Hello everybody! So our week was pretty busy (I feel like I
say that every week). Our first part was kind of slow, but the end of the week
was just brutal!
So Tuesday, we were able to catch Expedito at home since he had
been sick. He said that he now feels that he needs to be baptized, but he still
wants a little more confidence in himself. The rest of the afternoon, we
had little luck, but at night, we did some visits with Erijohnson. We visited
Ronald and his family, and his mother said she would let him be baptized if his
father approved. The only problem is that is dad works far away and would only
be home on Sunday. Afterwards, we talked with a young man named Moises, and we
gave a Book of Mormon that we had promised, and marked to meet with him again.
Wednesday, we had a zone training that talked a lot about planning
and the area book. Afterwards, I had a division with Elder Whitby (from Pasco)
and we tried to find new people to te4ach, but most of our references were busy
or just weren´t interested. But we did contact one reference with great
success. We were contacting a reference from Gleice, who didn´t actually live
at the address we were given, so we went to talk to her just to make sure we
weren´t mixed up. So we go and she says ´´Elders! How good it is you´re here!
My friend asked me to bring you to her house as soon as possible!´´ So
obviously, we went! We got to know Monique, who was generally disappointed with
her religion and decided she would no longer go for the friendship she had
there. She prayed for guidance, and remembered the time she had spoken with
missionaries before, so asked Gleice to send us over. She said she had prayed
for guidance and we had gotten there the same day, when Gleice said she had no
way to communicate with us. Monique was overcome by the feeling that she was
doing the right thing listening to us.
Thursday, we taught Julianna again, but she had forgotten
most of what we had taught the first time, and seemed disinterested in our message.
At night we talked with Ronald again to see if he was able to talk to his dad.
Friday was when we started into the grind. We went to
about 10 houses and we only managed to talk to Monique again.
Saturday, we got back at it, and we started off talking with
Lucas and Jonaton about the gift of the Holy Ghost and the priesthood to
prepare them for Sunday. We spent the rest of the day fighting for new people
to teach, but we had much difficulty! I think we tried to visit at least 20
different people this day. But we did talk to Luiz, a 91 year old man, whose
son is coming back from the mission next week. Luiz is just waiting for him to
get back to be baptized, so we just talked a little about the preparation until
then.
Sunday, we had fast and testimony meeting, and a sister from
Ala 2 shared an experience from the night before that impressed me. We had ran
into her the night before and she put it this way ´´I went to rent a movie and
was heading home to watch it. When I got to my street, I saw some people going
to a birthday party, some teenagers on the sidewalk chatting, other people
drinking, and I saw the Elders, obviously very tired. I greeted them with a
´´How is everything?´´ and they said ´´We´re hanging in there... but no one has
time for God anymore´. I kept thinking about what they had said, and when I got
home, I threw the movie far away, put on a church CD and read the lesson for
tomorrow´s class´´ I was impressed that by something we had said (that we
normally never say!) we were able to help someone come a little closer to God.
The whole point of the ´´Real Growth´´ the church leaders are emphasizing is
that a drug-addict and a bishop both need to come closer to God in every
moment. It is by the little things we do (visits, preparing lessons, following
up on assignments) that we do that. We can´t expect to do big things if we
aren´t willing to do the small things!
Welp, that was our week. Pretty beefy, but we´re hoping next
will be better!
Love, Elder Cornwell
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