We brought a church to church!
Wow, what an improvement from the weeks ive been having!
i dont even know where to start, we saww so many miracles and blessings this week. um...ok, well, first, we had in general a good week, because we contacted a lot of people, placed a lot of baptismal dates, and found lots of new investigators. really amazing wqhat kind of things the Lord can do with you as his instrument. i am a lot happier now, and I know that it is only gonna get harder, but its like i once Heard somewhere before: dont ask Him "Why me?", rather tell Him "Try me."
we had 2 baptisms/confirmations! Mario and Inez!! it has been a bit interesting, because when they took the sisters out of our district 2 weeks ago, they left a ton of eople who were ready for baptism, so each companionship kind of got assigned one to go look for and keep on following up on. I had visited mario and Inez before, but it was cool how about a week ago they officially became "ours", and so we visited them a lot, and interviewed them, and they were baptized on saturday! now they can join with their daughter, perla (who got baptized a few weeks ago) in saying that they are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. so happy for them and am proud of them...they realy feel like family members to me.
we had a great activity last night in the plaza, where we met up with the members and contacted lots of people (lessons with member present ;) ). in preaching to various people, we were also able to direct their attention to the main feature of our activity: bible videos projected on a White sheet! haha we got pretty creative, but it turned out great! i dont know exactly how many contacts we got in total, but it felt/feels so good to just be at the point where we can contact anything we see that breathes and has legs, because the Lord has humbled us enough to be able to talk to everyone without fear.
...which leads me to the subject title of the email. this is for sure the bigest miracle of my mission. It was the coolest! so we were pretty bummed to see that, once again, no investigators came to church. we even went for them in a taxi, but they werent there or werent able to come, or said they would come later but they didnt. so you could imagine the frustration and sorrow (and if you cant, just pretend. haha...any missionary can attest to this that when investigators dont come, its the worst feeling ever.) so, if we dont have any, the zone leaders have us go out and contact and literally "bring" people in the church. i am not particularly a fan, because those kind of contacts never seem to recieve follow-up and never get baptized. nevertheless, in obedience and desire to have at least one soul in the church, my companion walked over to a nearby park and we both prayed our hearts out. individualy, yet powerfully. we prayed and then kind of just waited. we tried bringing some nearby people, but they didnt want to come. so we went back to church. still with 0. towards the end of our services, we left and were on our way to our área to try bringing our investigators again, when before getting to the bus stop, in front of the hospital, i saw a man Reading the bible. I immediately said to myself (or rather the spirit prompted me to) "im gonna go read him the 4th commandment in exodus and invite him to church". so I did, and it ended up being 3 guys together. they were members of another cristian church, but no matter! we started talking to them and then they told us that they were there at the hospital to visit the sick, but werent gonna start for another hour or so. we asked them "howmany of you are there" and they said "well, quite a bit", and as they were talking to us, we started to see more and more come up to us. 4, 5, 6, 10, 15...20 people in total! they were all gathered in front of us, and the spirit was so strong as we invited them ALL to church for a half an hour, while they waited. and they al accepted, so we walked with all of them to church, and all 20 of them - men, women, and a fewkids - all entered into the church. they all live in the sierra (indigenous part of chihuahua), but temporarily are staying close by in another part near the city, cuauhtemoc. I want to talk to president to see if we can get a trip together or something to go visit them all.
Doctrine and Covenants 100: 5-8
5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men;
6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.
7 But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye declare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of meekness, in all things.
8 And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things whatsoever ye shall say.
I know that the Lord lives and loves us, as well as our Heavenly Father. He ANSWERS PRAYERS! We, in faith, asked for jsut one soul and he gave us 20. I know that if any of you are struggling with anything, just be patient. Having Patience means that you accept things the way they are, and wait for the Lord to fulfill the promises that he has made, but in HIS due time. We will of course continue to work hard, and try to have investigators in the chapel. I am having the time of my life, and am loving the mission. adiós!!
love,
Jason
--
*Elder Newman*
Misión
November 2013 - 2015
Alma 26:12
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