It Shall Be Given - May 22, 2017

Hello Everyone, Well this week was a little rough for us yet with a lot of hope for the next weeks to come. So as I wrote last week we were hoping for the baptisms of Juan and Gisela this past weekend. Unfortunatly both of them were unprepared and were unable to be baptized this past week. It was hard for us to see, but the blessing of it all was seeing how hard it was for THEM to not be able to get baptized. It was a tender mercy, that although many may say that they failed in their preparation, they have gained huge success and blessing in it, because now they will be able to fully experience the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the light and joy that comes when all of their sins are gone and they are able to say that they have begun a new life. We are so excited for them to be able to recieve these blessings. Juan actually told the Elder that did his interview to come back in a week to interview him again and he told him that he would be ready as ever to be baptized. So this week, we know that Juan will be able to experience those blessings in his life. Apart from those two who we were able to have an interesting week. On Tuesday Elder Henrie came to San Blas to do splits with me and Elder Fuentes went to Salina Cruz. We worked hard and the greatest part of it was being able to find Ivette at the end of the split. Ivette is a lady who has 3 kids. The first week that I got here she was set to get baptized but she aparently was trying to do it secretly because her husband was against it. Anyways he found out about it and got really mad at her for trying to get baptized here and told her to not even think about seeing us again. After that we havent seen her. But we found her the other night and she told us that now her husband was encouraging her to go to church because he wanted his sons to learn the gospel principles. We taught her and she told us that she wanted to get baptized in June, as long as we talked to her husband and asked if it was going to be alright. We were so excited and we are hoping to see her progress here soon. Another great blessing that happened is that we found a less active here named Rogelio. He came to church by himself last week and we met him. Along with him he brought a friend that was interested. We taught them on Wednesday and his friends name is Eliseo. He is about 40 years old and has been in drugs and alcohol his whole life. He told us that he wanted to change and so we taught him the principles of repentance and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a blessing that was literally given to us. On Saturday we continued to build the house for the hermana that her house fell down. This time we had to carry 110 pound bags of cement up the hill and then we had to mix it with shovels on the ground. They dont have cement mixers here, it is all by hand. Trust me that was some hard work and I am still in shock at how easy they make it look. This week a scripture has been running through my head, a principle that Elder Bednar taught us in January. He shared a scripture with us that is in Alma 26:22 22 Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance. He told us that the theme here and the key word here is "given" if we do all that we can in the end it is the Lord who will give unto us. Right now we are doing all that we can to bring these souls unto Christ, we as missionaries are repenting, exercizing faith, and doing all that we can, yet we are also learing the same principle of hope and patience. We know that it will be given, we dont know how much, or when, but what we need and what the Lord needs, will always be the best and that is what will be given. We cannot control everything on faith alone, but on our hope and patience and that is what we have learned. Although Juan and Gisela and many other investigators are amazing and ready to learn and progress, it is the Lord that decides when he is ready to give these blessings unto them. I know that he gives unto us when we need it and it is for our happiness. The work continues here in San Blas, and it is directed always by the Lord.