This post title quote is brought to you by Sister Martinez. :)
Howdy family and friends!
So, this week has been super wonderful! :D No one was sick, we were able to get out and teach a lot of peole and we saw so many miracles!
Building off of the humility I talked about last week, and just my constantly increasing testimony of Heavenly Father's perfect timing that has been both a slap and the face and subtle through my whole life, and here as a missionary, it's been amazing to find Heavenly Father's hand in His children's lives this week.
We have quite a few solid investigators right now who are amazing, and patiently waiting for some things to pass before they can be baptized, but we are also finding new people to teach. The people here are so friendl (like really friendly), but it's always hard to keep those return apppointments, becasue work schedules are crazy, and... well, let's be honest, things you can see (life and the world) gets in the way of working on the things you can't see all the time (God and faith). But, we've seen miracles this week with all of our investigators, and it's exciting to see them progressing and continuing to build their relationship with their Heavnely Father and come to know the meaning of Christ's Atonment that much deeper in their lives for themselves.
Rosindo (a.k.a. Rosey), is an awesome man we met on Tuesday while we were biking around (since we are in a small town, and far away from everything else, we are trying to not use the car as much as we can), and we went and talked with his mom and he came home early from work. We set up a time to come back and talk with them more about the gospel, and see what they had understood from missionaries that had taught them before (a few years ago).
So when we went back to his house we learned a lot about the short 35 years he's lived thus far, and how he's been prepared through these years to hear the peace and the comfort that come from the message we have to share. I was humbled, as I have been many times, by the strength that he showed as he explained some of the trials and experiences that have brought him to the point where he is at in his life now. We were planning on teaching him the message of the Restoration of Christ's church (which is usually what we share first), but instead we taught the Plan of Salvation, or the Plan of Happiness-- Heavenly Father's plan for us to return to live with Him again. He's lost many loved ones over the years, and as we and the member that was with us shared scriptures, experiences, and testimony, the Spirit was so strong in the room, and that stillness and peace that only comes from Heaven was there with us.
I am so grateful to know that the Holy Ghost testifies of all truth. I know that all of the 80,000 missionaries would be wasting their time teaching if the Spirit wasn't there to testify of the truthfulness of our message. I was so happy when we were able to explain to Rosey that our purpose was not to convince him of anything, but to invite him to ask God for his own personal witness of the truth of our message, that immediately he said: "I will." and smiled through some tears. It was humbling for me to feel just a portion of Heavenly Father's love for Rosey, because when he said that he would I knew, and I was able to testify to Rosey, that I knew that Heavenly Father would answer his prayers, if he only asked with sincerity to act on the answer he recieved.
I think I've said this a couple times before, but it almost seems unfair to me that we get to learn so much as missionaires from the people that we are teaching... It's probably because the Spirit is the real teacher, but still, I count it as a blessing every day.
Unfortunately Rosey wasn't able to make it to church becasue of his work schedule, but we had a new investigator, Leon, come to church yesterday! He stayed all three hours, and he actually found out that he is related to Sister Martinez (who was also able to make it to church for the first time in awhile this past Sunday, and taught Relief Society, where I got that awesome quote from). Leon's little brother actually was given a copy of the Book of Mormon from another 11-year old boy in the ward, and that's how we met him. He's about 20, but he's wanting to listen, and is interested in getting to know God better. We're excited to be teaching him, and almost everyone in our congregation went and introduced themselves to him! It was truly amazing, he only wanted to stay for the first hour, but he ended up enjoying all three. :)
I wish I could tell you all everything, but time's running out!
I do want to share a scripture from Proverbs I read this week that really sunk into my heart:
Proverbs 4:18 "But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."
One of our other investigators Esai described his life right now as "clearing branches on the path of Esai."
This scripture remineded me of him saying, that, and how we are all kindof on this dark path right now as we are far away from our Heavenly home. I thought about how, time and time again peole have described the hope and peace that come from the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ not only as the light at the end of the tunnel, but the flashlight we carry with us while we are walking. And I realized something about the trials we face, or the branches we have to clear or the mountains we are compelled to climb.
We really need that shining light in our lives so we can see. We're all walking the path back to Heavenly Father whether we are aware of it or not, and we all have branches, rocks, and mountains in our journey. Having that light in our lives from the Spirit, from growing our faith helps us to overcome those obstacles with more confidence and strenght, we can look forward and plan, we can look back and remember better what we learned, and we can have joy and hope through whatever ails us in the present.
I know with all of my heart that Heavenly Father wants to help us with our trials, if we but ask Him to. With enough faith that He will listen and provide us with what we need to clear those braches. I know one way he has provided is through the examples of other, of which I am eternally grateful, and there are countless examples in my life.
I love you all so much! But know that God loves you more. :D
~Sister Lagrosa
p.s.
more fun facts about the mission:
1- Sister Rose thinks I look like a carebear! And my new nickname from her is L-G
2- I LOVE being able to see the stars so bright again! And the H2S gas from the oil fields reminds me of the pungent-ness of Dexter a little bit :P
3- It gets dark now around 6:30 (because of the time change), so it makes evenings a little more interesting when our plans fall through/people cancel. We have to carry around flashlights to help us see! :P
4- My comps are trying to bring the hashtag (#) thing back... so I have to do this:
#lovebeingamissionary!
pictures!
1- sometimes we eat cake and play dominos!
2- Me in between my SUPER TALL companions
3- an AWESOME sign we see every day :P
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