Last week was an extra spiritual week for me, and an important one, because I passed my one year mark in the mission.
Hermana Navarro is a wonderful companion. We´re able to talk really openly and we´ve become very good friends in the last two weeks. She always tells me about all the good things she sees in my teaching. She really loves people and has a strong desire to share the gospel. I´m really lucky to be serving with her. This week, our companionship studies have been really great. We´ve shared a lot of insights and learned a lot together.
The two themes of my (our) week have been improving in diligence and charity. I realized that diligence is more than just consistently working hard, it´s also consistently trying to be efficient and effective. The second part kills me. I have a lot of blocks, as Katie would say, against being efficient, decisive, organized, etc. But I´ve been realizing in the last few weeks lots of things I can do to be more efficient and I´m slowly starting to apply them. I have a LONG way to go, but I feel positive about it.
But a stronger focus on charity has defined this week for me. On Tuesday night I prayed to have more charity for our investigators. When I woke up Wednesday morning I felt during my personal prayer a real increase in my love for the investigators, especially for one investigator that I was having trouble relating to. I shared what I felt with Hna. Navarro, and we had some really neat insights together about how important charity is in missionary work. The rest of the week, as I tried to feel and express love for all the people we found and taught, I saw results. The investigators and less active members and our street contacts responded better and understood better and were more willing to accept commitments. Hna. Navarro and I talked about it during our personal study and talked about how Christ taught with love, not by trying to convince people by force of argument or by “dropping the cane” on people´s faults. We read Section 121 together and came to the conclusion that the advice about not trying to recognize unrighteous dominion with the priesthood also applies to us—the power of our teaching won´t come from our authority as set apart missionaries, but from persuasion, gentleness, and love.
I saw this principle in action with Marta, a reference from another investigator that we contacted on Thursday (my 1 year mark!). She was standing outside her house listening to loud music and didn´t look very approachable. But we went up to talk to her anyway with Hna. Gauna, a sister from the ward who was accompanying us. At first she didn´t want to hear anything. She told us that she had lost two children and that she had been to lots of different churches but that none of them had touched her heart. We could have given up right then, but I decided that I would try to show her more charity. I told her that I knew that Heavenly Father loved her and wanted her to be happy and that he had a plan to help her do that. Her expression changed and she accepted the Plan of Salvation pamphlet we gave her. We told her we would come by again to visit her and she said that was ok!
The next day we went to visit Marta again. I was nervous, but I tried my best to be friendly and keep showing love for her. When we sat down to teach, the Spirit took over completely. We started explaining to her the Plan of Salvation and eternal families. I started to explain to her how Christ overcame sin and death for us, which would otherwise separate us from Heavenly Father and our families. I opened my Book of Mormon and found a scripture in Alma 12 about resurrection that I hadn´t read for weeks or months and hadn´t understood particularly well. I began to read it aloud for Marta and as I spoke to explain it the Spirit helped me understand and explain with a clarity that surprised me. I felt like I was teaching myself—as the words came out of my mouth I simultaneously understood the doctrine I was teaching—that sin causes death and that Christ´s sinless life gave him the power to rise from the dead and allow us to be resurrected too. I immediately, without thinking almost, opened to Alma 7 and read right through from the part about Christ suffering our pains to the part that says he will erase our transgressions and Alma´s invitation to be baptized unto repentance. I challenged Marta right then and there to be baptized so she could receive a remission of her sins and be with her children again after this life. Marta paused, then said she would need to think about it and agreed to pray to find out if the church was true. I told her I was so sure that God would tell her yes that I wanted to set a goal for her baptism. Marta accepted the goal of being baptized on the 30th if she receives an answer. We invited her to offer the closing prayer, but instead of praying out loud, she began to pray silently. At first we were uncomfortable, but then we started to pray silently too. About 15 minutes later, Marta finished her prayer. She had a look of peace on her face and told us she felt “bien”. That lesson was an experience I will never forget. I´ve never felt the Spirit so strongly.
There´s one more experience I´d like to share with you about last week. The same afternoon we taught Marta, but before the lesson, we saw a teenage boy sitting on the ground at the bus stop. I felt like we should go talk to him. I told him we had a message to share and then told him that his Heavenly Father had a plan to help him achieve success in his life and reach his potential. We learned that the boy´s name was Nico. He said he was 18 and he said he didn´t really believe in anything, and his family didn´t either. He didn´t want us to come visit him because his family wouldn´t be interested. I was trying to think about how to explain to him how the gospel could help him personally, and I felt strongly to talk to him about young men in the church. It didn´t seem to have anything to do with anything. But I listened and told him that there were young men in the church doing important things with their lives. I told him “My brother, who is 19, just a little older than you, is going to serve a mission like I´m doing. He´s going to Brazil. And it´s going to be difficult because he will be in a foreign country and doesn´t speak Portuguese yet, but I know he can do it because God will be helping him. I know you can do important and difficult things in your life too with God´s help.” I almost challenged him right then and there to serve a mission, but I chickened out. And Nico told us that he has friends who have served missions in the church—he already knew what a mission was! And then Hna. Navarro testified to him about how serving missions and going to church helped her brothers. It was incredible. I realized that Heavenly Father really wanted Nico to serve a mission, and he wasn´t even a member yet. I had the very strong impression that Nico needs to serve a mission. We left him a pamphlet with the church´s address. I really hope he comes someday, or that we can find him again and teach him.
Love,
Ellis
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