19 Nov 2018

Feliz Dia de Ação de Graças (Happy Thanksgiving)

Our investigator that was going to be baptized this week fell through because her daughter got sick so she had to take her to the hospital and missed her second week at church.  But she'll be baptized later though, her name is Fernanda.  We have another investigator who is seventeen, her name is Elisângela, and her mother won't let her get baptized yet.  Her mother has heard bad things about our church and thinks we are a cult which everyone thinks until we actually talk to them.  The problem is that she won't even let us talk to her yet.  These are our two investigators that are the closest to baptism. 

We visited an investigator yesterday who we already knew but it was our first official visit with them.  Their names are Messias and Daiane.  They are family of Fernanda and we went in there to just read the Book of Mormon with them and ended up teaching five of the discussions.  Then they gave us food and a ride home.  Luckily President just recently told us we could get home late as long as we were teaching.  I don't know if he meant 11 o clock though...  He offered to give us a pizza on our next visit as well so I guess he must like us.  Besides that the week was pretty normal.

I have no idea how the light the world is going to work this year with respect to missionaries but I'm sure they're going to fill us in.  But now high, low and whatnots.

High: already told you with the investigator.

Low: The baptism and Elisângela´s mother

Insights:  This week I studied a talk from Elder Bednar that I liked a lot.  Which was "Seek learning by faith."  It basically says that we can teach, demonstrate and lead with the spirit with great effectiveness and power but unless the students, children, or investigators are learning by faith it'll be in vain.  It also gave a pretty dang good explanation of what faith actually is.  I'll let you guys look into it.  It's application to missionary work is very useful.

I was also reading in the Book of Mormon in Mormon 9 19-21 and it talks about how God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  Then it continues to explain all the miracles that He did in the past.  So being the same for all of time that means that the miracles he did before he will do today.  The only problem is that our faith is the variable.  We place limitations on God's abilities and also on ourselves.  So miracles aren't dead nor does God want them to stop.  We just need the trust and faith to let the miracles occur.

So in short, I have been looking into faith A LOT this week.  To me, faith is the key to everything.

Gratitude:  I would just say we can be grateful for anything depending on how we look at things.  Will we look at things as a problem or an obstacle or will we ask ourselves, "what does God want us to learn from this?" I used to have a problem with God being all knowing or all benevolent.  I thought that the two can't coexist.  However, through the problems that I've gone through and seeing all the problems that I see investigators and members go through, I realize that things have a purpose.  Obviously we realize things a little late but we always were behind.  Anyway, that probably sounds cheesy but it's something that I've come to understand.

That's pretty much what I've got for this week.  Talk you guys next week!  Love ya!

Elder Keliiliki