Hello!
This week our P-day got switched up because we went to the temple this morning. Yesterday we spent most of the day in Sisal, but we didn't end up finding very many of the people we went there for. We did find one guy though, named Omar, that is really interested. There's a guy who just barely got home from his mission and he contacted Omar while he was in Sisal selling hotdogs with his family. Omar is super interested in what will help his family because it turns out his wife was unfaithful, but she told him asking for forgiveness, and he's trying to forgive her, but is struggling with it. They have 2 young boys together, so he really wants to fix things with him and his wife.
On Wednesday we visited a family (Hilda & Mario) that I hadn't visited before, at their house. Its kinda cool because their family makes shoes for a living. In their house they have all the stuff to do it, and when we showed up they were right in the middle of it and I got to watch a little. I think its so neat how a bunch of families here have some talent that they use to make a living off of.
Pedro, the guy I wrote about last week, we visited again. I told my companion he's my favorite person we visit because he's so sweet! The last time we taught him we got to know him and taught who God, Jesus and the holy ghost are. This week we started with the restoration, but focused more on prophets and that through prophets we have commandments like the word of wisdom. We wanted to make sure he was willing to stop drinking completely and he is! It was so cute because his parents live behind him, and since he wasn't answering when we showed up, we went around the corner behind his house and his dad was sitting out front. His dad was super glad that we were teaching his son because he loves listening to messages about God too. His dad sat through the whole lesson and really liked it. He kept telling us he liked how we would just say things like they are. One thing that was SO sweet was when I showed them a picture of the Salt Lake City temple, I gave the example of how God compares our bodies to temples. Then I asked if they thought it would be as beautiful if it had graffiti all over it and was abused- trying to explain that when we don't take care of our bodies its like if the same were to happen to the temple. Pedro didn't completely understand though and said really softly and sincerely like he always does, "if someone did that, I would take my friends and we would clean it all up."
Another sweet thing Pedro told us was that last week(when he went to church after having worked all night)is that after he ate the bread and water, he said he was so happy and wasn't hungry the whole day. He said how his mom offered him lunch, but he told her he wasn't even hungry after the bread and water he had at church. That really touched me because after the sacrifice to come to church, he recognized that as a small blessing.
From this week's studies- I read in Jacob 5 about the parable of the olive vineyard. I really liked how much effort the owner of the vineyard puts into his trees and all his careful planning and care to have good fruits. It makes me think just how much God worries and thinks about each one of us. There's a part where after all his work, he sees that the fruit is starting to go bad and he says "And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard wept, and said unto the servant: What could I have done more for my vineyard?"
I feel like in a small part I've felt like that with investigators...that frustrated feeling when you've put in all this work with someone but they don't appreciate all that you've done and won't embrace what you've taught them. You know how much it will help them and bless them, but they won't give it enough of a chance and trust that if they're patient things will change in their lives for the better. Even as members, God still is pruning us and trying to get us to change and be better, but a lot of times we don't put forth the effort we ought to. Even as a missionary, I know I fall short to a lot of God's council's for me. I love knowing that God really is so aware of us and especially aware of when we're not okay. One thing with the example of the harvest though, it that at some point the harvest ends. If we put things off too long- at one point its going to be too late. We have to be quick to respond to what God asks of us!
Until next week-
Hermana Harper
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