5-19-14
Dear Family,
This week we had an awesome conference with Elder Torgam from the 70. Thursday we had a meeting with the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders of the Mission in Curitiba all day that was super good! And then Saturday he came here to Ponta Grossa and had another meeting with all of Ponta Grossa. He talked about how anyone, any church, can talk about Christ, but only WE can levar (bring/take?) Christ to their homes. What an incredible blessing and responsibility we have to be His representatives! The only way we can do that is if they can see Him in our countenances, and feel His spirit when we are there.
Our purpose is to bring souls to Christ, but that also includes ourselves. We need to be repenting every single day because that is how we become better, is by repenting/changing through the Atonement of Christ. We talked a lot about excuses and how excuses impede our ability to use the atonement in our lives. Like Alma´s counsel to Corianton in Alma 42:29-30, if we excuse even our little sins, we are rejecting the ability for the atonement to work in our lives to change us. I was thinking about this a lot because in every aspect of our lives, how often do we make excuses or rationalize? But the people that can humble themselves, recognize their weaknesses and let the atonement change them, those are the ones who become something in life. Those are the ones who have success. Success doesn´t come from good luck.
Yesterday morning we had several good families lined up to go to church and I was so excited feeling like we were finally getting things going. As we went to get them, each one dropped for a lot of different silly reasons. Church was about to start in 1/2 hour and we didn´t have one single investigator to go to church. I was sitting there thinking, “wow I can have all the excuses in the world because I felt like I did everything I could”, but I really don´t feel okay with going to church as a missionary without bringing a single person so I turned to my comp and said okay we’ve got half an hour and we need to find someone to go to church right now (my poor comp is super sick right now and doesn´t even have a voice to talk let alone run around finding ppl to go to church) so we just went down the street and I started talking to every single person I saw and I invited them to church. (I found out that usually at 8:30 in the morning people aren´t usually inclined to go with some foreigner to a meeting that will last 3 hours). But anyway after about 1/2 hour of rejection we found this nice old man who said he would go to church with us. He had a wife and an11 yr. old son at home so we ran to church, got a car and went back to find their house (which turns out they live in a Catholice Seminary because he works for the Padres haha) to get this family of 3. I thought about that experience afterward and how I could have just felt really frustrated and given up and given my District Leader all the reasons for not having anyone at church, but that´s not what we were called as disciples to do. We were called to forget ourselves and go to work. I know that when we truly do--that is when we see miracles.
Elder Torgam also talked a lot about companion unity and how we need to be united in 3 things - Our Purpose, Our Goal, and Our Vision. I think that goes within our families as well and that´s why it is so important that we have the gospel because that is what unites us to have the same Purpose, Goal and Vision! At the end he invited us to find a spot in the chapel and for 10 min. pray with our companion to feel the atonement; to feel a little bit of Gethsemane. That was literally one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I have had in my entire life. The spirit in that room was like being in the temple. There was just a peace and quietness and feeling of love so strong it felt like you could almost touch it. You just wanted to sit there forever so you wouldn´t lose it.
I know that the reason that spirit was so strong is because of the Atonement. There is nothing that brings the spirit more powerfully than the love that the Savior has for us and His infinite sacrifice that He made because of that love. THAT is what I want the people here to feel and that is what I want to feel every day; the love and the power that exists because of His Atonement. I know He lives and it is because of Him that I get to see the lives of these people change! I Love the gospel of Jesus Christ more than anything else in the world!
Eu amo todos voces muito muito!
Sister Lewis
No comments:
Post a Comment