have no idea where the time has gone. Today was a bitter-sweet reality
check as many of my companions of which I have served my whole mission have
left for home today. I'll miss them, but it's crazy to think that we will
see each other super soon...yikes. Where'd the time go? No more of this....
It was a good week! Lots of people are progressing and have displayed great
faith in their actions this week--which is super exciting for us!
Maribel has been reading, studying and praying her little heart out. She's
been coming to church amidst a million other things going on in her
life--even if it's just sacrament meeting because she knows she needs to
make sure God knows he's first. She learned about the Word of Wisdom and
within the day she was making plans to cut out green tea (her only
struggle) from her life. She was down to a cup a day by the middle of the
week and hadn't has any the entire weekend. She's a super good example for
her daughters. Super exciting.
Luis "Verde" changed jobs completely so that he could meet with us and go
to church. He reads daily and listens to the Book of Mormon while he works
all day. He sincerely studies and repents. This week he learned what it
meant to keep the Sabbath Day holy as he studied the 10 commandments on his
own and called us and explained that he never knew that not working on
Sunday was a commandment, but that he was going to make sure his boss knew
Sundays were God's days.
Eliseo Aju Rajpop (yes, that's his name-I can't pronounce it either. He's
from Guatemala!) we met last week and taught him a lesson that seemed to be
a disaster. Turns out that he called us at the end of the week and asked if
we could call his boss and ask him if he could switch his day off from
Wednesday to Sunday so that he can go to church. He doesn't speak
English...like at all, so we agreed to call his boss and convey the
message...turns out his boss does in fact speak English, but broken English
(he must have been from some other country). We are not sure that he
understood us, or us him...but we were proud of Eliseo (or "Pancho" as his
boss calls him) for demonstrating faith and desire to change!
So to follow up on the Koran-Book of Mormon exchange. We took the Book of
Mormon over to give to the man and he wasn't home, but his roommates were
and we talked to them and they were thrilled to have the book in their own
language and began to translate it for us to English. They found it quite
intriguing. We told them that they could keep the book and that we would
order a new one for the other roommate and the man who initially we were
going to give it to. They were elated. Needless to say that were much more
receptive that the first man we met.
They are antsy for us to come back with another book. Hopefully the Elders
can teach them and show them the restored gospel. Hoping and praying!:)
Heavenly Father always seems to work in the most mysterious of ways:) yay!
We, however, did not receive a Koran in exchange, but oh well!
So many fun little experiences this week...what else....
Esteban is a less-active, returning members with lots of faith. He came to
us last week at church and said that he wanted us to come over more
regularly so that he can come back for good. So we got there one of the
times during the week and he came out onto the porch and said, "okay I'm
ready! I am going to say a prayer right now to invoke the blessings of
heaven and we are going to open the book (the Book of Mormon) and see what
Heavenly Father wants to say to us. Okay? Okay." And then he started right
into his prayer.
We were caught a little off guard, but went with it.
As we finished his prayer, he took the Book of Mormon and opened it to a
random page and began to read. I don't even really remember what was read
or anything...it was so weird...but whatever he read was whatever he was
searching for, we exchanged a few comments, and then he closed the book,
thanked us, pointed at Hermana Harmer to give a closing prayer, she prayed,
and he went back into his house.
Hermana Harmer and I weren't exactly sure what had just happened...but he
was at church beaming and happy on Sunday wanting to get a interview with
the branch president so he can keep working hard.
Fun, fun.
Well. Lots happened this week, but that should do it for today!
So a thought for the week:
We hear various times in the scriptures, *"seek and ye shall find."*
[Matthew 7:7, Luke 11:9, 3 Nephi 14:7, etc]
Many times we take this to mean that if we seek answers, then we will find
them. And this is true, but if we limit our interpretation to that alone,
we are missing out!
We truly will find what we seek. The things that we seek will influence our
perspective of life, attitude, relationships...everything. If we seek to
find fault with one another, we will find faults in one another. If we seek
to find positive qualities and attributes, we will! If we look for reasons
to justify our wrong actions, we will find them. Likewise, if we look for
reasons to justify our good behavior, we will find those too (maybe we
should all do this a little more!) I could go on, but you understand what I
am getting at. So,
Challenge: Reflect on what it is that you seek. Seek that which you want to
find.
I know that as we reassess what it is that we seek and make sure that it is
in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ, we will find those things that
He wants for us to find! Our relationships with one another will get
better, our lives will be happier...everything will get better:)
Try it. You'll like it:)
Hermana Clark
Pictures:
This week we tried some weird fruits...dragon fruit and a banana flower...
and that sad moments when they start sending you papers telling you what
you need to do in preparation to go home...sad