The Trial of Faith Brings Miracles - September 3, 2016

Good Afternoon Everyone! This week was a week that was truly a trial of our faith for us, but the promise of the Lord is that through those trials we recieve miracles in our lives. We finally had the chance to work a full week in our area this week. It was finally a chance to get to know the members, the area and everything else. The problem that happened is that when we got back we couldnt find any of our investegators except Eloy and Gil. We spent all day Monday trying to look for all of these people who Elder Madera and Elder Valenzuela had taught and we couldnt find any of them. It was so frustrating for us to have so many people lie to us about being home, or just not open the door for us. On Monday night we got home mad and with a little bit of discouragement in our minds. We knew that we would have to go about it the hard way and have to completely find a whole new pool of investigators to teach. We went to work on Tuesday spending hours and hours trying to contact and knock on doors. And for 4 hours we didnt have one person accept us. Then we tried going and visiting the members to try to get references from them, and that day was the Ward Temple Day. We literally couldnt find anyone and we spent the whole entire day contacting, we didnt know what we were supposed to do and we wondered if we were even doing the right thing. On Wendsday we had our Zone Conference with President Madsen training us. My companion and I went in there truly with broken hearts and contrite spirits for the lack of success that we had experiences in the past few days. We were willing to accept and learn anything that President was going to teach us. When President got up he said "I know that you guys are all representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ and that you are the hands of the 12 apostles who are here on the Earth today. For that I am going to leave Elder Andersen to train you from a training that he did in June" This was so inspired by President Madsen and by Elder Andersen, we were taught in how we could increase our faith to baptize. He taught about miracles and that this is a work of miracles if we had the faith to believe in them. He taught that the Lord would bring us up after all that we had been able to do, through our obedience and faith in the work. Something that really stuck out to me was this quote that he left us with, “Miracles do change lives. I have experienced these miracles myself, and I have witnessed them hundreds of times in the lives of obedient missionaries, their spirits burning with faith in Christ. Let us always protect this precious flame of faith.” Our Faith was strengthened so much in this training, that we could set an inspired goal with the sole vision to help them become converted through their repentance and be baptized. We knew that miracles could occur with us to because it can happen with anyone who is a son or daughter of God. The next day we still didnt have any plans for appointments and we knew that it would be our chance to do all that we could. I contacted the most that day than I have in all my mission, we didnt teach the most but we planted the same seeds of faith in the hearts of all that we talked to. We were able to make other appointments and have a hope for a brighter future in our area. On Friday we got to go back for a lot of these lessons that we had scheduled and each experience that we had was one that was filled with the spirit and a desire to change from each person that we taught. The first lesson of the day that we had was with a teenage boy. We had contacted him the day before and he told us to come back the next day. When we went back he sent his little brother out to tell us no. And then all of a sudden he came walking out and told us to come in. We asked to start with a prayer and asked him if there was anything he wanted us to ask for. He expressed to us that he was living alone at 16 years old. That he had to support his little brother and pay the rent and all the bills. He said that he had become so stressed that he got into a drug addiction and that we were the only people that knew. He said he wanted to change and he knew that God was the only person that could help him. Our lesson with him was guided by the spirit and in the end he accepted to be baptized and asked when was the soonest possible that he could. We taught more lessons that day than we had for the rest of the week, and each one we were able to find a reason and a desire that they wished to change. Our experience these past 3 days is like the experience of Alma that he had in his missionary work, in Alma 26:12 Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boastof my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever. The Lord helped us with our faith, because the only way to learn the greatest lessons in life are through the trials of faith that we are so blessed to have, because each trial that we have is a miracle that we are preparing to recieve. This afternoon we will be so blessed to have the baptism of Eloy, who has prepared so humbly for this opportunity. Ill be sending pictures next week in my email.

Splits with Elder Thompson

Part of our Area