Hello everybody!
This week really flew by looking back, but going through it was
slow and painful! We had a lot of appointments fall through, and a lot of
wandering and contacts for other areas!
So I´ll just give a rundown.
Tuesday, we had a training at district meeting and we had a
pretty good object lesson. We played hot potato with a box that had a task for
us to do. Our ZL told us it was a very hard and humiliating task, and that no
one else could help whoever ends up with the box do it. So it turns out Elder
Nelson ends up with the box. He reaches in and gets the task, which is a box of
chocolate that says ´´Eat the chocolate´´. It is a simple, but very effective
lesson... how often do we discourage ourselves with something that has such a
great reward? It applies in just about anything that has to do with service
(and missionary work)! Afterwards, we went out and worked with Franklin (a
member/returned missionary who is new to the ward). We walked plenty and we
didn´t have success in finding many people in their houses. At night, we taught
Lúcia and Julianna about the Book of Mormon. Lúcia seemed very interested in
all the implications about God that the Book of Mormon brought (I think mainly
about prophets and that God never changes...more on that thought later), She
was also very touched by the promises of answers to prayers given in the Book
of Mormon.
Wednesday, we walked the whooooooole day and nothing
happened for us. We went and did a family night with a counselor of the
bishopric, and his brother-in-law (less active) and a friend of his.
Thursday was a pretty good day. We were walking and came
across a group of people in front of their house. We stopped to do the contact
and met some wonderful people. They have already known the church and some
members, but it seems that the missionaries never passed by to teach them. What
we found was someone with practically has our same values. We gave a message
from the Book of Mormon (which he accepted gladly). I am certain he will become
a part of the church, whether I see it or not.
Friday, we had just about the same luck...At night... we
just decided to go to the OTHER end of our area just to do contacts. There
wasn´t anything marvelous that happened, but I think the journey was what we
needed to experience.
I´m just going to skip to Sunday because I´m getting bored
of saying the same thing over and over again haha. So in church, Elder Nelson
and I gave talks. I gave mine about how faith is all about action. I used James
2:17,19-20. What I took out of it was that the only thing that differentiates
us from our fallen brothers, is that we chose to follow Christ in the first
place. And if we stop doing that here? Even they believe in Christ, but if we
don´t anything, we won´t be any better off than them... well, we will, but we
won´t be happy! I finished with Moroni 7:47 and I finished by saying that ´´If
you have faith, you have hope... and if you have hope... you won´t wait.´´
(quick Portuguese lesson... hope is esperança and wait is esperar... see the
similarity?).
Another thing I learned this week... while studying preach
my gospel, I learned that our message is just saying that God was and is the
same. Imagine... if God changed his mind, would the Bible still be valid? D we
still have to be perfect? Do we still have to be baptised? If God changes...
how are we to know what he wants of us? Either way, there is a need of
prophets. The Book of Mormon gives a certain that God doesn´t change what he
wants from us... and states exactly what he wants from us. if someone chooses
not to accept the Book of Mormon, they don´t understand our Heavenly Father in
the least. Another story... in Baturité, there was an influential priest who
said the following... ´´There exist two gods. The god of the catholics and the
god of the evangelicals.´´ When I stopped and thought about it... it really is
true that there are multiple gods. The God that our church knows to be the true
God is one who still speaks with his CHILDREN and who never changes, is just
and loves us more than imaginable. Other Churches follow a god that doesn´t do
miracles, that only created us, that doesn´t really exist, a god that
changes... a god that truly doesn´t love us.
All of our investigators NEED to understand that God is our
Heavenly Father, and when they truly understand that, they will know that he
hasn´t ceased to work among us, to call prophets, or to reveal his secrets to
us. How grateful I am to believe in Our Heavenly Father!
So, that was my week, and my insights!
Love you all!
Elder Cornwell
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