that we had come and excitedly accepted another
appointment.
Felipe-We
knocked his door last night. When he opened the door I noticed something
different about him. He had a
sincere look in his eyes as I testified to him that we were Representatives of
Jesus Christ. He let us in the stairwell of his house that leads up to
the house. We taught him the gospel of Christ and when we invited him to
be baptized like Christ he responded, "me encantaría!" We could
really feel he understood the wonderful blessings he would receive and he is
excitedly preparing for baptism.
I am loving
life and the mission! I love you all and hope the best week for you!
Love,
Elder Janis
