Hi All,
Changes were super tranquilo (tranquil). Nothing happened in my neck of the woods. But that's nothing less than we expected. In the cool end of news though, elder Rosete is coming to Tacuarembo, and for that I'm rather stoked. He's been in Cardona for 6 months now. That's a long long haul in one of the hardest areas of the mission. Heck, 4.5 months was a long haul. So I'll see him on Thursday so that will be fun.
In the running department, it's been a little rough on Elder Lamb and I. What happens is we can run for a little while, but then the extra 15 or 20 minutes that we take start to catch up to us and we literally struggle to get out of bed before 630. Therefore, our running suffers. It's just that our work is so demanding that anything extra takes a herculean effort. And we've been catchin a lot of sun and super humid heat these last few days and that just takes it outta ya. Granted, it's nothing in comparison to summer last year, so for that I am thankful.
As for the miracles of the week....we found 12 new investigators. That's the most I've ever found on the mission in one week. Ever. Granted more than a couple of them don't want anything to do with us already, but regardless. The Lord truly blessed us with miracles almost on a daily basis this last week. There is one stand out event. Saturday, after 2 of our lessons fell through, we followed up on a street contact from 2 days before. Cecilia let us in and we had an interesting lesson in front of her house. She didn't want to say an opening nor a closing prayer so it was my first prayer-less lesson but she agreed to going to church with us the next day. Lo and behold, we showed up Sunday to find here and she was out front waiting for us.We got to church and she already knew a lot of the members and was rather animated. She really seemed to enjoy the meetings and pull something from them. After sacrament meeting we showed her the baptismal font and committed her to baptism on the 2 of march. Unfortunately....her grandma, whom she lives with, happens to hate Mormons. And so yesterday when we tried to set up our next lesson she said that she was having family problems as a result of Sunday and that she couldn't listen to us anymore. We called her this morning and had a good talk about her feelings in church and all that the Lord can bless her with. Keep her in your prayers please...she needs the gospel in her life.
This week in my studies I've finished the book of Joshua and now I'm reading in Judges. The bible is so clear sometimes and sometimes it is just so muddled. I'm so thankful that we have the Book of Mormon in this life to clarify the teachings of the savior that have been marred and pocked by the feeble hands of men.
I read this great quote from Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “The Challenge to Become,” Liahona, Jan. 2001, 41;Ensign, Nov. 2000, 33: “To testify is to know and to declare. The gospel challenges us to be ‘converted,’ which requires us to do and to become. If any of us relies solely upon our knowledge and testimony of the gospel, we are in the same position as the blessed but still unfinished Apostles whom Jesus challenged to be ‘converted.’ We all know someone who has a strong testimony but does not act upon it so as to be converted.
We must not only have testimonies. We must become converted. It's the refiners fire that the Lord puts us through, when combined with the effort our part, that will take the crude elements of testimony and desire and forge them into the swift and deadly steel blade of conversion.
"Now for wrath! Now for ruin, and the red dawn!" seems fitting. Just one step closer to conversion and one step further from giving up.
Well, that's about all I've got time for. The next changes will be on March 12th, so it's gonna be a sprint this time around. The Lord is truly blessing us and as we turn to Him constantly in prayer, this will not change. I've never spent so much time on my knees, but I also don't believe that I've been happier before in my life. Prayer is a powerful tool that is far too underrated in this world. There's nothing like kneeling in supplication to the most powerful Being in existence and feeling His love envelope your existence.
Elder Andy
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