Happy one year!
June 9, 2014
As
the subject indicates, I officially reached a year in the mission this past
week, and it has indeed been the happiest year of my life. Six months more to
keep loving it! We started off the week, as I mentioned in my last email, in
Santa Cruz. Hermana Lopez and I flew up there for the consejo de lideres and it
was great; we learned a lot about new instructions to lift us as a mission and
help us to be more obedient. As part of these new instructions, we as hermana
capacitadoras have much more responsibility and are in a lot more constant
contact with the hermanas we work with since the elder leaders can’t be in so
much communication with the hermanas anymore. It’s great; it means we’re
sacrificing a lot more of our time since we really are now acting basically
like lideres de zona for the hermanas, but I like being able to serve in that
capacity. I learn a lot from the hermanas we work with and I learn a lot as I
try to think creatively and work with Hermana Lopez to lift the hermanas.
I also had the chance to talk more to Presidente Willard one on one and he really pushed me to give the mission everything I have for the last six months I have. I am extremely grateful to have such an incredible presidente de la mision who knows exactly how to say what the Lord needs me to hear to push me to realize my full potential. Well, that totally changed my week and, I believe, it will change the rest of my mission. As I have striven to be more diligent and 100% obedient, I feel the Spirit much more in my life and feel so much closer to the Lord. And we have seen miracles as a result of it. For example, we had an investigator, Cristina, who liked our message and was interested in going to church, but was afraid of her boyfriend. He is in the police academy and only comes out on weekends, but she is here in Tarija waiting for him to leave the police academy so they can get married. (They are both from Santa Cruz, but he came to Tarija to be in the police academy and she followed him here to wait for him the two years he has to be in it! That, my friends, is true love.) She told us that she’s interested in religion, but he really isn’t so she was worried about being able to progress or get baptized. Well, we got her to agree to a lesson with the two of them on Saturday when he was out of the policia for the weekend. Before the lesson we were a little nervous, but we said a prayer before the lesson and the impression came to Hermana Lopez strong: "Have faith." When she shared that with me, I remembered and felt strongly that the Lord works with us, that we have His power and authority to teach and invite others to come unto Christ, and that He would help us with this lesson. In the lesson, we talked about the importance of following Christ in our lives and I contemplated inviting Grover, the boyfriend, to baptism but although I usually do in the first lesson, I was a little bit uncertain this time. But those words, "Have faith" echoed in my head and I just had to do it. I invited him to baptism and a miracle happened: he said instantly, "I would really like to, when can I?" And both of them accepted a baptism date for next month! It’s going to be a little bit complicated with him since he only comes out weekends, and not even all weekends at that, but he said that when he does come out on Sundays he wants to come to church, and this week Cristina came to church with us and loved it. It was marvelous to see the Lord’s hand working in our lives and in the lives of our investigators.
I also had the chance to talk more to Presidente Willard one on one and he really pushed me to give the mission everything I have for the last six months I have. I am extremely grateful to have such an incredible presidente de la mision who knows exactly how to say what the Lord needs me to hear to push me to realize my full potential. Well, that totally changed my week and, I believe, it will change the rest of my mission. As I have striven to be more diligent and 100% obedient, I feel the Spirit much more in my life and feel so much closer to the Lord. And we have seen miracles as a result of it. For example, we had an investigator, Cristina, who liked our message and was interested in going to church, but was afraid of her boyfriend. He is in the police academy and only comes out on weekends, but she is here in Tarija waiting for him to leave the police academy so they can get married. (They are both from Santa Cruz, but he came to Tarija to be in the police academy and she followed him here to wait for him the two years he has to be in it! That, my friends, is true love.) She told us that she’s interested in religion, but he really isn’t so she was worried about being able to progress or get baptized. Well, we got her to agree to a lesson with the two of them on Saturday when he was out of the policia for the weekend. Before the lesson we were a little nervous, but we said a prayer before the lesson and the impression came to Hermana Lopez strong: "Have faith." When she shared that with me, I remembered and felt strongly that the Lord works with us, that we have His power and authority to teach and invite others to come unto Christ, and that He would help us with this lesson. In the lesson, we talked about the importance of following Christ in our lives and I contemplated inviting Grover, the boyfriend, to baptism but although I usually do in the first lesson, I was a little bit uncertain this time. But those words, "Have faith" echoed in my head and I just had to do it. I invited him to baptism and a miracle happened: he said instantly, "I would really like to, when can I?" And both of them accepted a baptism date for next month! It’s going to be a little bit complicated with him since he only comes out weekends, and not even all weekends at that, but he said that when he does come out on Sundays he wants to come to church, and this week Cristina came to church with us and loved it. It was marvelous to see the Lord’s hand working in our lives and in the lives of our investigators.
Well,
we had lots of other great experiences this past week and we keep working hard.
We’re getting Esteban, one of our investigators, ready for baptism in about a
week and a half and we’re so excited for that. The challenge is still his wife;
we’ve been able to meet and start teaching her, but up to this point she hasn’t
given him permission to get baptized. We’re praying that her heart will change
and that she will give him permission and then, even better, join him!
Love
you all! Have a great week!!!
Love,
Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk
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