Monday, June 9, 2014

Brisas - Week 4

Hello!

This week was a pretty normal week. We have a baptism date with a cute old couple that I'm excited for. We have to teach them SUPER slow, but I think they mostly understand the restoration. I don't know what it is about them, but from that first lesson, I totally fell in love with them. You know how sometimes old people are super funny, but because they're old, not because they have a funny sense of humor? Haha, That's totally them. We were talking about the life of Jesus Christ with them this week and to start I asked the wife what she knew about what Christ did while he was here on the earth and she told me. "He walked and walked and walked!" I laughed so hard because usually people say, "healed the sick" or "taught about God," but hey, her answer was right! Haha:)

So our mission goal that they've really been pushing is to have a baptism EVERY week. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with that because the investigators we have right now aren't progressing, but I keep hearing over and over how missionaries are setting that as a serious goal and achieving it. We had a muli-zone conference this morning and they were saying how as missionaries its our DUTY, not just a goal, to be baptizing so often. They said it requires a lot of faith and a lot of work, but it's possible.

That's one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately, how we can use our time efficiently to have enough lessons, meet with enough people, to really do it. I really hope in the next few letters I'll be writing about all the miracles of baptism dates we have. Right now we are definitely lacking!

One thing that has been working for us this week is focusing on less actives. We have tonsss! I think I wrote last week about how dramatic our ward is. Half of the ward has tons of active members in it and it's where the previous missionaries focused, and the other half (where we are) is where all the less actives are because a lot of them just felt left out I guess.

The family we found last week wasn't able to come to church this Sunday because the mom got sick, which made me sad. I'm crossing my fingers for next week though! We got the old bishop to accompany us to our visit with them and it really got the family excited to go back to church, I think :).  We met the son yesterday when we were at their house and he used to be the ward secretary, so he knows tons of the members on our side that no one knows. We got super lucky finding him on Sunday!

Working with all the less actives really is pushing me as a missionary. Besides training and always having to be the one to answer because my companion doesn't know what to say, less actives problems are so hard to help them with! We have one mom of 3 kids who's daughter got pregnant, so consequently they have hard feelings there. In addition to that, they're super tight on money annnnd the mom has this lover that's always over. Its sad because the lover has another family that doesn't know.  We are actually going to teach him because he's genuinely interested.

We have another less active family that stopped going to church because they don't see the need. They grew up in the church, but I don't think they ever had testimonies. Those ones are hard because they say they're content, but they don't realize that's 100%  Satan who's trying to keep them away from the incredible gifts that God's just waiting to give them.

Another less active we ran into is divorced and told us that he thinks he doesn't need the scriptures or to go to church or anything because all that is important is love and service.  He said he doesn't believe in Satan, just God.  He's going to be a tough one ...We'll see.

Everything so far is pretty good. My companionship is still tough, but it's like a lot of relationships I've had, I'm realizing. There are bad moments and good ones. I'm just learning to be patient and to leave my companion alone when she's tired or late at night, haha. People always say having companions in the mission is the best way to prepare for marriage, which worries me sometimes! At least you choose who you marry though, right?

Ok well, gotta go. Bye!
Love Hermana Harper

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