COUNT YOUR MANY BLESSINGS!

ELDERS SANDOVAL AND HILL

It`s been a pretty spiritually crammed week, eh? These last two weeks have probably been the most tiring of my entire mission, and this last week we saw the fruits of all that work that we have been doing. 

Monday: 

We went to visit Brianda and Rodrigo at their house at night and they live fairly far from our house. We taught lesson 1, the Restoration, and Brianda accepted a baptismal date for the 15th of December. Blessing.  Rodrigo is a less active member. So, we leave their house and we started walking to the house and we were going to get home a little late with President`s permission. Suddenly a combi drives by and I whistle at it, it stops, and they tell us to get in. This combi was just going to the store but they took us to the corner next to our house and didn`t charge anything. Blessing. 

Tuesday: 

We went to eat with an older sister in the ward but because she was alone we had to eat outside and suddenly it started drizzling. We ate fast and went home to grab the sweaters because it was a little cold. We went to the Trebol to look for a contact that we had made a few days back and so we counted how many streets we had to go and we entered, knocked on the house, and no answer. We thought to ourselves, "Why are we here?" Knowing that the Lord put us there for a reason, we were there analyzing for like 3 minutes. I turn around and there is a little dry cleaning business there and so I feel like we need to contact them. A little old lady, Guadalupe, comes out and we explain the situation that we had been looking for someone, and then she explains that we had counted the blocks wrong. So we taught her lesson 1, too, and then she says at the end, "Good thing you boys made a mistake so that you could come bring me this wonderful message." Blessing. We left feeling a little stunned, thinking that maybe she might be a less active member, but no, she wasn`t. We are still teaching her. So we count the blocks correctly and nobody was home there either. Asking the same question, we feel like knocking two doors. From one, Gloria answered and from another answered Cintia. Both gave us appts to come back and share a message. Blessing. We leave there and go to talk to Brianda. We arrive and we teach the law of chastity because they aren`t married. They both understood and are making plans to get married. Blessing. 

Wednesday:

We go to a district meeting in the zone and one of the stinking sisters kept staring at me all through the meeting. I was super uncomfortable. CURSE. Pres. Call asked us to re-evaluate the goals for December to see if we would be inspìred to lower them so we helped them understand why that was and the zone goal went from 57 to 40, a very much more reasonable goal since we haven`t been fulfilling our goals as a mission. The mission goal went from 261 to 197. Blessing. I know that if we reach our goals now, we will all get more excited and work harder for January and on. After the uncomfortable district meeting, we went to the Trebol again and nobody was home, so we went with Rafa and Yamina, a really cool family here in the ward. Blessing. Rafa (Rafael) shared something that was really cool that I hadn`t understood in this way before. In D&C 18:15-16 it says that if we bring one soul unto Christ then how great will be our joy in the kingdom, and we will be so much more joyful with many souls. What Rafa explained is that the one soul that Christ asks for is OUR ONE SOUL, for how great will be OUR joy living with Him. The other souls come by helping others and preaching the Gospel. Just like on the airplanes when they talk about the O2 mask, save yourself, then you can help others. 

Thursday: 

We had weekly planning and we were about to go buy some enchiladas next to the house when the family where we live asked us if we had eaten and if we wanted some flautas (hard tacos). Blessing. We went and talked to Gloria in the Trebol and she said that she remembers when she was little a mormon family friend gave her a little doll for Christmas. This lady is like 70 something so if she still remembers it, it must have been a good experience. That`s our little window to have her allow us teach her family. Blessing. Patricia is an investigator that has been having the missionaries for a while. We stopped by to talk to her and I had noticed that something was wrong with her before but she didn`t tell us. This time, we talked about how if she goes to church she can receive revelation to know how to take care of that problem. I was talking to her about the blessings that she can receive and promising her that if she goes, she will feel better. She suddenly turns away and says that she felt something and that I should stop talking to her like that. We know it was the Spirit that she felt and that He was reprimanding her for not having taken the initiative to go. She said that she was going to go, but she didn`t. :(  Leaving her little store, we were walking to another appt and I suddenly felt that we should go down a fairly dark alley way. We did and we got to the end and noticed that it had no way out. Stopping and asking the same question as to why we were there, the words, "red door", came to mind and guess what? We were standing in front of a red door. We knock, and Alma comes out. She`s like 22 and she said that she had friends from the church and we made an appt to go back. Blessing. Later we find out that her cell number was already in our cell phone! Coincidence? I think not! 

Also on Thursday we went to see Rodrigo and Briando again. We walked in and Brianda looked totally different. This time she was radiating light (which was absent in past lessons) and she tells us that she didn`t receive her answer by praying, rather by sharing her experience and what she has been learning with her brother Cristian and mom, Alicia. 

Friday: 

Exchanges with Elders Ferrin and Castillo. Martha is an investigator of theirs who hasn`t progressed in more than a year! I knew why at the end of the lesson. She wasn`t praying the right way. She was praying in like third person or something. We explained it to her and I know that it will help her a lot by having a communication with her Heavenly Father. 

Saturday: 

We go visit Cristian and Cintia and they are super excited to go to church. They said that they are going to close their restaurant and go to church. Blessing. They both accept a baptismal date for the 15th of December. Blessing. 

Sunday: 

Adalberto goes to church alone and says that he was going to get baptized somewhere else but he had to move. He investigated the time and place, and showed up alone. Miracle. Yolanda, José Luis, and Ana Laura, a family of three said that they didn`t want to go to church when we contacted them. Suddenly they show up and love it and they`ve come two weeks now, and say that they`ll come next week, too! Miracle. We called Camelia to see why she wasn`t able to go to church and turns out that she was all ready to go and there was a shooting outside her house so she wasn`t able to leave. Opposition. Cristian and Cintia had something come up in the business and couldn`t make it. Opposition. We had several investigators in church and the Sacrament meeting attendance rose a lot. Blessing. 

Basically, there are tons of blessings. Just count them and you will see that we have more blessings than oppositions. 

Love you all. Gotta go. 

Elder Hill 

pic- Sandoval and me when it was really cold outside. (In the 50`s.) I`m going to be in trouble when I get home and it`s SNOWING!