Week #60 - Esperanza

FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS (temprano) MAMÁ!!  En verdad, mi madre es una de las personas más fuertes que conozco. Palabras no pueden expresar, cuanto le amo a ella. Nunca en mi vida la he escuchado quejándose, porque SIEMRE sus pensamientos están enfocados en los problemas de los demás. Qué gran privilegio es tenerla como mi mamá, y poder confiar en sus consejos y ejemplo para conducirme por bien en mi vida. Gracias madre por el apoyo que me has dado para poder salir a la misión. Sigue firme, y recuérdate que la amo tanto!!

This week, we were so happy that Heavenly Father blessed us with the opportunities to extend baptismal dates and achieve our goals. On Sunday, we left really early in the morning to pick up investigators to go to church, and to our dismay many couldn´t go. The family we were teaching said they would not be able to come, and we felt pretty sad because they have a baptismal date. Nonetheless, we woke up a few others to go and they came! What even added to our joy was when, to our surprise, three investigators we hadn´t visited for 2 weeks came by themselves to church. Sadly, we had forgotten about them completely, which was a mistake. They decided to come because the 11-year-old daughter while eating breakfast, reminded her mom that it was Sunday and that they needed to go to church like we invited them to. So, she with her mom and grandma all went! The Lord works in mysterious ways when we do our part. We recognized our need to improve church attendance in our last weekly planning, and decided to practice and study the doctrine together this past week. The Lord saw our efforts and blessed us in ways we didn´t even know were possible. I know Christ´s grace makes up for everything we lack. The power of His grace is manifest after ALL we can do to follow Him, and I am so grateful for that!

This week we had an interesting experience looking for a reference. When we got to the door, a Catholic missionary lady was already there talking with the lady who lived there. We heard her mention something about ¨the Mormons¨ and we thought ¨oh boy, this will be interesting¨. She started talking about how her mom, who was a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, never received support from the members when she was sick, giving reason to say that the Mormons were not charitable and that the church was not true. The lady at the door didn´t really pay attention to her fortunately, but we decided to talk with the Catholic preacher after to see how we could help. She complained and ranted for about 15 minutes straight, stereotyping all members of the church for one simple incident. never giving us the opportunity to speak. She then went on her way, knocking on all the doors in the neighborhood just to say terrible things about Christ´s church. Sounds a lot like Alma the younger or many other people in the Book of Mormon right? We weren´t angry or frustrated luckily, just really sad to see her wasting her time. We could only pray for her so that the Lord would give her a chance to open her eyes and come unto Christ. 

As Elder Holland said in the last General Conference, ¨Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more [destructive] than the injury that provokes it.”¨. Anger as explained in Mosiah 7, brings immediate destruction to our souls and is poisonous. Don´t waste you time being angry. Don´t waste your time being negative and talking bad or even thinking bad about others, if you have all the tools you need to do good. We have no time to waste!! Do good and as Rey Limhi invites, ¨turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage.¨ It´s not easy, but with the help of our Savior, we can overcome feelings of frustration and anger. I am learning every day that the Atonement of Jesus Christ provides us with the power to overcome it all. 

Never in my life had I felt so much sympathy for someone I had never met before until this past week. We were contacting on Tuesday, and to achieve our 20th contact of the day, we chose to talk with a lady that crossed our path in a quiet street we were in. We talked a little, and then felt the need to ask her if she was okay. When we asked, she looked at us and burst into tears. She explained to us that she was in deep depression because her 13-year old had a addiction to cocaine and wasn´t going to school and she didn´t know what to do. My heart ached and I felt so much pain for her. A 13-year-old boy with that kind of addiction? I could not even imagine what that would feel like as a mom to see her son suffering with that. She happened to be walking home, so we walked with her and visited her. She lived right next to Freddy, a recent convert who overcame his addiction to alcohol. The Lord truly prepared the way for her to find true happiness and I know the Lord guided us to her. If we didn´t have the perseverance to contact 20 people that day, we most likely would not have found her. 

I love you all do much!!! Don´t forget to ¨light your family¨ this week! Write a letter to your siblings, do the dishes for you mom, organize your dad´s office or go out with your whole family to spend time together this week!! It´s the simple things that mean the most.

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Hermana Doney