24 March 2014
Hola!
Buenas tardes a todos! How are y’all? I’ve
been getting all excited that we might be moving to Alabama and live in the
South. But now I’m thinking that we might be moving to Colorado. There go my
dreams of being a Southern bell!
Things here are great. My new comp is
Hermana Estrada. She is from Guatemala City, but looks like she is from the
States. I’m not sure how many times she’s had to explain that to people. She is
amazing and so funny! I think we laugh all day and talk way too much. She is
also a really great missionary. Yesterday in ward council they were talking
about how to get more members to go to the temple. And I whispered something to
her about temple attendance. And she wrote in down in her agenda. It made me
think of the Elder in the movie “The Best Two Years,” who asks his comp for
permission to write down the things he says. "Should I write that down?" Any
way I thought it was funny.
We started teaching Anjel again this
week. I don’t remember if I told you about him. He is a brother of a recent
convert. He has some pretty serious issues with alcohol. We met him in December
but he never really showed interest in meeting with us. I think part of it was
that he felt uncomfortable with his sister and brother in law in the lessons.
Also, before, he really didn’t recognize he had an addiction or see the need to
repent. So it was a little difficult in teaching him. We hadn’t seen him in
about 3 weeks because when he drinks he usually disappears. But we noticed he
was working again. So we stopped by his house to make an appointment; he seemed
pretty disinterested sitting by the stove shirtless and looking all “I’m too
cool to talk to the missionaries.” We went the next day with a member and
decided we needed to be really upfront with him about his addiction and if he
really wanted to change. I think it was one of the most powerful lessons I had
been in before. He was totally different. He really recognized he needed to
change and wanted our help. We started using the church’s addiction recovery program
with him and left a part for him to read. He said he would go to church but he
would get there late.
On Sunday we were talking with a family
before church started and there he was and early! The talks were also so good.
Hermana Lupita talked about forgiveness and a young man talked about lowering
your standards for friends. It was all so good. We had a lesson with him last
night. It’s amazing to see how Heavenly Father has softened his heart. Before
it was like pulling teeth to make a next appointment. Now he wants to go to
church and activities and we are planning on visiting him every night with
various members. One member said, doubtfully, “I hope this works.” Hermana
Estrada is so excited to be teaching someone who every day you see their faith
increase and their desire to follow Christ. She said something along the lines
of “as missionaries our faith in people should be limitless.” Really anyone can
change though the atonement of Christ. And if we don’t have the faith to help
them come unto Him they more then likely won’t progress.
Sometimes members see people we are teaching
and because they have known them for forever, their faith in them to change in
small. In our own lives we are the same with family and friends. We think they
will never change, or we doubt they will make real progress. Faith is a real
power. God said without faith he can’t perform any miracle. I know miracles are
real and they come according to our faith. We should never cease to believe
that people can change so that one day, as Anjel, God will soften that person’s
heart and they too will have the opportunity to come back into Christ’s fold.
I love you all.
Love,
Hermana Davies
No comments:
Post a Comment