A God of Miracles
March 10, 2014
Wow, has this been an incredible, miracle-filled, last two weeks.
First off, we had three days of Carnaval in the house with a schedule of
activities to do and lots of study time, which were truly inspired and helped
me reflect a lot on my time in the mission, which is now halfway over, on what
I have done in these nine months and how I need to improve for the next nine.
As I reflected, I studied a lot about miracles and what conversion truly means.
My principal goal for the mission is to become truly converted, so that in this
year and a half I can not only serve the Lord with what He needs here in
Bolivia, but also become the person He needs me to be for everything to come in
the future. And so I studied conversion, in particular in the General Conference
Liahona from October 2012, which was full of talks about conversion and true
discipleship. I was able to make a list of all the things that have been
keeping me from being 100% obedient and make several new goals. I also
recognized that I have truly started to change as I have improved in one of my
goals that I’ve had for a long time, which is to make my prayers more
meaningful. As I’ve been learning to do that, I’ve felt my love for the gospel
deepening, I feel the guidance of the Spirit more in my life, and I truly feel
the purifying influence of the Atonement, especially when I have the chance to
study the scriptures daily. I know that this is something every person can
feel, but many times we make our prayer and scripture study so robotic that we
don’t give way for the Spirit’s influence. I invite you all to make that a
personal goal. But I was very grateful for those three days of Carnaval, and at
the end we left more excited than ever to get working and see miracles. And we
definitely needed miracles - Carnaval started on Sunday on a disappointing
note: we had to report, for the second week in a row, zero with baptism dates,
which was pretty crushing since we lost a few baptism dates that same day at
church.
But we fasted and prayed hard in Carnaval, and miracles happened! We have been working with several families, la familia Soliz and la familia Cuellar, for a while now, and as I’ve mentioned before, they are truly familias de oro, but didn’t want to accept baptism dates. Well, this week we had the incredible miracle of seeing la familia Soliz and almost all of la familia Cuellar accept baptism dates for the 22nd of March, and we are very confident that the rest of la familia Cuellar will also accept the same date in our lesson with them today. The story of these two families is very long, too long to write here, but believe me when I say that I know this was a miracle - all of our best efforts to get them to baptism failed, and it was only when the members stepped in and started friendshipping these families, and more importantly, when the Spirit had the chance to work in them, that they decided to take this step. And then, last night we had yet another miracle, with yet another investigator, Anyelo, who has attended church for months, lives all the standards of the gospel, but never wanted to get baptized. I know I’ve mentioned him before too. Every time we talked about baptism with him, he pulled away more, to the point that he finally told us he did not want to hear us talk about it at all anymore. Anyway, but we went to visit him for the first time in two weeks yesterday, a little nervous about how he would receive us. For the first time, we had a lesson with him without mentioning once the word "baptism." We just talked about faith and read from Alma 32, and as we walked out the door, he said, "Quick question. When is the next baptism in the ward?" We answered, "The 22nd, why?" "Because I would like to be a part of it." We were shocked and SO grateful for the chance to witness this miracle. He said he would really like to get baptized as soon as possible, so he’ll be getting baptized this Saturday!
I want you all to know that I KNOW that miracles haven’t ceased, and that the promise in Jacob 5:72 is true. The Lord really does want to work with us in His vineyard, and He will, but Hna Hincapie and I came up with the recipie to receive His help. It is: obedience + diligence + fasting and prayer = miracles. That is all we’ve tried to do - be exactly obedient, including in the "little things" and be diligent, and put in practice lots of fasting and prayer, and the miracles just keep pouring in, and I love it!!! I recommend that you try it in your own lives. Maybe you aren’t full time missionaries, but you still need the Lord to work side by side with you in your daily life, and He will, as you strive to be exactly obedient to His commandments, be diligent, and fast and pray for His help. I know that this gospel is true, that God lives and that through His Son, Jesus Christ, we can all be saved. I love you all! Have a great week!
But we fasted and prayed hard in Carnaval, and miracles happened! We have been working with several families, la familia Soliz and la familia Cuellar, for a while now, and as I’ve mentioned before, they are truly familias de oro, but didn’t want to accept baptism dates. Well, this week we had the incredible miracle of seeing la familia Soliz and almost all of la familia Cuellar accept baptism dates for the 22nd of March, and we are very confident that the rest of la familia Cuellar will also accept the same date in our lesson with them today. The story of these two families is very long, too long to write here, but believe me when I say that I know this was a miracle - all of our best efforts to get them to baptism failed, and it was only when the members stepped in and started friendshipping these families, and more importantly, when the Spirit had the chance to work in them, that they decided to take this step. And then, last night we had yet another miracle, with yet another investigator, Anyelo, who has attended church for months, lives all the standards of the gospel, but never wanted to get baptized. I know I’ve mentioned him before too. Every time we talked about baptism with him, he pulled away more, to the point that he finally told us he did not want to hear us talk about it at all anymore. Anyway, but we went to visit him for the first time in two weeks yesterday, a little nervous about how he would receive us. For the first time, we had a lesson with him without mentioning once the word "baptism." We just talked about faith and read from Alma 32, and as we walked out the door, he said, "Quick question. When is the next baptism in the ward?" We answered, "The 22nd, why?" "Because I would like to be a part of it." We were shocked and SO grateful for the chance to witness this miracle. He said he would really like to get baptized as soon as possible, so he’ll be getting baptized this Saturday!
I want you all to know that I KNOW that miracles haven’t ceased, and that the promise in Jacob 5:72 is true. The Lord really does want to work with us in His vineyard, and He will, but Hna Hincapie and I came up with the recipie to receive His help. It is: obedience + diligence + fasting and prayer = miracles. That is all we’ve tried to do - be exactly obedient, including in the "little things" and be diligent, and put in practice lots of fasting and prayer, and the miracles just keep pouring in, and I love it!!! I recommend that you try it in your own lives. Maybe you aren’t full time missionaries, but you still need the Lord to work side by side with you in your daily life, and He will, as you strive to be exactly obedient to His commandments, be diligent, and fast and pray for His help. I know that this gospel is true, that God lives and that through His Son, Jesus Christ, we can all be saved. I love you all! Have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk
Hermana Chelsie Faulk
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