Bueno!!
Well, the holidays are finally over, and life is starting to get back on the same track (not that we were celebrating necessarily...but we can visit people like normal again - they're not all in Mexico). It's been fun, because I was sick all last week and then Elder Johnson joined me over the New Year's weekend. He got it a little worse though, so we had to stay in for New Year's Eve and the entire New Year's Day. President Howes told me not to work him so hard... But no, the weekend was good and we got some sweet study time while we stayed inside. We're both reading the New Testament and it's cool to pick up new insights all the time.
We did have a couple sweet experiences though! We went over last week to teach one of our investigator's, Oscar, and found his brother there. We talked to him for quite a while, and he was giving us his view on religion and everything. It was actually super cool, because he's really thoroughly studied the Bible and just about everything he said was exactly what we believe in! It literally makes it SO much easier to teach people when they've read the Bible. Everyone says they believe it, but absolutely nobody reads it. Anyway, he said he had read the Bible once and didn't get much out of it. Then he read it again after praying to have the spirit of understanding, and he says it was all clear and he saw all these things in the Catholic Church that did not fit with it. We told him that's exactly what he needs to do with the Book of Mormon - read it and pray to have that Spirit with him so he can know. These kind of things definitely strengthen my testimony - that's for sure!
Earlier that day, we had been out tracting, with nobody answering the door. We tracted into another ward's mission leader and got a referral from his wife, who said they would probably say no. We walked by the house, and found the dad outside with the kids. We asked him how he was doing and the first thing he said was,"Come on inside. Let's pray." We were way surprised but hey, that's perfectly fine. So we went in and ended up giving him a blessing, because he needed his shoulder to be healed to finish his training in the Police Academy. He was a way cool guy, and totally open to us coming over and teaching his whole family!! That was pretty unexpected and it was just especially cool because we didn't even say anything! He just invited us in to teach him!
We're still really struggling with getting people to church, but we're finding a lot of new people still and have a lot of people to teach. I got to talk about it a lot with President Howes, who came down Monday for interviews. He said sometimes you have to change in pace a little bit, and go according to your investigators. My companion and I are both A-type personalities that just like to get things done and work hard, but that's not the case with our investigators. We have to make sure they know we're here for them to teach them at their speed. But he gave me a lot of confidence and boosted me up a little bit. It can be frustrating not to see success at the moment, but I do know that we are learning a lot and setting the foundation for a lot of people to come to Christ and join His true restored Church.
We also had some luck finding people off of just OYM's on the street again! We taught Humberto, this stud 40-ish year old guy, who talked about how he went to his church, but didn't feel in his heart like it was what he needed. He felt like something was missing in his life. We gave him a Book of Mormon, promised blessings, and assured him he would find what he needed through reading and going to Church - having that true intent to know. Sadly, his wife is incredibly opposed to us, but we gave him everything he needs to find his answer.
So yeah, missionary work is going good - we're teaching a whole lot of people and just trying to get them to act and go to Church! But it's all a work of progress and we're learning a ton! That and we're wearing pretty thick coats and gloves when we're biking now, because Yuma's kind of made us pansies...
But yeah life is good! Living the dream!
Love y'all! ~ Elder Carlson
Well shoot, I've got to get going...we've got lots to do. Love hearing from everyone! Tell everyone, I say hi!
And yeah, I got christmas cards from a whole lot of cousins and aunts and uncles and friends. Wish I could write them all back and say thanks, but there's just not enough time! I do appreciate it though!
No comments:
Post a Comment