What a week this was!! We spent the whole week looking for new investigators! This was one of the most traditional weeks, because we didn't have anything special or any meetings to worry about. We just worked worked and worked! Every day we wake up at 6:30am, do exercise, eat breakfast, plan for the day, study personally, and then we leave at 10am. As we leave at 10am we have 11 hours to work hard and also find time in the day to have our companionship study, language study, and time to train my companion. This week we truly worked hard. I have been in Calkini for about 7 months in total and I guess you could say I know a ton of people. We are trying to find the best way to get to know more people and find new investigators. Something we are doing is using the list of members which are about 574 people, and of that many people only about 70 are active so there is lot of work to do. If we look for the less actives, we can almost always find more people to teach. This week was kind of frustrating because all the people we were looking for either don't live in their house anymore, don't want anything with the church, or simply don't have anyone in their family who isn't a member. But we did have a lot of success finding new investigators and it is a process in the mission. I guess I wish we could just baptize and be in the baptismal font all day, but that isn't how life works. We must work as hard as we can! At the end of the week we were kinda bummed because literally 20 people committed to going to church and no one went. but I was talking with my companion if we could have done something more to help them go to church, but simply when it is all said and done, we cant change the free agency of someone.
This week I really had a great time with my companion. As I learn more about him I love him more every single day which is always great. Some super funny things happened to him this week. We were teaching a lesson and in the most spiritual moment, his chair broke and he fell on his butt, (hahahah) it made everyone laugh so hard but it was just one of those funny moments that makes the mission fun. Also this morning when we were walking back from washing our clothes, his flip flop broke so the whole time walking home which was like 2 miles away, he had to walk with his broken flip flop. It makes me happy to see him laugh and be smiling!! Makes the mission super fun.
 |
| Dinner making |
 |
| Elder Alvizures |
On Thursday we spent the whole day looking for new investigators and something I have learned in my mission is that in order to find the person who really is willing to accept the gospel, we must speak with everyone who isn't willing to accept it. It is the way of showing to the Lord that we are willing to give it all. Walking home that night, we were bummed because no one wanted to accept the gospel and I was explaining this concept to my companion and literally out of nowhere a guy in his mototaxi goes "get in! I will take you guys home!" So we started talking to him and turns out he wanted to hear our message and we went with him Saturday and he totally was there and is now a new investigator! I think it was just amazing for my companion to see how the Lord blesses us for our efforts! I loved it.
Sometimes in the mission we plan a day and it goes completely differently than how we plan. On Saturday we left at 10am and had some plans but had to change everything, and the sister who was going to give us lunch that day called and said "come eat at 3 instead of at 2" and honestly, it kinda bugged me because we had an appointment at 3 and our plans were going to be screwed up but I decided to stop murmuring and we went to our appointment at 3 a little early and turns out it was perfect because that person was going to have to leave at 3 :) So I was humbled to see how more than anything, the Lord has His plans. We can do what we want to do, or we can do something better.
 |
| Hammock Making |
So like I said, this week none of our investigators went to church. I was thinking a lot about this "Faith is powerful, and often it does result in miracles. But no matter how much faith we have, there are two things faith cannot do. For one, it cannot violate another person’s agency." A lot of times as missionaries we think that just by having faith and doing all we can, everyone will be baptized. But this week we did all we could and no one went to church. But I know that faith can not change or force someone into doing something. Our faith only depends on US. So I just want to invite each and everyone of you to know that no matter what is going on in your life, it isn't because faith doesn't work, it is simply that we must have the faith to be happy with whatever happens in life and trust in the Lord. This week we really gave it our all and the training with my companion is going really well. I hope you guys have a great week!
Elder Plowman
No comments:
Post a Comment