October 21, 2013

Happy P-day!

Hello everyone: family, friends, conocidos. So one week of this transfer is already gone. And it has been quite the week. I´m now the district leader here, so I´m getting used to that again and all the responsibilities of it. I actually really like being district leader. I feel so much closer to all the missionaries here and I like the chance to serve and pray for each of them. Especially since we have such amazing missionaries here! I really love our district right now and we seeing some incredible miracles here and a lot of baptisms. 

I also really like my new companion, Elder Weixler. We get along really well, and although we´ve had kind of a down week, things are going well. 

We didn´t have too many lessons this last week, but we did manage to get back in touch with all of our investigators during the course of the week! That was a miracle for me and an example of how the Lord tests our faith sometimes. We even found Mayte again! I spoke with the Young Women´s president and it turns out that she has been in touch with Mayte through Facebook all this time and that she had already invited her to come to an activity at the church on Saturday. She also went by and talked with Mayte´s dad, and he said that he didn´t have any problem with Mayte still coming to church. We saw her at the activity on Saturday and she came to church. We have a lesson with her tonight, so we´ll see how she has been and where to go from here.

I guess what you said is right Dad, that maybe we shouldn´t pressure people too much, at least not until we have helped them create the faith they need to be able to make such life changing desiciones. For example with Mayte, she isn´t quite ready to ask her dad again about baptism yet. I guess the reason I was getting discouraged is because we had set a goal of 4 baptisms this transfer, and I was trying so hard to have the perfect faith they are always drilling into us. I felt like 4 was what the Lord wanted from us so I just trusted that He would provide them, that if we worked hard we would get those 4. But I guess it´s important to remember that the people we teach also have their agency, that probably more important than my faith is the faith they have. Thanks for helping me to see things from the investigators´ point of view. It´s true that we get so caught up in everything that sometimes we forget how new and foreign this all is to them and really how big of a change it is. 

We met with Viki once this week and she is doing well, but she is really scared of getting baptized. We pushed pretty hard to still go for the 26th but she didn´t promise anything and she didn´t come to church so we can't baptize her on the 26th. But she is definitely going to get baptized. No doubt, just a matter of time. She is super good and she is growing a love for this gospel. She already is talking about inviting friends to listen as well. 

We finally talked to Arthur about meeting with him everyday and he said that he would talk with his sister (he watches the kids at her house) to see if we could come by. I feel like he is so close to breaking this addiction and being baptized. I feel like he just needs a little stronger desires, to give a little more importance to giving up smoking. We have a program we are going to try with him if he will commit to it. I´m also sure that Arthur will get baptized, just a matter of time. In the end though, I won´t care about how long it took or if I reached the goals of a certain month, I´ll just remember the faces of the people who accepted the Gospel and changed their lives. 

Beto is progressing little by little as well. At the end of a fairly long lesson we finally got him to commit to pray to know if this is the Lord´s church even though he doesn´t feel ready. We tried to help him understand that sometimes we have to have faith to act first before the Lord will tell us what´s right or wrong. We have to ask. He didn´t show up to church (-_-) but Patricia (his wife) said that he had prayed. So we are making progress. 

Please keep each of them in your prayers (Andrés as well). They need all the help they can get. Also pray for me to have more love for them. I appreciate your advice, and I think I see where I need to make a bit of an adjustment of focus. The people are the most important and they always will be. Thanks for helping me see that again. 

Also, if you could also keep Hermana Heims and Hermana Cabellero in your prayers this week, I would really appreciate it. They are going through something really difficult with one of their recent converts right now. This last week was really emotional. They are doing a lot better, but it´s still going to be rough for a while so pray for them. Thanks. 

Thanks for keeping me updated. It´s good to know that everyone is doing well back home. Be safe and be good. I love you all so much!! I can´t say it enough. Thanks for everything and have a great week!

Elder Cousins