This week we visited and taught our investigator Andrea a lot. We had a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) with her, the hermanas and the branch president and my homie Alexis. We ate pizza and had some good convos with her. We have her on date for the 30th, but she will need all the prayers and blessings from yall! She really is a precious daughter of God that has been through a lot in her life, and the concepts of faith and the gospel are sometimes hard to follow or believe in for her. But having paciencia and the ability to help her as a true representative of Jesus Christ has been a tremendous blessing for me as a missionary and my testimony as well. As we work hard to love others, their burdens become ours, and we help each other learn and grow in the gospel. ¡Increíble!
We also decided to explore our area a little bit this week, and found some people and families that are interested in learing about the gospel! I also found a cool cemetary with old school fancy mauseleums or however you spell them hahaha and it was great to contact people! Some days we are so busy doing other things for the branch that we don´t always get to do things like this, but I loved just meeting new people and learning how to be a better teacher while i´m at it.
This week we had Zone Conference, which is where a group of missionaries in a zone get together to learn and apply better teaching principles to our investigators and areas. Our zone didn´t real change much, so it was great to see all my friends there again! I also got to do divisiones with one of the Zone Leaders, Élder Jordan in Rafaela so that was fun! It´s a bigger city than San Cristóbal, but fun nonetheless :)
One of the things I learned in Zone Conference was about the history of the song Brillan Rayos de Clemencia (I forgot the name of it in English, but I think you guys can figure it out lol). The story goes that the man who composed the hymn was listening to a guy named Preacher Moody give a sermon. Preacher Moody told the story of a ship trying to port in a Cleveland harbor during a terrible strom. The harbor had a faro (lighthouse) that was working just fine, but the lower lights, which help the ship know where to port and land, weren´t working. While they were able to find the lighthouse´s light during the storm, the lower lights weren´t working, and since they didn´t know where to safely land, the ship crashed into the rocks, killing all the marineros. Preacher Moody shared this story to demonstrate that even in the toughest storms, the light that is Jesus Chrsit will always be there, willing to guide us back to safety. However, if we don´t have our lower lights working (faith, praying daily, reading the scriptures, etc) then we will still crash.
I remeber that growing up, my mom had a bunch of lighthouse ceramic things and decór, and I never knew why. We were never by an ocean growing up, and it was a little odd to see them on our entertainment stand at times. But then I thought about how my mom was always a believer of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, raising me on the basic principles that Jesus taught in the Bible. But she did never find a good enough church to attend, and she never was one to exercise her faith with tons of prayers or scripture studies when I was a kid. I think in her life she had the faro, but not the lower lights of faith that would have guided her through those years of depression, anxiety, stress, etc. After I joined the church, I took her name to the temple to have her be baptized by proxy, along with the other ordinances necessary for salvation. Now we are sealed as an eternal family, and now I think she has the lower lights working to guide her safely home :))
This story also reminds me of when Christ says that His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. I realized that a yoke is for two oxen, one being Christ and the other being us. While Christ will help us make the cart move without causing us any burdens or pain, we still have to do our part and put on the yoke, trusting in Him to lead and guide us to safety. I testify that as we do our part to read, to pray, to go to church every Sunday, and more, we will receive guidance and answers to our prayers, a faro to guide us in the toughest of storms. We have to try, and the Savior will help us if we accept His help!
Well, that´s it for this week. I LOVE EVERYONE OF YALL SOOOO MUCH! Keep doing good, the world needs people who can guide others through the storms safely. ¡Chiao!
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